EPUB stands for ‘electronic publication’ and it’s the accepted standard format for digital book publishing. If you want to make an ebook that can be read on a digital device, you’ll need it in this EPUB format.

You can convert virtually any text containing document to EPUB format, which is the preferred format for reading on many ebook readers, including the Barnes & Noble Nook, Android, and the Apple iOS iBooks platform that runs on iPhone and iPad (note that the Kindle currently favors .mobi format which Calibre can also publish to). Here are the exact steps to convert a file to EPUB.

How to Convert to EPUB

For the purpose of this conversion walkthrough, we are going to use a free application called Calibre and updated version of Apple iWork’s Pages. Calibre is open source (meaning free) and cross platform compatible with WIndows, Mac OS X, and Linux clients available to download and use and Apple iWork just selling $49 on Amazon. ( 40% cheaper than the Apple Store! )

Method 1: Calibre eBook Management Application

• Download Calibre (it’s free) for whatever OS you will use it on
• Open Calibre, make note of the “Calibre Library” folder it sets, and open the file you want to convert to EPUB format – the interface is a little unusual but look for the Book icon in the upper left toolbar with a + on it

• In this “Open Book” dialogue, you’ll want to select ‘All files’ to make it easy on yourself when finding your file to be converted to EPUB
• Now you will want to convert this open file to EPUB, click on the Book icon with the recycle arrows on it

• On this conversion screen, you can adjust the table of contents, metadata, author name, publisher, comments, and change the ebooks cover image. When you are finished making these changes, double check that the Output format is set to EPUB and then click the “OK” button to start the conversion

• Conversion is usually pretty quick and the newly converted EPUB book will be placed into the Calibre Library folder that you setup when you first opened the program. By default this is set to “~/Calibre Library/” in Mac OS X and “\My Documents\Calibre Library” in Windows.
• Locate this newly created EPUB file, which will be named something like “Name-of-book.epub” and you are finished

That’s all there is to it. If you have any intention on self publishing, or you just want to read a book on your iPad, iPhone, Nook, or Android, EPUB is the best possible format. EPUB is also the standard format you’ll download when you receive a digital book on the aforementioned devices, it is the accepted standard for publishers and conversion houses for digital book distribution and sales. Remember that the Amazon Kindle prefers MOBI but using the same process as above you can convert to Kindle formats easily.

Converting PDF, HTML, Word DOC, etc to EPUB

Calibre supports EPUB conversion from the following formats without any modification: CBZ, CBR, CBC, CHM, EPUB, FB2, HTML, LIT, LRF, MOBI, ODT, PDF, PRC**, PDB, PML, RB, RTF, TCR, TXT.

Word DOC to EPUB conversion

You’ll notice that the Word DOC format is missing from the above initial compatible format list, but this is not a problem. Just save the Word DOC file to an HTML or RTF file from within Word and you can then convert that RTF or HTML compatible file into EPUB.

Using PDF, TXT, and RTF to convert to EPUB

PDF files will convert fine but you may lose some images in the process if they are in the vector format. TXT does not maintain any styling so your EPUB will look remarkably bland if you use TXT as your source format, RTF retains better but still limited styling as well.

Converting HTML to EPUB is preferred

Note that HTML is a preferred source format because EPUB supports the use of CSS styling and inline images, this helps maintain styling consistency when creating and styling your ebook.

Method 2: iWork Pages

Thanks to a recent software update, you can also create an ePub with Pages if you already own the iWork office productivity suite from Apple. Here’s how:

Create an ePub on your Mac with iWork Pages

You can now create ePub ebook files directly within Apple software thanks to a recent iWork update to the Pages app. The iWork update brings Pages to version 4.0.4 and includes functionality to export documents as ePub format, to do so you will just use the Share menu and select “Export” with EPub now being a selectable output format.

You can get the iWork and Pages update through the Software Update control panel. This is highly recommended for Mac authors and content creators if you’re looking to ever publish something in the ePub format. ePub is the standard for the iBooks store on iTunes and the preferred ebook format for iPad, iPhone, and many other digital readers.

This is a great addition to Pages because before you would have to convert to epub using a third party tool, which works fine but ultimately it’s always better to be able to directly export to a format rather than convert.

Apple offers a sample document on its Website (ZIP file) which you can use as a template for creating ePubs; alternatively, you can import the styles from the sample into your own document. As it turns out, Pages uses paragraph styles to figure out what to include in the ePub’s table of contents; you can specify which styles to use by opening the Document Inspector, clicking on the TOC tab, and choosing any relevant styles.

Apple also provides an entire knowledge base document on using the ePub export capabilities of Pages, including when to use it versus exporting in the PDF format. The company notes that those documents created using Pages’s page layout templates can’t be exported into ePub, and that ePub files will often look quite different than the native Pages file.

If you don’t already own iWork, it’s a pretty decent office productivity package that rivals the Microsoft Office suite with a good word processor, spreadsheets, and presentation app. You can buy iWork ’09 on Amazon at $49 which is about 40% cheaper than the Apple Store.

How to publish an iBook to the Apple iBookstore

Apple and Amazon are rapidly changing the way books are consumed and read thanks to the iPhone & iPad and Kindle . The other effect of this is that it’s actually helping to ease the barriers to entry into the book publishing and sales market.

In the past an author would need to have an agent pitch books to publishers in the hopes it might get picked up, but not anymore. Now if you have a Mac and a word processor and a bit of patience, you can create your own book in the EPUB format and upload it directly to the iTunes iBookstore for sales.

OK well it’s not quite that simple (yet), but it’s not that difficult either. Just jump through a few hoops and you can get your book for sale on Apple’s online bookstore ready to be downloaded by anyone who owns an iPad or iPhone, here’s how:

Write and Publish a Book to the Apple iBook Store

First, some relatively simple requirements: you’ll need an Intel Mac running 10.5 or newer with adequate hard disk space and preferably a high speed internet connection.

1. Write the book (obvious) and get it into the iBooks compatible EPUB format (see above, it is easy to take a file and convert to EPUB format)
2. Get a unique ISBN number for each book title you plan to release. Cost is $25 per ISBN and you can fill out an ISBN application here
3. Get the following ready: a US tax ID (social security number or EIN), valid iTunes account with credit card on file
4. When all of the above is met, you can apply to be part of the iBookstore distribution network at Apple.com

Can anyone help me sell my book on Apple’s iBookstore?

Yes, there are several companies that will handle many of the complexities of selling on the iBookstore for you, but you’ll still need your book ready in the EPUB format. The best way to do this is to use an Apple approved iBookstore aggregator, Apple conveniently provides a list of approved aggregators for the iBookStore. Most of these charge an upfront fee and then handle all the distribution services for you, in many cases you’ll then receive 100% of the revenue of book sales after Apple takes their iTunes Store cut. Prices vary widely so be sure to get a few quotes before agreeing to a single aggregator.

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