There are many options out there for ebook writing software - but which ones are worth it? We review the top 10 options.
- Ebook Apps For Pc
- Ebook Writing App
- Best Ebook Writing App Mac Free
- Ebook Writing Software
- Best Ebook Creator For Mac
Monica Dube|
The age of handwriting your ebook and typing it up later is long gone. While I am a lover of beautiful stationery, ebook writing software can be much more useful.
In our selection, we review the best editing, writing, dictation, and converting tools. Some of them take you from the first good idea to the virtual bookshelf. Others import your manuscript and transform it into a beautiful ebook. Of course, everyone knows Blurb, and we write a lot about Sigil. If you need your manuscript converted to an epub, PublishDrive can do it for you: simply save it as a .docx file, and drag & drop it to the âContent fileâ field.
So let's see all the other software out there that help write and publish, and even promote your ebook.
Best Software for Writing a Book. Below we've listed some of the best writing software for creating a book. They are extensive and will surely help you. Scrivener Review. Scrivener is an incredibly advanced word processor, project manager, and formatting tool all-in-one. Itâs many authors' favorite set of book writing software because of its. Best organizational app. Ulysses has the fabled nested, multi-level hierarchical organization that we want. It can also sort your notes by date created or modified. It also has different views, like an Inbox that holds new, yet-to-be-sorted notes. You can also create custom filters that sort notes within each folder. A fully-featured writing app.
Contents
General Writing Apps for Mac. These writing apps are less fully featured than a full word processor. Some are more suited to specific kinds of writing, like blogging, but they are all pretty flexible. For most people, one of these apps will give you the best balance between form, features, user friendliness, and price. Amazon Kindle Store, Kobo Books, and eBooks.com are probably your best bets out of the 10 options considered. 'Often has lower prices compared to other eBook retailers' is the primary reason people pick Amazon Kindle Store over the competition. This page is powered by a knowledgeable community that helps you make an informed decision.
1. | Dictation tools |
2. | Ebook writing software |
(The article was updated on July 16, 2018.)
Dictation Tools for Writing an Ebook
When it comes to writing software, most writers still swear by Scrivener. We already have an article on what we liked and didnât like about it. But writing a book is the hardest part. Youâll have to sit at the front of the computer for hours at a time. It is slow and needs your full, undivided attention. Thankfully, there is a way around it.
More and more professional writers decide to dictate their books. There are several software solutions able to do the job for you. This saves you from getting repetitive pain injury by the time you reach page 50, even if you canât afford a secretary. Dictating your novel can be a great way to speed up the writing process and let your thoughts go relatively free. What is the best dictation software to use?
Google Docs Voice Typing
To use Google Docs voice input you have to open Google Docs with a Chrome browser, click âToolsâ and select âVoice typing.â (Or use the shortcut cmd+shift+f on Mac / ctrl+shift+s on Windows.) Youâll have to allow the browser to use your microphone.
There are also around 100 commands you can give the app. Check out this help center for a comprehensive list. Dictation works in around 80 languages and regional accents in total, even in Hungarian! Voice commands, however, only work in English, and only if both the accountâs language and the document are in English.
You can also use voice typing on any Android or iOS device with the GBoard (Googleâs very own keyboard): I have never used GBoard to dictate anything longer than a note or text message, but it works just fine.
Pros | contact your local ISBN agency for pricing |
Cons | 99 USD at CreateSpace |
Dictation on iPhone, iPad, and Mac
To turn on dictation on your iPhone, just open âSettings.â Depending on your iOS version, look for âKeyboardâ or âLanguage and inputâ to find âDictationâ and switch it on. Once it is on, you will see the little microphone next to the keyboard. Just tap it to start dictating!
The transcription of your voice is done on a remote server, so youâre better off if you dictate in 30 seconds long segments. This is something Iâll probably need to get used to. Use a good mic (such as an iPhoneâs noise-canceling mic you use for calls). If your Apple gadget doesnât understand you, keep trying. With time, it gets better at recognizing your accent.
You can also use Appleâs dictation on a Mac computer. Go to âSystem Preferencesâ and turn on âDictation and Speech.â (Depending on your iOS version, it could also be under âKeyboard.â) If you enable âenhanced dictation,â your iOS will download a language package of around 400 MB, but it speeds up the recognition time and enhances accuracy.
Pricing | Free |
Languages | 40 languages and dialects |
Dragon and Dragon anywhere
Dragon is available for Mac, Windows, and phones (Dragon Anywhere). It is the best app currently out by all accounts â but it comes at a price. Dragon for Windows and Mac starts at 300$ and offers no trial version. You do have 30 days to ask for your money back.
The app version offers a trial period of a week; then it is 15$ a month or 150$ a year. Youâll have to sign up online then download the app and log in. (If you donât like it, donât forget to cancel your subscription after the end of the trial period.) For this price, Dragon offers 99% accuracy, custom words, and brilliant and intuitive editing options. Just watch this demo:
Pros | 15$ / month |
Cons | 11 languages, including English, French, German, and Japanese |
Ebook writing software
Reedsy Book Editor
- Pricing: free
- Platform: cloud
- Output formats: epub, mobi, PDF
For a WYSIWYG ebook editor that converts into a valid epub, we recommend Reedsyâs editor. Reedsyâs aim was to create an online marketplace where writers and publishing professionals can find each other. Their platform offers great collaboration opportunities without the usual pain of following up version numbers and more. With this ethos, their publishing platform is cloud-based: you can either write your whole book there or copy and paste it in once you are finished.
Just sign up with your social media account Facebook or Google to create your first ebook title. My favorite feature is the automated front matter with an auto-generated copyright page. You can, as expected, add pictures and notes. On the downside, the customizing options are insufficient.
Pros | Valid epubs. Free and simple. |
Cons | Maybe too simple? |
Vellum
- Pricing: free to download, $199.99 to export books
- Platform: macOS
- Output formats: mobi, epub, PDF
Created with usability and elegance in mind, Vellum is a fantastic software for creating Apple-, Kobo- and Amazon-approved ebooks and POD books. While there are other, much cheaper software solutions to do this for you, some of them even listed in this guide, Vellum is unique. It creates not only professional but beautiful text-centric ebooks. If your goal is to create a book as elegant as a Penguin edition, Vellum can be your choice. The creators took care of everything. Itâs simple to use and efficiently imports from Word.
Pros | Beautiful, valid epubs. |
Cons | It is a bit pricey. |
(Source: The Write Life)
Creatavist
- Pricing: free to $200 per month
- Platform: cloud
- Output formats: web, Facebook stories, several ebook formats
Their motto is âcreate once, publish everywhereâ (COPE). Just sign up with Facebook and decide whether to publish under your name or create a profile for your publishing house. You can use Creatavist to write and edit your books and stories, add pictures and audio, and publish it on the web or download it as an enhanced ebook. It is excellent for creating magazines and scrapbooks and lets you publish directly to Amazon or Barnes & Nobles.
Pros | Create beautiful content easily. There is no need to write codes or have a developed sense of beauty, just choose a pre-designed layout. There is also a built-in translation service. |
Cons | It is expensive. The Creative plan is only enough to have a look at the website and try out some features â if you would like to use it, you have to pay for it. |
iBooks Author
- Pricing: free
- Platform: OS X
- Output formats: PDF, epub, iBooks
For those of us who prefer the option to work offline, Apple iBooks Author is an excellent choice with amazing personalization opportunities. And you get the option to easily sell in an iBook Store.
Pros | Apple being Apple, you donât have to be a genius to create beautiful multimedia content. Just flow in the text, drop in the pictures wherever you want them and you are done. And well, it is free. |
Cons | It only works on a Mac. And while there is the option to export your content as an epub, you cannot be sure how that will look on an Android device. |
(Source: iBooks Author â App Store)
PressBooks
- Pricing: free (with watermarks) to $99 per book
- Platform: cloud
- Output formats: PDF, epub, mobi, XML
PressBooks is aimed for self-pub authors and small publishers. Itâs a WordPress based application with limited personalization options unless you are familiar with CSS. You can write your book straight into the browser or import it from Word.
Pros | The platform was designed with books in mind, easy to use for a simple and clear design. Ability to export your book and take it wherever you want to. |
Cons | Watermarked epubs (if free), and limited storage for pictures â better for text-based books. |
Scrivener
- Pricing: free 30-day trial, $19.99 (iOS), $40 (Windows), $45 (Mac)
- Platform: Windows, OS X, iOS
- Output formats: PDF, epub, mobi, HTML etc.
Scrivener is a bit of an outlier in this list, being not a conversion software but the greatest text editor ever made. It is very complicated to write long and complex texts as a Word document. If you want to change or check something later, it is almost impossible to find the right spot. Scrivener was created for compiling complex projects: books, research articles, or screenplays. Itâs great for working with footnotes and endnotes, or thousands of references.
Pros | What you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) text editor, inexpensive (one-time fee), amazing for working on long and complex projects and export it into literally any format you would like to. A writerâs best friend. |
Cons | Limited collaboration options â your friend can only co-edit your book if they are also using Scrivener. There is no online interface for ease of sharing either. Scrivener is also very complex and has a steep learning curve. |
(Source: learnscrivenerfast.com)
Zinepal
- Pricing: free to $14 per month
- Platform: cloud
- Output formats: PDF, epub, mobi
Zinepal is similar to Beacon in the sense that it recycles your existing material into ebooks. Using it is literally as simple as using a stick. Just give it your blogs RSS feed and click âcreate.â It also lets you try it out without registering which is a great plus (Iâm still receiving spam from everywhere else I ever subscribed to). After it created your book (it takes around five minutes), you can personalize the output. Donât put your hopes high; all options look very ânewspaperyâ.
Pros | Easily generate Amazon compatible ebooks from blogs and existing web pages. |
Cons | Outdated design, seems a bit pricey for what it does. |
Calibre
- Pricing: free and open source
- Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, portable
- Output formats: PDF, epub, mobi
Orgin app not opening mac. Calibre is the most popular ebook manager software ever created and is my personal favorite. It is mostly known as an ebook library manager: it pretty much handles every input and output format, can send your books to your reader on a wire or wirelessly, lets you easily edit metadata and is great to list your books according to specific information. It sends the right format to the right device.
It is also great as an ebook converter for personal use, or if you would like to send your books to your friends, but the codes it creates are cluttered, and stores (like Amazon) greatly dislike it. (Ebooks created with Calibre often fail the validation.) If you are using Calibre, check our manuscript preparation guide to avoid getting a cluttered code.
Pros | It is free and amazing for all your conversion needs. |
Cons | Often creates cluttered, invalid code. |
Jutoh
- Pricing: free limited trial, $39 (basic), $80 (plus)
- Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, Raspberry Pi
- Output formats: PDF, epub, mobi, HTML
Although the user interface seems a bit off-putting, I have quickly fallen in love with Jutoh: it seems to be creating amazingly clean epub and mobifiles. The âDocument Cleanupâ function is a must have: it offers one-click removal of all rubbish coming from the text editors (tabs, line breaks, etc.) It doesnât even let you convert your book until everything is in order.
Pros | Clean, clutter-free ebooks imported from pretty much every type of documents. Whatâs not to love. |
Cons | There are only pros. This is a perfect paid alternative to Sigil. |
InDesign
- Pricing: $19.99 per month
- Platform: Windows, macOS
- Output formats: PDF, epub, indd
In desktop publishing, InDesign sets the standards. No need can arise that cannot be solved using InDesign. The software today is used not only to typeset beautiful books but is here for all your publishing needs. ou can create presentations, forms, and websites using InDesign.
InDesign is by no means an intuitive, easy-to-use software. It takes some time and effort to explore and master it. InDesign is amazing to create print-ready, press-friendly PDFs. On the downside, however, exporting your beautiful book into an epub might not turn out as well as expected. Sometimes, it is just easier to start it over from scratch and ditch the extensive formatting.
Pros | You can use the same software for all your desktop, web and ebook publishing needs. Can be used for both fixed-layout and reflowable layout books. |
Cons | Creating an ebook with this one often creates cluttered, invalid code; has a steep learning curve. |
(Source)
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Here are 10 of the best free book publishing software and self-publishing apps to help with your book publishing and promotion.
We all need some help. The following list of ten free book publishing software and writing tools are the ones I use almost every day. So I can vouch for how useful they are.
Ebook Apps For Pc
There are so many aspects to being a self-published author. It is sometimes hard to count the number of hats you need to wear every day.
If you have the best online publishing tools and software, you are one step ahead.
In This ArticleHideMy ten best and most useful free book publishing software tools1. Canva2. Shaxpir3. ProWritingAid4. Sonar5. KDP Wizard6. Calibre7. ImageOptim8. BookCore9. GIMP10. Kindle CreateSummary
My ten best and most useful free book publishing software tools
You have to write, format, design, publish, promote, market, blog, and then find time to connect with our readers.
So you need the best publishing software you can find.
These free book publishing tools will save you a lot of time to do what you do best â writing a book. https://newfantastic147.weebly.com/blog/how-to-use-numbers-app-on-mac.
1. Canva
Canva is a must-have free tool for all authors and bloggers.
Images are vital in attracting attention. But you should use unique images and never copy or download images from Google Image Search.
Canva is a great graphic design tool that solves this problem with ease.
There are loads of professionally designed templates.
You can find Facebook headers, social media posts, logos, ebook covers, business cards, and Twitter posts, just to name a few.
There is a paid option. But the free version comes with plenty of free images, graphics, icons, shapes, and backgrounds for almost any image project you can imagine.
You can upload your own stock images to use with Canva. Then you can create truly unique images for your blog or online magazine and use on social media.
Best of all it is user-friendly and very easy to use.
You can create stunning ebook covers with Canva. Choose from hundreds of templates or create your own from scratch.
2. Shaxpir
You need to write a book.
Are looking for free book publishing software to write a book or novel? Well, Shaxpir really packs a lot of features into its free version.
The main feature is the Manuscript Builder, where you can use drag-and-drop tools to rearrange any part of your manuscript.
You can also move and change the order of your scenes or chapters.
You can set writing goals for your book project and keep track of your progress. Importantly, it lets you take notes about your events, characters, and places.You can collect and save any concept art you find and add your margin comments.There is also an in-built spellchecker.There is a lot of free software designed for writing books. But Shaxpir offers you the widest range of features I have seen in a free version.You can download Shaxpir for both Mac and PC. There is also an option for cloud access.
3. ProWritingAid
Prowritingaid is a fantastic grammar and writing checker. It includes so many checks and reports to help improve your writing.
It is one of the best writing aids for self-publishing authors. The tools and reports dig deep into your text and offer you a huge range of suggestions to improve your writing.
You can add extensions for Chrome, Microsoft Office, Google Docs, and Scrivener.
There is a free version of ProWritingAid available that offers you plenty of functionality to help you check your writing.
Authors might think about the modestly priced premium version, which includes all the reports and editing tools.
ProWritingAid is my number one go-to editing tool when I need to work intensively on book manuscripts.
4. Sonar
Whenever you publish a book or ebook on Amazon, you need to add seven search keywords.
Donât rush into this because finding the best keywords is vital to the success of your book.
There are many ways you can do Amazon keyword research for free.
But one of the best free keyword search tools for Amazon keywords is Sonar.
Al you need to do is enter your seed keyword and then check the results for the best ideas and related search phrases.
You can then click on any of the suggestions to find even more possible keywords for your book.
It shouldnât take you long to find plenty of ideas for your Amazon search keywords.
However, because it is a free service, you wonât be able to access search or sales volume for each keyword phrase.
If you want to access real-time sales and search data you will need to use premium software like Publisher Rocket.
5. KDP Wizard
KDP Wizard gives you easy access to all of your book data and files in a quick and functional format. It works directly in your Chrome browser.
The KDP Wizard browser app is the Amazon KDP tool for listing and editing all your book information in one place.
There is a Rich Text Editor for book descriptions, to make optimized product descriptions simple.
You can search & select categories easily, speeding up the listing process.
Ebook Writing App
Easy access to keyword profiles, authors, contributors, descriptions, pricing profiles, and more through smart dropdowns.
Copy all page attributes from one listing tab to another, to save time when creating multiple new books.
Check out all the features that are available to manage all your books on Amazon.
Best of all, there is a totally free version you can use.
6. Calibre
Without a doubt, as far as book publishing software goes, Calibre is the number one ebook tool every indie author should have.
It does everything you could need to do when it comes to ebook creation. It also a great free tool for converting from Microsoft Word to mobi and epub ebook files.
You get an ebook reader, ebook library and you can sync to e-reading devices.
For those with a little technical skill, you can also edit HTML, epub, and AZW3 (Kindle) or mobi. https://newfantastic147.weebly.com/blog/intel-cpu-app-mac.
7. ImageOptim
ImageOptim is a free software application for Mac and Linux users.
It reduces the size of images before using on blogs or websites by using drag-and-drop. Quick, easy, and very efficient. (Windows users can try File Optimizer.)
8. BookCore
BookCore provides a powerful book sales tracking platform for self-publishers.
Itâs a fully automated sales tracking and analytics service that generates reports, monitors rankings, and tracks reviews on multiple marketplaces.
Itâs free to use and works on mobile, tablets, and laptops.
9. GIMP
Working with images is a regular task for authors now.
But Photoshop is very expensive. GIMP is a free open source alternative that works exceedingly well on all platforms.
If you are new to image editing, it will be a learning curve. But no more so than for Photoshop or any other image or DTP software.
For Mac users, there is also Seashore. I also use it from time to time for book design mock-ups for covers.
10. Kindle Create
Kindle Create is one of the must-have self-publishing apps for all authors. It is the best ebook publishing software for authors.
There are all the tools you need to easily create and format perfect ebooks for Kindle. It will automatically create a table of contents.
Kindle Create is very easy to learn how to use it. You will be up and running in no time at all.
Itâs also possible to use this app to format your print book.
Best Ebook Writing App Mac Free
You need to download and install the web app on your computer from Kindle Direct Publishing. It is available for both PC and Mac.
You can watch this short video for more information about Kindle Create.
Note: An alternative free app for Mac users is iBooks Author. However, it is an ebook creator software tool that is best suited to interactive ebooks.
Summary
There is a wide range of free book writing software, free word processor applications, and online tools for self-publishing authors.
Ebook Writing Software
Apart from my favorites listed above, I use quite a few more to help save me time.
Not everything is free nowadays. But if and when I am convinced a tool, application, or online service is worth paying for, I will.
Best Ebook Creator For Mac
But most online writing tools and applications a self-publishing author needs to use each day are available for free.