How to Easily Write and Publish eBooks With Sigil

By | June 24, 2011 | Leave a Comment

ebook reader With the growing popularity of ebook readers like the Kindle and iPad, more and more people are reading on a screen rather than from printed books. And more and more authors are getting into the act. Why not you?

Maybe you’re a budding author who wants to self publish. Or maybe you’re a software developer who wants to distribute documentation in a slightly different way. You could be a blogger who wants to collect a bunch of their best posts into an ebook.

There are several ways to do that. You could fire up your favorite word processor, start typing, and then create a PDF file. Or you could go straight to a format that just about every electronic device can handle. The easiest way to do that is to write an publish using Sigil
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How to Layout a Book with OpenOffice.org: Part 3

By | July 27, 2009 |

Inserting an imageIn this final part of our series on laying out a book with OpenOffice.org, you will learn how to position illustrations in your book, how to use paragraph styles, and how to export in different formats. What you will take away from this is one method that has worked for me and many other people. At the end of this post, I will provide links for further study on the subject.

Illustrations

To insert an image in OpenOffice Writer, simply click “Insert->Picture->From File“.  Then, select the image that you want, and click OK.

By default, the text will wrap around  your picture. If you do not want this or want a different type of wrapping, right click on the picture and choose the appropriate wrap method from the wrap menu.
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How to Layout a Book with OpenOffice.org: Part 2

By | July 20, 2009 |

ooo_writerIn the first part of this series, I explained how to prepare an OpenOffice.org document for book layout. In this second part, I am going to highlight some key points raised by some of our readers and also how to properly align page numbers and format paragraphs.

There are a couple of things you should consider before proceeding:

1. If you are submitting your book to a publisher, they normally do not expect you to format the book or do any typesetting. That is their job. They just want the raw manuscript. In some cases, they may even insist that you use a particular generic font and not change default margins. Make sure you read their submission guidelines.

2. One of our readers mentioned that he usually formats his books after he finishes writing. This is undoubtedly the best method in most cases. What we created in Part 1 was a basic template that you can use without any further formatting needed before you start writing. Furthermore, if you are working for the publisher or are the publisher, the author might be someone else. In that case, you will take his or her text and prepare it.
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How to Layout a Book with OpenOffice.org: Part 1

By | July 13, 2009 |

ooo_writerIt is all in your head: the plot, the characters, the locations, and even the scenes, but for some reason, staring at the blank page and blinking cursor makes you freeze. You like the idea of writing a book but cannot imagine actually completing it. If that feeling sounds familiar, then this might be the right article for you.  Even if you have written a book and have it all ready to go, you may intend to self-publish it, start your own publishing company, send it to an editor, or just layout your book so you can see how it looks.

There is a long list of reasons why you might need to prepare an OpenOffice.org document in book form, and once you have learned how to do it, you will have a useful skill that you or people you know may need in the future. You can use this method for both print publications and e-books.
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