How to create an e-pub

[paullima]

I've published half a dozen books with Lulu--proint and PDFs. I've quickly and easily converted many of them to Kindles and published then through Amazon. Now I'd like to convert some of them to ePub books. I downloaded Calibre, converted one of my book Word files into an HTML file and used Caliber to convert into an ePub book. However, Lulu rejected the book. I ran the recommended validation, which said there were many errors. I downloaded Sigil, as suggested by Lulu, and can't make heads or tails of it. ... Is there a step by step, relative easy to follow 'how to create an epub' guideline online? I can create Word files, I can create HTML files. I have built my own website using HTML. And I have created Kindle books... I seemed to by stymied by ePub.

Paul Lima

[barondzines]

Paullima I ran into the same problem when formatting mine, what I did was to Open to instances of Sigil 1 blank and one with the book.

Copy and past the old book into the new instance of Sigil and the break it down and put all the new things together in the new instance, and then whend you go to check it there will be no erros.

If you are having a huge problem withe Sigil I can write you a step by step.

Baron

[Ken Anderson]

Calibre and Sigil are fine but do tend to create their own problems.

It's better to get a good authoring tool such Oxygen XML Author.
The you can examine the individual XHTML files and edit those.

The validators will show you the basic errors that need correcting but then you really need to study what an EPUB file should contain.

[paullima]

Quick question: What do you open in Sigil? Do you open the ePub book you created in Caliber or do you open the HTML file you created in Word?

[paullima]

> then you really need to study what an EPUB file should contain.

I have conducted a number of searches on Google and reach, for the most part, poorly written articles or obscure articles or articles that presume you have a certain level of knowledge that you don't have. Is there a (relatively) simple and straightforward EPUB creation guideline out there? Any particular site you'd suggest?

I do have the Nvu HTML editor, but am not sure if it does Xhtml. Do you think I'd need Oxygen? If so, I'll download it, thanks.

[Ken Anderson]

No most of the simple guides are written by folks who have converted simple text content to an EPUB for general use.

Apple have their own guidelines but these are strictly confidential and available only to Apple Integrators. 

The best thing to read is the EPUB spec 

[paullima]

Will read the Spec, thanks. But all of this work is making Kindle look like a genious system. There is a lot to be said for simplicity vs the complexity of open source. But I will carry on and see what I can do!

[barondzines]

In Sigil you open the Epub you have already made and then copy and paste that and then break it into the chapter you need after that. It is a pain but the only way I found that is easy enough to get rid of all the errors without having to go into the code and edit it that way.

Baron

[Ken Anderson]

I find that Sigil does not show the full content of an EPUB. Consider the image below.
The panel on the left is what Sigil displays as the content and that on the right the content shown by oXygen, 

 

One of the most important files and that where erros often need to be corrected is the content.opf file. 

I don't see that in Sigil.

[paullima]

I found the 'specs' to be close to total greek to me. I guess I'm not the target audience. You'd think there'd be a simple here's the application you need and here's how to create a title page, contents, chanpter heading and text.

I have a feeling I'm not going to suceed with Sigil, but I'll take a second look at it.

Irony: the longer it takes me to create an epub, the longer it takes Lulu to generate revenue. I can create a Kindle in a couple of hours and I'm selling two to three Kindles per day. Amazon gets the revenue; Lulu does not.