📱 Ebooks and EPUB

EPUB and print PDF are two different books

A print PDF is frozen — you decide every line break and every margin. An EPUB reflows around whatever the reader chose. Treating one as a version of the other is where most ebook problems start.

Ebook cover size, and why it is not your print front

An ebook cover is one flat image at 1600 × 2560 pixels — a taller, narrower shape than most print trims. Cropping a print front to fit moves your title, and here is how to do that without losing type.

What makes an EPUB pass validation

EPUB is a specification, and stores run automated checks against it. Here is what those checks reject, why opening the file on your laptop proves nothing, and the one habit that makes validation a side effect.

Accessible ebooks, and why they are now everyone's problem

Accessibility used to be a virtue in ebooks and is turning into a requirement. What an accessible EPUB actually is in author terms, what it rules out, and why a well-structured book is most of the way there.

Kindle, EPUB and the format alphabet

Stores ask for a file and authors panic about extensions. Almost all of them want an EPUB, Amazon included. Keep one valid EPUB as your master and let each store do its own conversion.

Fixed layout: when the page is the design

Nearly every book should reflow around the reader's chosen type size. A few cannot, because the page itself carries the meaning. Here is which books those are, what fixed layout costs you, and the rule that decides it.

Links in an ebook, and where they should point

An ebook is the only edition where a reader can act the second they decide to. Most authors link the contents page and nothing else. What to link, what to leave alone, and how to word it.

Turning a finished print book into an ebook

Almost everyone starts by converting the print PDF, and almost everyone regrets it. The PDF is the wrong source. The manuscript the print book was set from is the right one, and here is what still has to change.

Why your ebook is enormous, and what to do

File size is invisible until it takes money out of every sale or a reader gives up on a download. It is almost always images, it is almost always fixable, and the arithmetic is not close.

Novellas, serials and short books

Short work is cheap as an ebook and awkward in print, because a short book is a thin book and a thin book has almost no spine. Here is the arithmetic, the fixes, and what to tell readers.

Reflowable text, and the things that break it

An ebook has no pages. The reader chooses the type, the size and the margins, and the device decides where lines fall — so every layout decision you make in print terms is one the reader overrules.

Page numbers in an ebook, and why there are none

Every print author asks where the page numbers went. They were never in the file. Here is what a device shows instead, what that breaks in your book, and how to write cross-references that survive it.

DRM, watermarking, and how much piracy to worry about

DRM is usually a checkbox you cannot undo, and it stops casual copying rather than determined copying. What it costs the readers who paid you, what watermarking does instead, and how much piracy deserves your attention.

How your ebook actually looks on other people's devices

One file, a dozen renderings. E-ink readers, phones, tablets and desktop apps all draw your book differently, and the reader's own settings move it further. Here is what to check, in what order, and how.

The sample, and what it is selling

Every store hands browsing readers a free slice of your book, taken from the front. Most authors never look at what that slice contains, and front matter quietly eats the part that was supposed to sell the thing.

Updating an ebook after it is published

A typo found in week two is fixable, which is the one genuine advantage digital has over print. How a re-upload works, what counts as a correction rather than a new edition, and the discipline that stops your fix from being undone.

Fonts in an ebook, and why yours may not be used

In print you choose the typeface; that is final. In an ebook the reader chooses, and the device may override you both. What embedding a font can and cannot do, when it earns its place, and what the license says.

When a store rejects your ebook

A rejection message is written for a queue, not for you, so the reason it names is a category rather than a diagnosis. Here is what each category usually means and the order to work through them.

Why a PDF is not an ebook

A PDF is a picture of pages at a fixed size. It cannot reflow, the reader cannot choose the type size, and most stores will not sell it as an ebook. Here is what to make instead.

Illustrated ebooks for children

The hardest ebook to make well, and the one authors most often start in the wrong format. One question decides it — whether the words sit inside the art or beside it — and the rest follows from the answer.

Tables, code and technical content in an ebook

Reflow punishes anything whose meaning lives in its arrangement on the page. Tables, code listings and mathematics all fight the format, and the winning move is usually to restructure the content rather than to fight back.

Converting the ebook yourself, or paying someone

We sell a tool that converts books, so the only useful thing this page can do is tell you when not to use one. The kinds of book that convert themselves, the kinds that genuinely need a person, and the question that settles it.

Navigation and reading order in an ebook

Three separate things decide whether a reader can move around your book, and authors treat them as one. What the contents page, the navigation document and the reading order each do, and what it feels like when they disagree.

Ebook file formats, plainly

EPUB is the open standard and, for most authors, the only ebook file you will ever make. Here is what the other abbreviations are, sorted by the job each one does and who is meant to produce it.

What happens to your file after you upload it

Between pressing upload and seeing your book on sale, a store runs your file through several stages. Knowing the shape of them explains most of the surprises, including why a file that opens fine can still be rejected.

Indexes and cross-references in an ebook

A print index is a list of page numbers, and an ebook has no pages. The three honest options, which kind of book needs which, and why this is decided before the index is built rather than after.

Bundling your ebooks into a set

A digital set costs nothing to manufacture and is one of the most reliable ways a finished series earns again. The production side: two-level navigation, front matter that is not repeated five times, and a cover that works small.

What a store actually shows a browsing reader

You fill in a dozen fields and assume a reader sees them. Most of them are never shown. Here is what survives into a search grid and a product page, in what order, and what gets cut.

Poetry in an ebook

Reflow rewraps lines, and in poetry the lines are the content. What a default conversion does to a poem, what a correct one does instead, and the one test that tells you whether it worked.

The metadata inside your ebook file

Every ebook carries two sets of metadata: the one you type into the store's form, and the one stored inside the EPUB itself. Authors only ever see the first, and the second is the one that travels with the file.