How to Format an eBook
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About this ebook
Beautiful eBook formatting is not expensive; in fact, it's more reasonable than you think. For years, I paid handsomely for someone to format my eBooks, not to mention I had to wait a week or two to get it done; now, I do it myself. I save money and I get it done in one night.
Aren't your readers worth more than a plain-vanilla eBook thrown together by an automated conversion system?
Don't they deserve the best?
Giacomo Giammatteo
Giacomo Giammatteo lives in Texas, where he and his wife run an animal sanctuary and take care of 41 loving rescues. By day, he works as a headhunter in the medical device industry, and at night, he writes.
Read more from Giacomo Giammatteo
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How to Format an eBook - Giacomo Giammatteo
How to Format an eBook
Vellum screenshotYou've spent who knows how long writing your masterpiece. Don't ruin it all by giving your readers a bad experience with poorly
formatted
work
.
But good formatters are difficult
to
find
.
Tell me about it. My first book cost me $300 for formatting just the eBook. The work was done well, but it took forever (or seemed like it) and the company was inflexible on timing. It took more than three weeks to format the book and, let me tell you, those three weeks seemed like three years. The company also charged heavily to fix mistakes.
Later, I found another formatter who did the work much less expensively (and faster), but I ended up with other problems. And most of the time, the problems weren’t his fault.
Sometimes timing was an issue. Because he was good and inexpensive, he was busy, so he often wouldn't have the time to format a manuscript when I was ready. And, as you all know, after spending so much time getting that far (to the formatting stage), you want it done
right
then
.
I would also forget things—like the ISBN or the cover image or the acknowledgments. When this happened, I would have to send the missing materials to him, and wait for him to add that material to the book. Even though it didn't cost me nearly as much money as before, the waiting time killed me. Sometimes, the guy didn’t even charge me for the service, but I still had
to
wait
.
Then I found Vellum.
What is Vellum?
Vellum is the reason I'm writing this book. Because once I got accustomed to using it, there was no going back. Vellum makes it so easy to professionally format your book that I'm amazed it has taken somebody as long as it did to come up with such an app. Don’t get me wrong, there have been many contenders for the app, but Vellum takes
the
cake
.
With regard to cost, it's a bargain. And timewise, it's more of a bargain. I can format a book (start to finish) in one night, after dinner, and still have time to watch a show on TV—if I can find one worth watching. If I can’t, I can format a second book. When I'm finished, I'll have files for Kindle, Apple, Nook, Google, and Kobo. I'll have saved almost a hundred bucks, and most importantly, I'll have saved a minimum of a week of waiting.
An author friend of mine first told me about Vellum. I was skeptical at first. I'd tried other so-called easy-to-use
apps, but they were not so easy
to
use
.
Nonetheless, I was growing frustrated with waiting on eBook production, so I gave it
a
try
.
Cost
Let's get this part out of the way first. Vellum has several options for purchase.
The cost for producing one book
is
$
29
.
The cost for ten
is
$
99
The cost for unlimited books
is
$
199
The $199 seems like a lot—until you do the math. Let's look
at
it
.
Let's assume for a minute that formatting an eBook costs about $100. Some of you may get it done for less and some more, but $100 is a reasonable amount for a professionally
formatted
book
.
Based on that number, the cost for doing one book would save you
about
$
70
.
Ten books would cost you $9.99 each (based on the $99 plan), so if you did all ten using Vellum, it would save
you
$
900
.
From that point on, the savings only get greater. I've got about sixteen books now. If I had used Vellum for all of them (based on $100 per book for normal formatting) and using the unlimited
program for accounting, I