Learn to lay out your own book in Adobe InDesign, a powerful desktop publishing app that gives you the finest of control over your design. Learn the intricacies of Calibre, a powerful piece of ebook software that’s more usable by programmers than authors. (And then try not to pull your hair out.) Upload a Word document to Kindle Direct Publishing or the affectionately known “meatgrinder” at Smashwords and hope for the best. Their experience is worth the expense, but not all writers or self-publishers can afford such costs, and particularly if they plan to release multiple titles. If you have the money, this is the way to go, especially if you’ve vetted the interior designer.What is Vellum software?Vellum is a book-formatting software. Grab this FREE 25-Page Non-Fiction Outline Template – the perfect tool for getting your book outlined and written fast, with less headaches. Yes, there’s a better way to DIY your self-published book!While I’d used Vellum to create ebooks before, the release of Vellum 2.0 introduced a game-changing feature: print formatting.Now, the time and expense I have to invest in creating stellar books are, at the very least, halved.Pro Writer Tip: If a Mac isn’t in your future, not to worry. Each one has its shortcomings, either in too much time wasted seeking design perfection or too much money spent waiting for a designer to finally finish the book.So I’m going to share a better option with you.Clicking on “Ebook Cover” at the top of the center area allows me to drag and drop the ebook’s cover into the book.When a user incorporates Word’s styles into their manuscript, such as always using the “Title” style in Word for each of the author’s chapter titles, Vellum is smart enough to know to import each of those chapters as separate chapters. With the book title selected, I can edit the book’s metadata. For this review, we’ll be looking at Sins of the Five Fathers , a posthumous mystery novel written by my uncle that I self-published with him.By clicking on Sins of the Five Fathers , I’m taken to the book creation screen:Clicking on any item in the left-hand sidebar reveals a new page to edit in the center area.
![]() ![]() ![]() As you can see below, ebook options include Kindle (.mobi), iBooks, Nook, Kobo, Google Play, and Generic EPUB.For print, Vellum offers a variety of popular trim sizes:They offer additional trim sizes for international books, mass market paperbacks and large print.The proof of any ebook formatting software is in, well, the proof. It can be overwhelming and time-consuming for most authors to attempt.In my opinion, this is where Vellum shines.By going to the top menu and selecting “File > Generate Books,” I can choose which file types and trim size I’d like to export to. By far, Scrivener is still my preferred word processor — this article was written in Scrivener — but its exporting capabilities are almost too powerful. Right-clicking within the text brings up a context-aware menu that allows you to add features like Subheads, Ornamental Breaks, Images, Alignment Blocks (for right-justified, left-justified or centered text) and more.Lastly, the most powerful aspect of Vellum is its exporting capabilities.I learned the intricacies (and sometimes maddening nuances) of exporting my first book via Scrivener. But, I believe the provided templates provide enough variation to satisfy any author seeking to create a traditionally formatted book.Adding text features is just as easy. The death cure pdf downloadAny changes could destroy the formatting, so I figured out this was consuming way to much time.* Write in Scrivener, which I love, but as mentioned above the learning curve of setting up a book (Kindle then Createspace) is time-consuming. I’ve used many processes the past 2 1/2 years to self-publish my books, including:* Word template then publish to Kindle & Createspace, then review, then go back and fix any issues, then rinse & repeat. I’ve been quite pleased with Vellum , and it’s now become an integral part of my publishing process.I’ve written three books and am finishing the writing & prep for five more to be released over the next five months. Compare this to the options I offered at the start of this post, and you can see why it’s worth considering!Of course, more features abound, but what I’ve shared in this brief review are the features I’ve used the most. How much does Vellum cost?It costs $199.99 to create unlimited ebooks or $249.99 to create unlimited ebooks and paperbacks.But it’s worth the cost, especially if you’re planning to write, format and publish multiple books over your writing career. I can adjust the manuscript on the fly, choose a variety of finished looks and publish to ebook and print in minutes.
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