Publish an ebook (EPUB)

This page walks through making your ebook: an EPUB file you can upload to Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Google Play or a distributor like Draft2Digital. One file works for all of them.

Before you start: the book's details

An ebook carries information about itself—its cover, title, author, publisher, ISBN and description—that the stores and reading apps show. Write takes all of it from Book details (in the Book menu). It's worth a quick look there first:

• Cover — without one, the ebook has no cover image (the preflight will remind you).
• Ebook ISBN — optional. Without one, Write gives the file a stable identifier of its own, which is fine for most stores.
• Publisher, Publication date and Description.

Screenshot: the Book details window (opened from the Book menu), showing the Cover, Ebook ISBN, Publisher, Publication date and Description fields.

Make the EPUB

1. Open the book and choose Publish (in the Book menu, or the Publish button in the toolbar).
2. Under Format, choose EPUB.
3. Read the Preflight list (see Check your book before you publish).
4. Click Publish EPUB.

When it's done, it appears under Files with a Download link, and Write checks it with EPUBCheck—the same validator the stores run when you upload—and shows the result beside it. Passes EPUBCheck means the stores will accept the file.

Screenshot: the Publish window with EPUB chosen under Format, and a finished ebook in the Files list with its Download link and Passes EPUBCheck beside it.

A few choices for the ebook

These appear in the Publish window when they apply to your book.

Pictures in the EPUB. How sharp pictures are in the ebook. Standard suits most books. Sharpest looks lovely on a big tablet, but makes a bigger file—and Amazon charges a small delivery fee per megabyte on its 70% royalty plan, so for a book with lots of pictures, Smaller can be worth it. The preflightnewest ebook under Files shows theits size ofand theroughly lastwhat ebookAmazon's youfee built,comes to, so you can see the difference.

Chapter plates in the EPUB. If your print book has a full-page picture facing each chapter opening, you can leave them out of the ebook. The chapter then opens on its title, the file is smaller, and the print book keeps its plates.

Fonts. Most reading apps let readers choose their own font, so by default the ebook uses theirs. If you'd like your fonts carried inside the ebook, there's a setting for that in Page setup, on the Fonts tab. The fonts that come with Write can go in freely; a font you've uploaded yourself may not be licensed for it, so leave it off if you're not sure.

Night mode

Readers who switch their e-reader or phone to a dark background will see your book follow along—the text, text-message bubbles, and the stock ornaments and other one-color decorations too, so they don't show up as black shapes on a dark page.

Pages that differ between print and ebook

Some front or back matter only makes sense in one edition—a picture split across two pages in print, for instance, which the ebook should show whole. Each section has Print edition and Ebook boxes for exactly that; see Choose where a section appears: print, ebook or both.