Self-publishing e-books

June 27, 2012 12:17 PM

I am considering self-publishing an e-book. What are some resources for creating the most professional version of an e-book? I'm talking about design, layout, distribution, etc. I'm looking for both tips and links to the best books/websites on the matter. I'm fortunate enough to have some money to spend, if that affects your answer.
posted by Bookhouse to media & arts (7 answers total)

The Self-Publishing subforum on AbsoluteWrite.com has loads of helpful advice and suggestions for resources. Good luck with your book!
posted by Sidhedevil at 12:32 PM on June 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Follow the #eprdctn tags on twitter. There is also a #eprdctn circle on google+

Formats are going to be a bigger concern than money. iBooks Author is great if you want to get it done quickly.

If you are at all a designer I would suggest you focus on learning the ePub spec.

I put a book of poems in the iBookstore. It took me days to design in HTML and CSS and I already had it done for the web.

I'll dig through my "ePub" folder and post some links to sites for you this evening.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:38 PM on June 27, 2012

A friend of mine, who is a writer, now uses Smashwords
posted by mbarryf at 12:55 PM on June 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

LaTex always produces beautiful books.
posted by Chekhovian at 1:09 PM on June 27, 2012

As a librarian who may be cataloging your book, please try to stick to the standards of what appears on a title page and the title page verso (the back of the title page). Many of the self-published books that we get stand out as very unprofessional because they lack these vital bits of information.

On the title page try to have the title, author name, place of publication and the publisher. On the verso, date of publication and copyright, isbn, and any copyright information.

Also, please don't get too fancy or long with your title. It's a bear to parse out something like, "Self-publishing, or writing random things on a page: a novel of how one librarian went insane and killed off CreateSpace, iUniverse, and other by Teleri025 and friends".
posted by teleri025 at 1:47 PM on June 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Down and dirty if you don't mind some coding but solid is Castro's EPUB Straight to the Point: Creating ebooks for the Apple iPad and other ereaders
posted by jadepearl at 4:57 PM on June 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Rudy Rucker has recently worked through this problem and described his process with typical candor and humor.
posted by cgc373 at 11:36 PM on June 27, 2012 [1 favorite]