How to Create an EPUB

My regular readers know that I participated in Nanowrimo, the National Novel Writing Month. During the month of November, I wrote a novel. I recently finished editing my first draft and I wanted to share it with some friends and family to get some feedback. While my novel is not War and Peace, it is quite a few pages, and it wouldn't be practical to print multiple copies. The good news is that all of the folks that I want to read my first draft have a tablet or e-reader, so I decided create an EPUB formatted book to send to them.

Fortunately creating an EPUB is quite easy for a Mac user. If you don't already own it, download Pages from the App Store. This fantastically full featured word processor is only $20. Even if you never intend to create an EPUB, Pages is definitely worth the price.

If your document wasn't originally created in Pages, open a new blank word processing document and copy and paste your book into it. You can also import documents from Microsoft Word or a generic RTF file. Converting your document to an EPUB is simple. Select File > Export > ePub. Complete the form, giving your book a title, author, and select a genre, and click next. Name the document and press export. It should only take a few seconds, and you will have created your first EPUB.

Following these steps creates a very basic EPUB. If you want a more professional document with chapters and a table of contents you need to do some formatting before you export. First, you need to create a paragraph style for your chapter headings. Click the paragraph styles button (the round button on the extreme left of the formatting bar with the ¶ symbol). Click + at the bottom of the paragraph pane to add a new style. Call it Chapter Title. Next, go systematically through your document and format your chapter titles by highlighting them then clicking the paragraph style drop down (next to the paragraph style button) and selecting Chapter Title. Finally, select Insert > Table of Contents. A pop up window will open. In the Paragraph Styles box, uncheck everything except Chapter Title. Save your document.

Now, when you export your document, it will be neatly formatted with chapters and a hyperlinked table of contents.

Your newly created EPUB can be opened on a Kobo, Sony eReader, or Nook. It can also be read on an iPad or Android tablet with e-reading software. If you use a Kindle, you will need to convert your EPUB to the MOBI. The easiest way to do this is using the free Calibre software. Complete instructions can be found HERE. Enjoy reading an sharing your ebooks.