eBook Conversion FAQ

How does your service work?

Our ebook conversion page provides a full description of our service – what we need from you to get started, our pricing mechanism, the steps we take to convert your book, exactly what you receive back and a selection of examples and customer testimonials.

What is an ebook?

eBooks are electronic books specifically created for reading on hand-held devices. Some of these devices have become extremely popular, like the Apple iPad and the Amazon Kindle and there is a hot debate as to whether books of the future will be read as ebooks or printed books. For a book to achieve its full potential today it should be made available both in printed and ebook formats.

How is an ebook different from a book?

Unlike a book an ebook does not have pages; it is essentially your chapters displayed as web pages where the text is reflowable and the book has full electronic navigation. As a result an ebook can look quite different on a range of devices depending on the screen and font settings the reader has chosen.

Is my book suited to ebook conversion?

Almost any book can be converted to ebook format if it is properly typeset. More complex texts may also require adaptation of the printed layout in order to provide the best ebook reading experience. For example, a book with multiple columns will need to be adapted to a single column layout, pull-quotes or sidebars would need to be moved in line with the text and images with text flowing around them may require adaptation for some ebook devices. A great looking ebook design can usually be achieved if it is planned carefully upfront and we have successfully created ebooks from complex technical texts, illustrated children’s books, religious texts and poetry.

What ebook formats are available?

There have been many formats since ebooks were first introduced including .lit, .azw, .tr2, .tr3, .opf, .aeh, .pdb ... the list goes on, but there are now only two worthy of note – epub and mobi. epub is supported by the Apple iPad, Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble Nook and Adobe Digital Editions. The Amazon Kindle is unique in having its own proprietary format called mobi which is a simplistic version of the epub standard. To make your book available to the widest market we would recommend converting to both epub and mobi formats.

How is an ebook structured?

A printed book will have a series of clearly defined elements – a front cover, half title page, title page, copyright page, preface, table of contents, introduction, the chapters, the index and the back cover. This structure will be slightly different for an ebook.

Book Covers – The front cover of your book will be placed as a high resolution elastic cover image to fill the screen of the device it is viewed on. The back cover on the other hand is typically removed as you can’t turn an ebook over to read the back quite like you can in a bookstore! Instead we will typically include the back cover text in the book’s metadata.

About the Author – If this section is included we will usually place it towards the front of the book.

Half Title – This is typically removed in order to avoid the reader flicking through too many empty pages at the front of your ebook before reaching the first page of text.

Title Page – This will be included on its own page just like your printed book.

Table of Contents – One of the beauties of ebooks is the navigation capabilities. All modern ereader devices provide full navigation – you can pull up a table of contents from anywhere in the book, you can go straight to a specific location in the book and, if that’s not quite right, go straight back again. So unless your table of contents has some other unique features, we will exchange it for ebook device navigation.

Copyright Page – Wherever possible we will display this in a smaller font to try to keep it all on a single screen.

Index – An ebook does not have pages. If an index is short we will normally remove it in order to allow readers to use the device search facilities instead. In cases where the index is very detailed we may suggest converting the printed index to an ebook index for an additional cost.

What is ebook metadata?

eBooks contain a number of internal tags which are read by online bookstore systems to provide information about your book to potential customers. These tags include the title, author, isbn, language and some descriptive text which can be displayed as a summary of the book. In an online bookstore you’ll see a small image of the book cover along with these details and the book summary which helps the customer choose whether the book is for them or not. We will usually use the book summary from the back cover.

How are images inserted into my ebook?

All images are captured from your original source material (usually a pdf document) and inserted into the ebook at a resolution to ensure good quality whilst not increasing the size of the ebook file unnecessarily. Most images will be displayed using the full width of the screen (or around 95% of it). Since the majority of ereaders screens are small – the Kindle screen is only 5" for example – it makes sense to fill the screen with most images. If the original image is small like a logo then we may display it correspondingly smaller. Whilst text wrap around an image can look great in an epub this is not supported by Kindle where images must be placed in a paragraph of their own.

How are tables placed into my ebook?

Tables and other complex text items will be displayed as images. Since most devices will support reasonably high resolutions, you can hardly tell the difference between text as image and normal text. Although some devices do provide support for tables, not all do and it can get very complicated if the page size or font size changes as you can’t always guarantee that your table will be properly displayed. In addition, tables can often contain quite small text; if it is displayed as an image on an iPad then the image can be double-tapped and displayed full screen making it much easier to read all the detail.

What fonts are used in my ebook?

Originally ebooks were all just in plain text. It has now become increasingly popular to use embedded fonts for headings in an ebook to add some style and individuality. Most fonts are not licensed for inclusion in ebooks, but we have a range of fonts that are free for ebook distribution. We will typically choose one of these to match the styling of your printed book as closely as possible.

How does an ebook index work?

There are mixed schools of thought for whether ebooks should have indexes or not. As long as your ebook is properly converted then a proper ereader will display a fully navigable table of contents as well as providing search tools for individual terms. In many cases this means a full index is not really necessary.

However, if your print book is worth detailed indexing there is an argument that index linking in the ebook is even more valuable. Using best practice we take the index from the printed book and convert each index entry to a hyperlink. Where an index may point to p67 which identifies maybe around 250 words, our index will point to a bookmark covering the same 250 words. We will therefore fully convert your index, mapping all the links so each of the terms can be located just as accurately as they would be with a printed index.

How can I review my epub or mobi file?

You will need specific software to open an epub or mobi file as there is nothing supplied as standard with Microsoft Windows. An epub can be synchronised with an iPad via iTunes and a mobi can be copied directly to the Kindle Documents folder for viewing on your Kindle reader.

Alternatively there are a number of free software offerings including Adobe Digital Editions and Kindle for PC for reading eBooks on a PC. However do be aware that this will never provide quite the same experience as a dedicated ereader.

Will my book look the same on every device?

An ebook is made up of html code and a css file which defines the styles. Each device has its own way of interpreting the styles and conforms to the standards to varying degrees. In addition the epub and mobi formats have some fundamental differences.

Fonts – The Kindle does not support embedded fonts, but does provide both bolding and italics of its standard font, although this is considerably limited compared to an epub device.

Image Placement – Most epub devices will support image float so that an image can be placed with text wrapped around it. In contrast, there is no float support on a Kindle so images each need to be placed in a paragraph on their own.

Margin Support – Paragraphs in epubs can have margin applied to both left and right which is well suited to displaying quotations. However the Kindle will only allow a left hand margin. Where appropriate we can style quotations or sidebar quotes in a dark gray color so they stand apart from the rest of the text.

We will always use best practice to optimise your ebook for the best reading experience on the largest number of devices.

What should I know about ADE?

Adobe Digital Editions is a PC based epub viewer. It enables you to have a reasonable view of your ebook if you don’t actually own an ereader device. Although it has reasonable compliance with the standards, there are a few things to be aware of. It has no native left and right margins so often text will go right up against the edge which looks rather odd. We add a very small margin just to alleviate this slightly but it will still look quite different from a typical ereader. ADE also overlays small page numbers automatically in the right hand margins of your pages. This doesn’t look great and is unique to ADE as page numbers are not displayed like this on any other device. But the biggest difference is simply that in viewing on a large PC screen with relatively low resolution (72dpi) your book will feel quite different in ADE to reading it on a small format high resolution device.

What is your changes policy?

Once your ebook has been converted, it is sent to you for review. Should you find any errors at this stage they will fall into one of three categories: our errors, your errors and styling alterations.

Please note: Change requests must be submitted within one month.

Our Errors – Our experts convert and style the majority of texts without issue. However, on occasion, due to the nature of the source file it is possible for textual errors to occur. These can include paragraphs or words splitting in the wrong place or a particular combination of letters (ligature) converting incorrectly. Please check your text carefully before payment. Should you find any errors, simply collect them together in a single email and we will happily make them free of charge. If you spot a recurring error in your document you only need to note it once. We will then check for any repeated occurrences of the error throughout the entire files.

Your Errors – If you find you have made a few typos in your book files and need them amended then this is typically not a problem. If however you wish to make a significant number of changes to a book we have already converted then there will be an additional charge for this work. The time and price for this can be kept to a minimum if we send you a file to make your changes in. We then compare the updated document to your ebook file and make any necessary edits. Finally we will regenerate the navigation, run a compliance check and package the final files to return your new ebook. Our minimum changes fee is $48 USD.

Styling Alterations – It is important to understand the general limitations of the eBook format upfront. An ebook can never look exactly like your printed text and there are often compromises that need to be made. When we examine your ebook to issue a quotation we will make clear any major design changes required for your eBook upfront. Once you have accepted our quotation we will style the book as agreed. However, if upon seeing your ebook you decide you would prefer alternative styling or layout then let us know as we can often make styling changes for a reasonable fee.

How does payment work?

Thanks to PayPal customers are able to make payments with any debit card, credit card or their PayPal account. These can be made in any currency, safely and securely without us ever needing to receive any of your details. When we return your document for review we will include a Pay Now link. Once you’re happy with your job, simply click the link and follow the instructions.

What about Digital Rights Management?

DRM places restrictions on the copying, printing and sharing of ebooks. When enforced these ebooks can only be read in specific software on certain devices. There are currently four main schemes provides by Adobe, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Amazon. There is an argument that DRM means higher sales because there will be fewer pirate copies floating around but in reality until DRM becomes properly standardised it is likely to remain unpopular with customers.

Our ebooks are delivered to you as DRM free. DRM may however be added by default or as an option by distribution platforms such as iBookstore or Kindlestore.

Can you prepare a preview of my book?

Some ebook stores now offer preview books, i.e. a two or three chapter excerpt of your book. We can prepare a preview of just your first couple of chapters for a fixed fee of $64 USD. The important bit here is that whilst removing the latter chapters from the preview we will maintain the full table of contents so that prospective readers can see what they’re missing!

Can you help me with ISBNs and distribution?

The current leading ebook retailers are: Amazon's Kindle Store, Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble and eBookMall. The registration for each retailer can however be rather daunting and with each retailer calculating royalties and fees differently, keeping tabs on your ebook sales can be a lot to manage.

If you are already set up as a publishing house then a great alternative to submitting your book directly to each retailer is to use a distributor like Ingram Digital. Ingram will not only distribute your book to all the big retailers listed above, they will additionally submit to a whole host of smaller retailers who in total can contribute to a large portion of ebook sales. They will then manage all the fee calculations and royalties for you.

We hope to establish a partnership with Ingram to offer this service to individual authors soon.