ePub Conversion On Your Own

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Read What Customers Are Saying About Mark's ePub Conversion Service:

"At OUTLAND PICTURES, we faced some tricky issues when converting the high-quality images of our graphic novel entitled "UPGRADE" for use on a Kindle. So we hired Mark Harmon for support and he did a great job tackling the issues, digging deeper and deeper until he got the images to be the best they can be in the Kindle format. And he did it fast!"
Louis Rosenberg
Author of
UPGRADE No. 1
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"Mark is the go-to-guy for authors who want to self-publish. He was able to resolve image and table format issues that others could not. His approach is extremely customer-focused, he makes good on his promises, and he was able to meet a tight deadline (driven by the anniversary of a historical event so pushing out the release date was not an option). He kept me informed at each step and in a tribute to his professionalism, did not accept payment until I was completely satisfied. I cannot recommend him highly enough - if you're self-publishing, you need to contact him."
Joseph Mortati
Professor and Author of
Collision Course - How Good Business Decisions Sunk the Titanic and Why
ePub and eBook Help

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"To anyone who is self-publishing their first book on Amazon Kindle, this is your guy. This is my first book and I'm really lucky to have come across Mark Harmon's services. The Amazon Kindle book looks great and he took care of all of the details such as getting an ISBN and uploading everything to Amazon. I had a million questions for him and he gladly answered all. His turn-around time for work and answering e-mails was never more than a couple hours. Turns out he's also a Photoshop expert, which was fortunate because my book's images needed a lot of work.

The thing I liked the most about working with Mark was, first of all, he was doing all the work himself. I was dealing directly with the person who is working on my book. Secondly, and most importantly, I had a lot of interaction with Mark while he was creating my ebook. Just about every day he would send me the updated .epub and I would open it up in an e-reader and check it out. I think I was asking him every day to change something. As a result, the finished product was exactly what I wanted. Mark also completed the Spanish version of my Kindle ebook and it looks every bit as great as the English version.

I don't want to talk much about price but I really feel like a got a good deal. Mark's price was actually lower than any of the other services I evaluated. I think his service is underpriced but I'm not complaining.

Mark is now creating the print-on-demand versions of both the English and Spanish versions of my first book so I can sell hardcopies on Amazon. Turns out he's an expert at that too! It's hard to find someone like Mark who is not only a jack-of-all-self-publishing-trades but is a master of them all.

To sum up, for anyone who wants to self-publish their first book, this is your guy. He'll help you with every aspect of the self-publishing process. He is very prompt and more than happy to answer all of your questions right away. His price is right and, best of all, the final product looks great!"
Cecilia Terrell
Author of
Where Has My Voice Gone?
ePub and eBook Help

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and the
Spanish Version
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"It has been an absolute pleasure working with Mark Harmon. From the initial contact to the finished product it was a smooth and enjoyable process. Mark took our book from InDesign and turned it into a beautiful product that we easily uploaded for sale as a Kindle eBook on Amazon.com. He also recreated a few diagrams as well as the book cover for the product. Mark's communication was clear, detailed, fast and I felt confident about every step of the process we were involved in. We look forward to using Mark's services for upcoming book projects. We appreciate Mark's expertise, reliability, and his patience with the many, many questions that were sent his way."

"We are delighted to recommend Mark to anyone looking for expert help in getting their book ready for electronic sale. Mark Harmon is reliable, communicative, friendly, helpful, patient and a master in his field."
Michael Vickers
Author of
Becoming Preferred - How To Outsell Your Competition
ePub and eBook Help

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I'm a graphic novelist that writes and illustrates my own books for publication. It was nice to find that Mark was as concerned as I was in getting my work looking perfect. He did a great job preparing my comic books for publication as ePub ebooks. He was very accessible with prompt responses to my many emails from day one.

The finished products where 7 polished ePub ready books that were the result of much fine tuning tweaks and experimenting that Mark conducted in order to meet my specifications. Along the way he explained to me the procedures that he used and also showed me the pros and cons of all the different possibilities there were to choose from.

I was impressed how much research and passion Mark put into the projects we worked on together for several months. I definitely would recommend him to anyone interested in converting their graphic novels such as children's books or comic books Into ebooks for Amazon Kindle or Barnes and Noble Nook.

Kris Aquino
Author of
Dimensions Series

Dimensions 1
ePub and eBook Help

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Dimensions 2
ePub and eBook Help

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Dimensions 3
ePub and eBook Help

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Dimensions 4
ePub and eBook Help

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Dimensions 5
ePub and eBook Help

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Dimensions 6
ePub and eBook Help

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Dimensions 7
ePub and eBook Help

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"What prompt, professional service I got from Mark Harmon! He really went above and beyond the call of duty in converting my book to .mobi and .epub. The quick, detailed responses to every question that I emailed to him (and there were many) enabled me to fully understand what was going on. Mark is definitely one of the most responsive professionals that I have ever worked with.

My book had a lot of difficult formatting issues that would not have been manageable if Mark did not have a sophisticated knowledge of CSS styles when creating the .epub. Mark also had to redo all of my images in Photoshop. The end result was a beautiful job and a Kindle ebook that I am proud of. Mark is extremely knowledgeable about every aspect of self-publishing (he has self-published a number of his own books). He helped me through the whole process from top to bottom.

His price was quite reasonable and another thing I really liked about his service (that I have not seen from any other company that does this kind of work) is that Mark will never send an invoice until the client is totally satisfied with the completed work.

Mark Harmon and his service have my highest recommendation to any author thinking of self-publishing and/or converting to .epub/.mobi. I do not think he could have done a better job for me."
Matthew Hance
Author of
The Memory Eater
ePub and eBook Help

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"If you need an e-book done, and done right, Mark is your man.

His rates are the lowest I found out there and he works with you to make sure the final product is exactly what you want. My project consisted of multiple stories with accompanying illustrations, something otherstold me would be complicated to do, but Mark had no problem turning them into both MOBI and EPUB e-books. While working on the e-books, Mark not only made every little change I wanted, but he also went beyond that and offered his own improvements, which in turn made the final product that much better. He�s very fast at responding, and the best part is that he doesn�t accept payment until the customer is satisfied. That�s quality, and I�m super happy with the work he did and will definitely be turning to him in the future for all of my e-book needs.
Josefine Stark
Author of
Kuan Yin's Miracle Mantras - Awakening the Healing Powers of the Heart
ePub and eBook Help

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"I am really lucky to have come across Mark Harmon's ePub conversion service for my ebook. Not only did he do a prompt and flawless job with my book's conversion to epub and then to mobi for Amazon Kindle, he was also a fantastic source of advice on all aspects of getting my book uploaded and sold on Amazon Kindle. I also wanted to sell my book using ClickBank from my own web site. It turns out that Mark Harmon was an expert on this topic as well. Mark has self-published quite a number of his own books on Amazon Kindle and on his own web site using ClickBank so he really knew his stuff about these topics.

I sent him a my book as a Word document and he really did a nice job with the conversion. The .mobi version for sale on Amazon Kindle looks significantly better than the original that I sent him. The images that I sent him needed a lot of work in Photoshop. He handled that, and all aspects of the validation process, like a pro.

I thought that Mark's price was very reasonable and he made the whole process pleasurable. I wouldn't hesitate to use his services again. Thanks Mark!"
Ian Gomersall
Author of
The Raised Vegetable Garden Handbook
ePub and eBook Help

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"The Surf Detective" would like to commend Mark Harmon for his help in dealing with the treacherous waters of self-publishing and ebook conversion. Mark proved to be very knowledgeable and provided professional services in a timely manner at a competitive price. It is not always easy to find good, competent help, especially on the Internet, but based on my experience, I would highly recommend Mark and his services."
Michael Conway
Author of
The Surf Detective
ePub and eBook Help

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"The Kindle version of my book looked GREAT! I really do not know how Mark Harmon did it but the Kindle version looked EXACTLY like the formatted, hardcopy version of my novel that is currently on sale.

I am glad that such a capable person handled the conversion to ebook because this novel, L Opera Italiano, was a special novel for me. I have written quite a number of books that sold well, and even a few screen plays that became motion pictures, but this book tells the true story of the extraordinary life of my father after he emigrated to the United States from Italy in the 1920s.

I enjoyed working with Mark and I think he really enjoyed working on my book Quite a nice chap. It surprised me how much interaction I had with him during the conversion. I can say that he was very concerned about making my ebook look exactly the way I wanted. And it was!

Well done. The Kindle version of my novel looks better than I ever thought an ebook could."
Frank De Felitta
Author of
L'Opera Italiano
ePub and eBook Help

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"Mark was such a pleasure to work with that I cannot wait for my next project to be ready to send to him! He is professional, extremely knowledgeable and prompt. He has a wealth of information on this emerging technology and truly knows all the caveats. I will highly recommend his company to all my colleagues. "
Joyce Hill
Author of
The Susie House
ePub and eBook Help

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ePub and eBook HELP!

Converting Your Book
Into an .ePub and .mobi Amazon Kindle Masterpiece

ePub Conversion On Your Own
Home ---> Overview of ePub Creation

Click Here To Go To My ePub Help Blog Loaded With Tips On Creating Your ePub

Subtopics of
ePub Creation On Your Own

Page Contents

Introduction

What Is an EPUB Document?

How Can an EPUB Document Be Created?

What Skills Are Needed to Create a High Quality EPUB Masterpiece That You Will Be Proud Of?

Introduction

eBooks have taken the literary world by storm. Authors today know that eBooks are where the money is. Reading audiences love them. eBooks are cheaper, instantly available, and extremely portable.

The standardization of eBook formatting into the EPUB specification is the biggest reason that eBooks have taken off. The EPUB format and its close variations, such as the .mobi format, enable the same eBook to be read on all available e-Readers.

What Is an EPUB Document?

EPUB (which stands for Electronic Publication) is the standard eBook format developed by the International Digital Publishing Forum (the IDPF). EPUB files end in .epub. An EPUB file is what is read by an e-Reader.

An EPUB file very closely resembled a mini web site and EPUB e-Readers “view” EPUB files in a manner similar to the way the a web browser “views” a web site.

Like a web site, an EPUB file has its pages of content written in XHTML code and contains a style sheet along with .jpeg, .gif, or .png images.

Major characteristics of the EPUB format are as follows:

- EPUB is a free and open standard

- Text is an EPUB document is reflowable and resizable to adapt to the display size of whatever e-Reader it is being read on. Reflow is just another term for “word wrap” which occurs whenever text size or screen size are changed.

- Styling is done with CSS. Each EPUB document contains a cascading style sheet with all styles and formats used in the document.

- Images are shown “in line” with the text. To some extent, images can be positioned using basic CSS, such as “float left or right.” Images can be raster (.jpeg, .gif, or .png) or vector-based.

- EPUB documents can support DRM (Digital Rights Management). DRM refers to technology that copyright holders, publishers, and hardware manufacturers use to control access to digital content.

- EPUB documents are capable of containing metadata. Metadata is embedded useful information about the EPUB file such as the author’s name and date of creation.

- EPUB documents need to be “validated” before they can be sold through online book stores. Validation is the process of verifying that the EPUB file conforms to the current EPUB standard set by the IDPF. An EPUB document that has not been validated is not a very useful file.

How Can an EPUB Document Be Created?

1) An HTML Editor

An EPUB file very closely resembled a mini web site and EPUB e-Readers “view” EPUB files in a manner similar to the way the a web browser “views” a web site.

The most direct way to create an EPUB file is use the same tools that are used to create a web site. The best of these tools are HTML editors such as Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft Expression Web.

These software packages provide the maximum customization ability because they provide direct access to the XHTML and CSS and a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) display to immediately view the results of any changes.

Microsoft’s Expression Web is my choice for EPUB creation and web site creation. I lean a little more toward Expression Web than Dreamweaver in general because of Expression Web’s excellent support of PHP and Javascript.

Click Here To See a Step-By-Step Video Of How To Create an EPUB Masterpiece With an HTML Editor

2) Adobe InDesign

Adobe InDesign is another excellent tool to create an EPUB document. My experience has been the InDesign is best suited for EPUB documents that fit a standard format and don’t require custom CSS work.

Click Here To See a Step-By-Step Video Of How To Create an EPUB Masterpiece With Adobe InDesign

3) Direct Conversion Tools

Direct conversion tools are software packages that are advertised as being able to directly convert files from, for example, MS Word or .pdf to .epub. If you Google “epub conversion,” you’ll find a bunch of them. These software packages don’t make .epub files. They make a big mess.

An .epub file is a mini web site, complete with a cascading style sheet, pages of XHTML code, and an image folder full of images. There is no quick and easy way to convert a MS Word file or .pdf file into the mini web site that is an .epub file.

Advertisements claiming that conversion to .epub can be competently done in a step or two are false. The conversion to .epub is not a simple one, like saving a Word document as an .rtf (Rich Text Format) file.

Additionally, keep in mind an EPUB document must be fully validated to be of any use. An unvalidated file that simply has the extension .epub cannot be sold through online bookstores.

What Skills Are Needed to Create a High Quality EPUB Masterpiece That You Will Be Proud Of?

The person who creates or converts your EPUB document needs to have the following skills to perform professional and polished work:

1) HTML design skills

2) CSS design skills

3) Graphic design skills (preferably with Photoshop)

4) Solid working knowledge of an EPUB editor such as Sigil

5) Solid working knowledge of EPUB validation

An EPUB document can be constructed entirely within Adobe InDesign or an EPUB editor without knowledge of HTML or CSS. However, the ability to customize and add special touches to the EPUB document are lost without access to the XHTML or CSS. EPUB validation more often than not requires troubleshooting the XHTML code.

The bottom line is that an EPUB creator should be a skilled web site creator because an EPUB document is a mini web site. The EPUB creator must also be skilled at EPUB validation because every EPUB document must be validated before online bookstores will accept it.