You’ve written your book. You thought the hard part was over. And then you learned about PDFs, EPUBs, and MOBIs, with their “reflowable content”, “frontmatter”, and a bunch of other mumbo jumbo that makes your head hurt.
Not to worry. Let’s look at what these different formats mean and some easy tools that will help you create the perfect ebook for your readers.
First, the formats
Choosing your ebook format depends on two main things: 1) your reader’s preferred device and 2) if you want to bake in fancy ebook features like chapter navigation and text zoom.
To be clear, Gumroad supports any filetype for download. Once downloaded, your readers can open your file in the compatible device and application of their choice. But Gumroad also allows buyers to read certain filetypes in our mobile app, or right in their browser, without downloading at all.
Let’s take a brief look at the three common ebook formats, their features, and which of the main devices/apps support them.
Formatting a PDF is the simplest option for your ebook. They’re easy to create and easy to read on just about any application and device. A PDF document preserves your formatting exactly as you created it, which is especially good if you have lots of photos, graphics, or illustrations. However, depending on your layout, readers might have to zoom in if they’re using a small screen.
Supported by:
- Gumroad browser reading: Yes
- Gumroad Mobile App: Yes
- iBooks, Nook, Kobo: Yes
- Kindle: Yes
EPUB
The EPUB file format works on most e-readers (Kindle is the one notable exception). EPUBs have some cool features that enhance the reading experience. They allow you to create a table of contents and easily navigate between chapters. Readers can also change the font size and the content will automatically reformat (or “reflow”) to fit the size of their screen. EPUBs are great for text-based books, but because they don’t preserve your original formatting, they’re not ideal for highly visual, image-based content.
Supported by:
- Gumroad browser reading: Yes
- Gumroad Mobile App: No (coming soon)
- iBooks, Nook, Kobo: Yes
- Kindle: No
MOBI
Export your book as a MOBI file to make it easy for people to read on their Kindles. Like EPUBs, MOBIs also have features such as chapter navigation and the ability to change font sizes.
Supported by:
- Gumroad browser reading: No
- Gumroad mobile app: No
- iBooks, Nook, Kobo: No
- Kindle: Yes
To sum up, if you’re short on time, simply upload your book to Gumroad as a PDF. PDFs can be easily created from Word or Pages, and as you can see above, they’re widely supported.
However, a great advantage of Gumroad is that you’re not locked into a single platform—you can give your readers all three options and let them choose their preferred reading experience. For this reason we recommend exporting your book as a PDF, EPUB, and MOBI, and then uploading all three formats to your product.
Now, the tools
Since this can all sound daunting, we’ve compiled some of our favorite tools for formatting your ebook to visual perfection.
Started in 2006, Calibre is a free, open source ebook management system preferred by many authors and readers alike. It supports a long list of filetypes for converting ebooks using the correct configuration. The documentation is comprehensive, and there is an active online community to help you as you need. Calibre also has many additional features beyond conversion to manage and even read your ebooks, so it’s worth checking out.
A newer player, Pressbooks is strikingly simple to use and is the only web-based software on this list. It provides a number of great design templates to make sure your book looks great. It’s free to use with Pressbooks watermarks, but there are fees to remove the watermarks. If you’re feeling completely overwhelmed, they offer a full conversion service for $350+ per book. Just send them your file and they’ll format and export it for you! Definitely something to consider if you’re short on time.
Scrivener is a powerful tool that aims to be “your complete writing studio.” Scrivener not only exports your book in a variety of formats, it also helps you organize your research/ideas, and structure and edit your work. Scrivener is available for download for $45.
Another simple option is to create your book in Apple’s Pages, which has the ability to export as an EPUB as well as a PDF. However, you’ll still have to use a service like Calibre if you ultimately want a MOBI file as well.
Bonus:
Check out the collection of beautiful templates over at Book Design Templates. These designs allow you to quickly create a book right in Word that already has the prefect specifications for import to Calibre.
We hope this helped clear up some of the mystery around ebook formats and has empowered you to give your readers options. We guarantee that they’ll appreciate the ability to read your book wherever and however they like.