In this video, I explain some of your formatting options for ebook and print books and then demo Vellum software. Yes, formatting really can be fun 🙂
Watch the video below or here on YouTube.
There are some free options for ebook formatting:
- Draft2Digital have a formatting tool
- Reedsy have a writing and formatting tool
- Amazon KDP have Kindle Create, a Kindle only formatting tool
You can also find a list of professional formatting options and people to help here.
My personal choice for ebook (and some print) formatting is Vellum. It's Mac only (sorry!) but it is absolutely brilliant and makes formatting fun! (I never thought I'd say that!)
In this video, I go through importing into Vellum from Word, different style options, cover and titles, image auto-resizing, various formatting options for fiction and non-fiction, hyperlinks and how to switch them out for the print version, making an ebook box set, and generating for Kindle, ePub and print-ready PDF.
You can check out Vellum through my affiliate link: https://www.thecreativepenn.com/vellum
Vellum is only available for the Mac – sorry! But if you're really keen, check out MacInCloud. Here's an article to help.
You can also check out an interview with Brad Andalman, one of the developers of Vellum here.
Happy formatting!
Wanting to thank you, Joanna, for your earlier article — the interview with Brad Andalman. I believe that was what had pointed me at Vellum and it helped me format my book in an attractive manner. Loved the different styles and — as a new author — it was helpful to have all the prompts for things I shouldn’t forget to include. Custom exporting for the various sales venues really was the icing on the cake.
I appreciate you sharing that recommendation!
Glad it was useful 🙂
Hi, does vellum works for a bedtime story with only images and only little text? Does amazon take that file to print it afterwards? I have my ebook ready for sale on kindle but I haven’t managed to work out a pdf document for them to print the book.
You can certainly try to use Vellum for that but you might also take a look at Kindle Kids Book Creator which might help – https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201562880
thank you for your reply.
I have used Kindle kids book creator for the ebook but I didn’t know I can use the same app to create a paperback document for amazon kdp for printing. is that correct?