In the article to follow, we take a look at the rising popularity of ebook creation software. eBooks have evolved from an electronic alternative to traditional printed books. Consequently, they are now highly popular throughout the world, no matter the nationality or origin of the reader.
Ebook Creation Software is a comprehensive tool that enables anyone to quickly and easily create their own interactive ebooks, both online and offline. This software comes with easy-to-use wizards and templates, which means you can get started right away.
An ebook creation software is a tool that assists with the creation of ebooks. It allows authors to create, publish and sell ebooks easily. There are variety of software available with most of them having similar functionalities. They are however different as they support different file formats and can be used on varied platforms
Ebook Creation Software is an all-in-one professional tool for making interactive eBooks and digital picture books in Windows. It helps you easily create your online digital photo album, PDF report, eCourse, interactive eLearning course or eLearning game by separating the .FLA files and the .PDF pages into two separated folders: one for the Flash content and another one for page content and images.
Let’s explore and find the best ebook creator from the list of best ebook creation tools:
The rise of ebooks has also given birth to new software and tools that make it extremely easy to create a full-fledged ebook.
Since there are many such ebook creators on the market, all claiming to be the best, we decided to go through each and every one of them and find out the best of the best.
Kitaboo
Kitaboo is an interactive eBook creator. It is a cloud-based digital publishing platform, where you can create and publish DRM protected content. DRM ensures that your content is secure from online theft and piracy.
You can either create an eBook from scratch using the Kitaboo authoring platform or you can use their conversion service to convert your digital manuscript into ePUB files.
Kitaboo lets you add interactive features such as videos, audio, images, read-aloud, etc to your eBook to make it more engaging for your readers. The content you create using this tool is device agnostic and is accessible on all major operating systems.
Epubee maker
This is a free eBook creation software. It is a Word add-in that will help you convert your word files into ePUB, Mobi, and PDF formats. Once you have installed the add-in in MS Word, you can easily convert word documents to EPUB/Mobi/PDF.
When your eBook is ready for distribution, you can transfer it to different reading devices such as Kindle, Nook, Kobo, etc. ePUBee Maker can be used as an eBook Editor or eBook Reader. You can import different file formats to read on MS Word. With the help of this tool, you can easily create an eBook from your word file.
Flipbuilder
This is another interactive eBook creator. Here’s more on how to create interactive ebooks.
The interesting part about this software is that it gives the flipping page effect when you turn to the next page in your eBook. This flip effect comes as an interesting change when compared to normal eBooks.
You can add multimedia elements to your eBook files. It allows you to convert PDFs into suitable eBook files for whichever eReader you want.
EBooks can be accessed from any system and platform. You would have to download this software on your Windows, iOS, or Android system before using it.
Blurb
Blurb provides you with eBook creation software for creating and publishing. You would first have to download their free desktop software package in order to start with book creation. It also gives you the option to upload a PDF and convert it into an eBook.
You need a minimum of 22 pages to create an eBook from a PDF. Once your eBook is ready, Blurb even helps you sell your eBook. They handle the logistics, shipping, and on-demand printing.
You can sell your eBook through the Blurb Bookstore, Amazon, Ingram, and Apple iBook store.
Pressbooks
Pressbooks is an easy-to-use online tool. You just need to sign up and can straight away start making your eBook. If you already have a manuscript ready, you can import the file and paste chapters into this eBook creation software. It allows you to add audio, video, and image files.
You can also select the look of your page from their list of display templates. After completion of the eBook, you can export it in PDF, ePUB, ePUB3, Mobi, XHTML formats. Once you have downloaded your files, you can submit them to eBook stores or use a third-party distributor to sell your newly created eBook.
FlipHTML5
Another flip book maker that lets you to create interactive eBooks. It’s an HTML5 digital publishing platform, where you can embed the content with hyperlinks, multimedia, images and animation.
It provides a free online hosting service, allowing you to publish your books online even if you do not have a website.
Your eBooks can be accessed on all devices and web browsers. FlipHTML5 is a free tool and can convert PDF, MS Office, OpenOffice and Images to HTML5, making your eBook more interactive. It also enables you to create a custom domain for your eBook.
Pressbooks
Pressbooks looks a lot like WordPress, but it’s run from an entirely different site. If you’re familiar with WordPress, then you shouldn’t have a hard time figuring out how everything works. You can add and edit chapters, change or add sections, and so on. Remember that Pressbooks is free to use, but to remove the watermark that will show on the e-book, you need to upgrade to a paid version (starts with a one-time payment of $19.99).
Beacon (WordPress plugin)
Beacon is a plugin for WordPress that turns your blog posts into e-books. You can choose which articles to include or filter them by category. The plugin converts blog posts into HTML5 or PDF format. Layout features are also included and you can design the ebook cover from within the Beacon dashboard. This plugin is free to use and requires a free account at beacon.by.
Google Docs
A simple way of writing and converting content into PDF online for free is by using Google Docs. Type in your content and have all the Google Fonts available for you to choose from all inside the Google Docs window.
It syncs with your Google Drive account, so you can work on it from any device as long as you’re online.
Zinepal
Similar to Papyrus but with a dated interface, Zinepal also allows you to turn blog posts into content for your e-book. You can also start from scratch. Just note that the free account will put a Zinepal link on the bottom of each page of your book. A Zinepal Pro account starts at $5 for a single e-book without the Zinepal branding and other added features like publishing to Scribd.
PublishXpress
PublishXpress is an online conversion tool that takes DJVU, DOCX, TXT HTML, RTF and PDF files and converts them into MOBI and EPUB. This is perfect if you already have your e-book ready and just want to turn it into both MOBI and EPUB so it can be available to other e-book readers. The service is free, but watch out for any imperfections in your converted text.
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is the best entry-level premium ebook creation software. In fact, you can use any number of open-source software with the same bells and whistles as MS Word to create your ebook. The greatest advantage is that most people know, use and trust Microsoft Word. The biggest limitation of this tool is that you’re limited to creating an ebook in PDF format.
However, this is not a deal-breaker, because quite a few online ebook distributors honor MS Word documents and will automatically format it for you. For instance, you can simply save your document as .doc or .docx and upload it to the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform. Then, voilé! KDP will spit back out a decent rendering of your MS Word document.
Pages
Hey, you Mac users out there! This option is the counterpart to Microsoft Word that comes automatically installed in most all iOS products. Unlike its competition in MS Word, Pages can format in its native format, epub and PDF. And, if you’re using MS Word, you can even save your document so it’s readable there too.
Draft2Digital
While most top 10 lists focus on premium ebook creation software, I like to give praise to companies who think outside the box. The ebook distribution platform, Draft2Digital (D2D), has stellar free formatting software for ebooks. All you need is your .doc or .docx manuscript and a little time to play with D2D’s dozens of ebook formatting features.
Much like Google Docs, you can use D2D for cloud storage. The only kicker is you can’t edit your manuscript in their formatter. But, where they lack this feature, D2D more than makes up for it in layout choices and formats. You can easily format your ebook in PDF, ePub and Mobi, not to mention, they’ll kick you a PDF formatted for a print edition.
Vellum
Quite a few successful authors swear by the premium Mac-exclusive ebook formatting software in Vellum. It has a robust set of features and formatting options making your ebook pop off the page and command a reader’s attention.
Vellum will export your manuscript in ePub and will automatically format your PDF for print books. You can download and use Vellum for free, but when you want to export to ebook, you’ll have to pay the premium. They have pay-per-ebook or lifetime license purchase options, so you can always take Vellum for a spin or buy it outright.
Free ebooks or virtual store?
You can use self-publishing to present your ebook in Kindle store, perhaps even try selling it for money. Free ebooks are a great incentive, but if you are an authority in your business or industry, maybe your ebook might be worth paying for.
An ebook is also a great way to ask customers to get in touch with you – as a way to receive an e-book they can subscribe to your newsletter, or leave you their name or cellphone number.
It’s easy to become an ebook creator. You just need to spend some time, put your back write chapter after chapter, then put it all together. In fact, if you are able to write a blog post, you will be able to probably just use an office word processor, like MS Word or Google Docs, to save your file as an ebook using the EPUB file format or as a PDF and then publish it online. You can easily find some free or Public Domain images for cover art and market your ebook using your blog, and directing the readers to your landing page.
But sometimes you might want to present your ebook in a more sophisticated fashion. Ebook design is not that hard once you understand the rules. The basic EPUB or MOBI (used for Amazon Kindle readers) file formats are essentially HTML, which means that they’re not much different from a blog post or a website. To create a more presentable, eye-catching PDF you could use your skills in working with Photoshop or InDesign… or at least some ebook templates. But you don’t have to overcharge the budget of your company when you want to create that exceptional ebook. There are some great free or low-cost tools available on the market that will help you write an ebook and publish it online.
Conclusion
A few years back, creating an ebook was a nearly impossible task for a regular person. But today, with the advent of ebook creation software, it doesn’t have to be. There are multiple applications available in the market that can help you create an ebook with ease.
Ebook creator software enables people to create a wide variety of electronic books in both audio and written formats. These types of programs have been around since the early 1990s and are very popular today. This is because this type of software creates an electronic version of your book rather than a hard copy. Electronic books can be downloaded directly from the Internet once the files are created. That makes them very convenient for those who purchase or want to download them.