How to Create an eBook in 8 (Somewhat) Easy Steps
About 9 years ago I took the leap and starting writing and publishing my books. I love to write. To date, I’ve written 14 books with a 15th in the formatting stage. To make life easier, I decided to write down my process on how to create an ebook and thought I’d share.
In my travels, I’ve met many people who have wanted to write a book but didn’t know where to start or how to create the book and upload it to Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, and Barnes & Noble.
If you always wanted to publish a book, then I’m here to help you—in 8 (somewhat) easy steps.
Step 1:
Write the book. Yes, your first one will be difficult, but not impossible. Here’s my process:
Come up with an idea and sketch out a general overview: beginning, middle, and end. I figure out what I’m trying to accomplish with the book. Educate? Entertain? Solve a problem people have?
I then write three times a week at 5:30 a.m. I generally write 1,000 words in 40 - 60 minutes. Set a schedule, sit down, and write. Will it be hard in the beginning? Yes. Believe in yourself, write, and allow yourself the freedom to create.
Before you write a single word, I would recommend either using Scrivener (a robust writing tool) or Google docs.
Whatever tool you decide to write in, I highly recommend creating a separate file for each scene or section (if you’re writing non-fiction). And if you’re using Google, also create a Google sheet so that for each scene you can list out a brief one or two sentences on what happens, which characters are in it, and any notes for that scene.
If writing non-fiction, jot down the general premise of each section within a chapter along with any research (links or references).
Having such detailed notes helps you during the editing phase. A few years back, I wrote a novel in one large Word file and had to go through the entire book when I needed to re-write a few scenes. I still cringe when I think about how much time and energy it took me to rewrite that book. Learn from me and write up detailed notes. (Scrivener is a fantastic tool for writing out different scenes, tracking your references, notes—whatever you can think up.)
But if you’re looking for a free service, using Google docs works fine.
Step 2:
After the book has been spell-checked and edited, if you wrote the book in Google docs, download all the separate files into one Zip file. Select the files in Google Drive, right mouse click on them, and select “Download.” After about a minute, you’ll then be able to download the files as Word files. If you use Scrivener, you can export out the entire book into one Word doc. You could also export to a mobi or epub file for uploading to Amazon and other online retailers (using the epub file), but authors have reported some problems in using Scrivener to directly export a file to mobi because the formatting for the “Look inside” feature on Amazon is off.
Again, if you’re looking to create a book using Google docs, export out to Word and then you’ll format the book that way.
Step 3:
Unzip your book’s files that you downloaded from Google Drive and then merge them into one Microsoft Word file. To do that, open the first Word file, put your cursor after the last word in the opened file and then from within Word, click on “Insert” and then “Object” and choose “Text from file…” in the drop-down (see the screenshot below).
Be aware that you can only merge 50 Word files at a time. If you have more than fifty, simply repeat this process until you have all the files into one large Word file.
Step 4:
Now that you have one large Word file, you’re ready to take all of that text and prepare it to be converted into an HTML file that you’ll use to build your ebook file.
You’ll need to perform the following find and replaces throughout your book in Microsoft Word:
Change all italics to <i>^&</i>
To do that, open up “Find and Replace” in Word, in the “Find what:” box hold down the CTRL and I keys to select search for “italics” and then past in <i>^&</i> in the “Replace with” field. (See the screenshot down below for a clearer view of what to do.)
You’ll now need to do the same steps with left and right parentheses, left and right apostrophes, and any ellipsis or em-dashes.
Simply do a “find and replace” for the following:
Replace a “ to “
Replace ” change to ”
Replace ‘ with ‘ and replace ’ with ’
Replace -- with —
Replace ... with …
Replace any other special characters with the proper HTML entity
Example replace a copyright symbol with ©
What’s going on here? You’re replacing all the symbols with code so that you have a pristine file for when we use the Calibre tool that converts the HTML file to an ebook file.
Yes, you can pay to get your files converted into mobi and epub or you can use a tool like Vellum (that’s only available for Mac or a workaround by using a virtual Mac), but I like to get my hands dirty and learn how things work. You can pay to have the conversion work done for you, but understanding how to create a clean HTML file for conversion helps you learn some code. I prefer learning as it’s fun.
Next, you will need to download the jEdit tool.
Why? You’ll need to copy and paste the full text of your book into jEdit and then click on “Search” and then “Find” and will need to copy the following into the “Search for” field:
^(.+)$
And for the “replace with”, copy in:
<p>$1</p>
Make sure that the “Regular expressions” checkbox is selected and then click “Replace All.”
What did you just do? You told jEdit to put a paragraph tag (<p></p>) around each sentence within your book.
Step 5:
Once you have the completed HTML file, you’ll need to add the appropriate styling code throughout the document. You’ll need to use code to style the title, chapter headers, links, no indent at the beginning of a chapter, and a copyright line. To make the process easier for you, I created a basic HTML template file you can use.
Download a basic HTML template. (Right mouse click and select “Save as…”)
If using the template, copy in your book’s text, style it appropriately, and then I would highly recommend that you go through all the code to check for any issues. This will take you some time, but it’ll save you a lot of heartache if you proof at this stage.
Are the chapter headings all correct?
Is the right code set at the beginning of each chapter so that there isn’t an indent of the text?
Is the path of any image correct?
Are any URL links correct?
Are all the proper blank lines set throughout the document?
Are all parentheses and apostrophes correctly set to the right HTML entity code?
Example: An apostrophe’s HTML entity code is ’
Again, here is a list of some of the HTML entity codes.
Are all the special characters changed to the right HTML entity code?
Example: The copyright symbol’s HTML entity code is ©
If you’re looking for an in-depth book to help you delve more into all the details about ebook formatting, I recommend Guido Henkel’s Zen of eBook Formatting: A Step-by-step Guide To Format eBooks for Kindle and EPUB. For a few books, Henkel’s book is well worth it.
Step 6:
After you save your HTML file, we’ll need to take it and use a free tool to convert your file to mobi or epub.
Download the Calibre ebook management tool.
Open the Calibre tool to create the mobi and epub versions of the book. Load your HTML file:
Next click on the “Edit Metadata” button and then in the pop-up box fill in all the appropriate fields: Title, Title sort, Author, Author Sort, Series and Number Then load the cover, put in the publishing date and copy in the book’s description to the comments area.
When all this work is finished, click on the “Ok” button.
Step 7:
Next click on the “Convert books” button, select the output format that you’d like (I selected mobi and then repeat this step a second time to create the doc as an epub for Kobo and Barnes & Noble), and then click on the “Ok” button.
Depending on the length of the book, the conversion process will take some time (maybe 20-30 seconds). In the bottom right of the screen, you’ll see a “Jobs” area and a spinning circle. When that spinning ends, your file is ready (see the screenshot below).
After the conversion is completed, find the output folder (when you installed Calibre, you needed to select a download location, something such as C:\program\calibre\), and then be sure to test your file.
Step 8:
Your conversion is complete and now you need to test the file on a Kindle or a Kindle reader to ensure there are no issues. To send the file to a Kindle or a phone with the Kindle app on it, log into amazon.com/myk and click on the devices tab to find the email address for your device and then send an email to that address with the mobi file. After you receive the email on your Kindle device, open the document, and test the file.
Look for:
Are all images showing up correctly?
Are links all working?
All special characters showing up?
Spacing all correct?
Does the first word of a new chapter not have an indent in the first sentence?
All proper front and back matter set? (Sign up for a newsletter? Leave a review? Tease for the next book in the series?)
Next Steps:
Once the mobi file has been thoroughly tested and all errors have been fixed, move forward with uploading the book to Amazon.com/dtp.
To sell your book on other stores, sign up for those series, and upload your epub file. And if you’d like to sell a print version of your book, here are templated documents that Amazon provides for you to syle your book. Once the print version of your book is finished, you’ll then need to upload the book to Amazon to make it available for sale.
Summing Up
I hope you found this article helpful. Is there an easier way to create an ebook? Sure. You can spend money and have someone do the work for you or use paid tools to help make the conversion easier, but I would recommend learning the code. Understanding how something works opens doors to you and curiosity helps foster innovation and creativity. Learn, makes some mistakes, correct them, and have some fun. Best of all, when you’re done, you’ll have a book. You’ve now become your own publishing and can create endless products.
If you find this article helpful, but would like to learn more about my writing process, along with my marketing strategy (and what has and hasn’t worked), check out my How to Become a Successful Author While Working Full-time book or feel free to buy me a coffee. Thank you and good luck!
Please note that there are affiliate hyperlinks used on this page and that I receive a small percentage of sales if you choose to purchase. I only recommend items that I have found helpful and useful, and am passing them on to you to help. Thank you!