There is nothing stopping you producing an eBook to a standard better than the majority currently available on Amazon.

Tools now exist that have lowered the technical barriers of entry to producing eBooks.  What hasn't been taken away is the need for a good workflow, a passion for your work, personal pride and thoroughness.  Combined with a fair knowledge of your Mac and a very basic understanding of HTML you’re on your way to creating a great new eBook.

Project rating:

- 4/5 “Apple Chappies”

Pro’s: Brings new life to old books.  A huge sense of personal pride once finished.

Con’s: Publishers’ reluctance to embrace the eBook revolution.

- 3/5 “Apple Techies”

Pro’s: Skills easily picked up.  3rd party tools help produce a reasonable workflow.

Con’s: Large investment of time to scan and proof-read document.  Unintuitive conversion software makes life more difficult than it need be.

Introduction

In truth I learned many of the skills needed on the go so if you or someone you know wants to produce an eBook there's nothing stopping you.  So let's spend a short time going through my particular case study and build the confidence you need to have a go yourself.

My motivation to produce my first eBook was not financial.  It was:

1. to learn new skills to help me to overcome my disability
   

2. to see if a good process would overcome the large number of errors I find in commercial works
   

3. frustration in the low amount of relevant British content on the UK Kindle store
   

4. to in some way, however minor, honour the heroic group of men who fought in The Battle Of Britain seventy years ago
   

As the proud owner of a Kindle eBook reader I'm more that a little frustrated at the very limited amount of UK literature in the UK shop. When the UK Kindle was launched and I received mine for Christmas I expected there to be a fair amount of content on this subject.  However, I was surprised that at that time, not a single book was available on the store.  Even now, in the 70th anniversary year of this most historical event, only 4 books exist.

Kindle Available

I have amassed quite a considerable collection of books ranging from documentary through biography to autobiography and thought that I would like to convert one of these to eBook format.  I chose The Last Enemy by Richard Hillary for a number of reasons: firstly it is considered a classic of its type and therefore would be of interest to a significant number of people if published as an eBook, secondly at the time I thought it was out of print and finally I had three copies, one a first edition from 1942 in very poor state that would make scanning easier and less damaging than a mint example.  One a re-print from 1943 which I used for occasional scans when my first edition was too poor for accurate conversions.  Finally a modern re-print from 1983 which happens to have the same cover design as the first edition that I wanted to use in my eBook.  I have since found out that a paperback version is currently in print but no eBook is available.

The Desired Outcome

This project would be a great learning experience for me as I've never done much scanning, OCR or HTML before, let alone any eBook creation.  It would also be a way to while away the hours that I spend awake each night in too much pain to sleep and also not too taxing on my hands.  The final eBook and all the scans and HTML would be offered to the current publisher/copyright holder to publish on Amazon and other Kindle friendly stores with absolutely no compensation for myself. 

I should mention here that I absolutely respect the copyright of the material (even though my two copies are seventy years old) and do not seek to infringe on this copyright or profit financially from this project.  My hope is only to add eBook to the existing form of the book so that the family of the author, the publishers/copyright holders and most importantly the reader can benefit.

Current Situation

At this point I have emailed the current publisher and hope that they will agree to publish the eBook even if it is not ‘mine’.  I'm not going to give up on this.  Hopefully one of the books publishers (over the years) will bite and not see this as any attempt on my part to get any money out of this but purely to get the book ePublished and honour the pilot/author of the book.  I'll keep my fingers crossed (though unfortunately my arthritis doesn't allow me to cross my fingers!) but we'll see.

I read the continuing saga of the major publishers willingness or otherwise to ePublish books but hopefully this one will get through.  Hopefully my little blog will get enough attention that if it is published a few of you will buy the book, which is acclaimed as one of the most important on the subject, and honour not just the author but all of the pilots who so selflessly and bravely sacrificed their lives for our liberty and way of life in the skies over southern England all those years ago.

The production process

As I could find no scanned let alone electronic version on the Web I knew I had to go right back to the original book for the source data.  I would use my many years in software product development to create a process which would hopefully guarantee a high quality outcome. The steps undertaken are as follows:

1. 1. Scan book
   

2. 2. OCR pages
   

3. 3. Quick check text pages
   

4. 4. Create HTML file
   

5. 5. Create draft version of book
   

6. 6. Proof read book on Kindle For Mac and add markup
   

7. 7. Create beta version of book
   

8. 8. Proof read book on Kindle and make final corrections
   

9. 9. Create "final" copy of book and check corrections
   

10. 10. One final read-through for my pleasure and peace of mind
    

The next section goes through how I got on with the process and the tools and techniques that I picked up along the way.  For me it has taken months but that is more to do with my personal situation than the process itself.  It should be noted though that this is not a weekend project, the scanning and proof reading/editing process is lengthy and necessarily as you owe it to yourself and the author to make sure that you get both the words and the message onto the digital page.

Creating an eBook

Step 1 - Scan book

Unless you have a magical page turning scanner like those used by Google or are prepared to cut out all the pages for use within a sheet-feeder scanner your only option is to scan each page separately.  As my book was in such bad condition all the pages are loose and the Mac scanning software can separate the two pages on a double-page scan I only (!) had 110 scans to make to complete the book.  As I've said earlier I'm up most nights so a few pages at a time and the book gets completed quicker than you think.

OCR software will really suffer in terms of accuracy if the image is blurred or not level so use the preview feature of your scanner and weigh down the book to ensure the scan is as good as possible.

Hopefully your scan will be clean and good enough that you can get the optimal scan result.  Experience quickly taught me that it is far better getting the initial scan as good as possible than making do with a so-so scan and manually editing the OCR result later.  The scan will be used throughout the production process to validate the quality of the build so you want it to be as near perfect as possible.

Step 2 - OCR pages

You probably got some free OCR software with your scanner, unless you are a Mac user.  In which case software can be difficult to find and quite expensive.  I whittled the choices down to two pieces of software:

1. one free (PDF OCR X by Web Lite Solutions Corp.)
   

2. one paid (£107.07 - Readiris Pro12 by I.R.I.S)
   

I settled on Readiris Pro12 due to the much higher accuracy that I found.  For some reason PDF OCR X had significant problems with the letter “i” being changed to a “1”.  This would prove a huge problem if I had to go and change all of these (even using features like global search and replace).  Remember though that this issue may be a particular issue with the font or font size in the book I am converting so do please check before you buy to avoid making a costly mistake.

UPDATE : There have been a number of revisions to PDF OCR X, some updating the quality of the scans.  Each time I notice an update I re-scan some of my pages to assess the current quality of scan and, I’m pleased to note, the most recent update fixes the problems I noted scanning ‘i’’s.  I still feel that Readiris Pro12 is the better application but PDF OCR X is now a viable option for book conversion and it’s FREE!

The key feature of Readiris Pro12 is the Drop2Read application where you can drag and drop one of the scanned images onto the software and it displays and saves a plain text file version of the page which speeds up the workflow dramatically.

Step 3 - Quick check text pages

Each OCR produces a plain text file and opens it in Apple TextEdit (a free application from Apple that comes with OSX).  I check the text file produced against the original scanned page to spot any obvious errors such as page spots being made full stops etc.  Also TextEdit uses the spellchecking software within Mac OSX and highlights what it thinks are errors with red underlines.

Once completed you will be left with a plain text file for each scanned page in the book.  These are really useful assets should you need to refer back later to see where in the process an error occurs. 

This is the single longest part of the conversion process but is quite satisfying after each session to see yourself making progress through the book.

Step 4 - Create an HTML file

I have barely touched HTML before and had no idea of the specific formats necessary for Kindle eBook creation.  What I did know was that I needed an HTML editor and a book to help me through the process. 

Web resources are free for a reason and rarely a substitute for a good reference book walking you through the process.  I was alerted to the work of Joshua Tallent by the wonderful Kindle Chronicles podcast (by Len Edgerly) and chose to purchase Joshua’s book ( $11.74 - Kindle Formatting - The Complete Guide to Formatting Books for the Amazon Kindle).

I purchased the book in Kindle format to read in bed at night and a was very glad when Kindle for Mac came along so I could more clearly see the example code and copy where necessary.

The book shows you how sophisticated you can be in the presentation of your book with fonts and images.  However, my book was originally printed in the identical font as the default font on the Kindle so I could get away with quite basic formatting.  This is probably true of many older books though it is fairly straightforward to use different fonts and formats if required.  I would recommend that you do not try to get too fancy with fonts and formats as I have several Kindle books who have gone this route and to be honest they would look a lot better if they hadn’t bothered.  What looks good on paper does not always translate that well to electronic format.

Boiled down to absolute basics, the HTML for creating a Kindle book is listed below.  This example book has a title, a table of contents with two chapters each containing one paragraph:

I show you this not because it would produce a very good eBook but to hopefully remove the fear that you may have producing an HTML document for the first time.  Just to show you that it really is that undaunting, the code listed above produces a book that appears in a browser as follows:

As I said, not a great book, but one that works none-the-less.

There are a number of HTML editors available for the Mac. I use Espresso (£47.97 by Macrabbit) as I like it's site navigation and the way it completes HTML tags for me. It's colour coding is also great for spotting errors and ensuring my code is as tidy as it can be.

I know that my HTML is not perfect and I could definitely make a better job of it but I’ve structured it well so that I can easily make changes.  Enhancements would include comments and better use of Style Sheets but I wanted to get on with finishing the book so skipped some of these ‘optional’ components.

As a footnote to this section, I am very happy with my choice of reference book and Joshua has been extremely friendly and helpful with the few questions I have had along the way so could not recommend his work highly enough.  He also provides conversion services himself should you need assistance for some or all of the process described.  He can be found at:

http://kindleformatting.com/

Step 5 -Create draft version of book

There are a number of 3rd party software products that can create a Kindle book from HTML including eCub (Free by JulianSmart.com), Calibre (Donation-ware - Open source), Jutoh (Free by JulianSmart.com).  I chose Mobipocket Creator (Free - Owned by Amazon) as it owned by Amazon and creates the basic conversion software that all the applications call when creating a book.

Unfortunately the product is only available on Windows and is also not the most elegant or intuitive to use (a feature shared by all of the converters I looked at).  Fortunately for me I have Windows emulation on my Mac (via Parallels Desktop), using the software is covered in the Kindle Formatting book and the software is free. 

Be very methodical about where you store the files and how you interact with the software.  I wish someone who really has a skill in application design would write a 'definitive' eBook creation application.  This cannot be hard and I'm sure there are large numbers who would be willing to pay for this as at the moment the apps are just not user friendly.

A little trial and error and I was presented with my first draft of the book.  It took a couple of goes to make sure the table of contents, book cover etc worked but again referral to the reference book and an email to Joshua Tallent helped here.

6 - Proof read book on Kindle For Mac and add markup

I initially started proof reading the book, checking for typos and markups (italics, foreign characters etc) by loading the book onto my Kindle and, page by page, checking everything.  This was really painful particularly as the Kindle’s concept of a page is not that same as that of regular printed books.  Luckily for me, during this process Amazon released the Kindle for the Mac software.

This allowed me to implement a nice bit of workflow by combining the Kindle app with the preview feature in Pathfinder ($39.95 by Cocoatech a popular replacement for MacOSX’s Finder application) and the HTML editor Espresso.  By aligning:

1. The scan of a real page in Pathfinder
   

2. The equivalent virtual page in the Kindle for Mac app
   

3. The HTML code for editing in Espresso if necessary
   

This sped things up hugely and significantly improved the accuracy of the edit.  You can see in the screen shot above, how closely I have been able to replicate the fonts, styles and layout from the original first edition within my Kindle for Mac copy.

7 - Create Beta version of book

Using the software again create the Kindle version of the book and load onto your Kindle.

8 - Proof read book on Kindle device and make final corrections

This may be the first time you see your book on the actual Kindle device and it should be noted that the appearance on the book may be quite different than appeared on the Kindle for Mac software.  Obviously the physical Kindle format is the one for which you should optimise so you may need to adjust the spacing at the start of chapters to best match the book if that is your desired outcome. You may wish to give your book a more modern feel by adjusting fonts, spacing etc but my objective was to match the book as closely as possible so that it looked as much like the author Richard Hillary would have experienced it prior to his tragic death in 1943.

Make a Note any adjustments required with as much detail as possible, as location is often a little tricky when looking at a lengthy HTML file.

9 - Create "Final" copy of book and check corrections

Make (hopefully) one last version of the book and check that each of the edits has worked as required.

10 - One final read-through for your pleasure and peace of mind

You may be a little fed up of the book by now but try to read through the book as if you were a regular reader and you will almost certainly pick up any remaining errors though hopefully none will remain.  You should be really proud of your work, giving the book a new lease of life for yourself and hopefully for a wider audience.

Conclusion

Sony, Amazon and others have started a revolution in how we purchase and consume books.  We can now hold whole libraries in our hands and have access to millions of books within sixty seconds, anywhere in the word.  Hopefully there will be a way for authors, publishers, stores and readers to all benefit from this new technology. Each of these stakeholders have been critical in bringing books and reading to such a wide audience and it seems a shame to me if there was not a way for each to play an equally critical part in its future.  It will require, though, some significant changes on the part of the publishers and retailers to ensure they keep adding value to the process.

Producing this eBook has taught me a huge amount and I am left with a book which I feel really proud to have made.  I really hope that I can persuade a publisher to make either my version or theirs available to a wide audience as I think it deserves it. 

If you have a personal favourite that is not currently available as an eBook I urge you to have a go as you will have a lot of fun doing so.  You never know, if publishers recognise how much better passionate individuals can make a book than their mass-produced versions, you may even see your version on the shelves of the Amazon store.

Let’s hope!

Please feel free to leave a comment below to help me make any improvements to this and future posts.  I hope you enjoyed the article.