If you have ever written a book, you might have considered self-publishing, and probably creating an ebook version of your manuscript as well. But you might have run into questions such as: Can I create the ebook for my own manuscript? How do I even start?

While creating an ebook might seem a daunting and scary task, there are plenty of free tools and tutorials online that will make your task easier and more affordable. In this blog post, I am going to walk you through the basic steps of creating an ebook and the free resources that are available for every step.

Your first step in creating an ebook will be to convert your document into an EPUB file. There are many options and paths for the conversion, but it will all depend on where you have written your manuscript. The most common paths are the following:

• If you have written your book in a Word document, you can use the tool Calibre to convert your file into an EPUB.
• If you have written and designed your book in InDesign, you will be able to export it directly into an EPUB without any other tools.

There are obviously a lot more options to write and format your ebook, and I have only mentioned the most common ones, which are also standards of the industry. For an exhaustive explanation of how to format your ebook and which tools you can use, you can read the following article: https://kindlepreneur.com/how-to-format-a-book/.

Once you have your EPUB file, you can move on to perfecting the aesthetic, format, and functionality of your ebook. To start, it is advised to open your ebook and browse through it. You can use any electronic reading software that you have available, such as Apple Books, Google Books, or even Calibre, and you should try to view it on different devices (phones, tablets, laptops, and ereaders).

At this point of the process, you might run into mistakes or elements that you want to correct and perfect, and you can do so by going directly into the code. These are some of the free resources available for opening your ebook and exploring the code:

• Sigil. This is an excellent tool with which you can open your entire ebook and navigate all the files at once. It also has a second screen where you can see what your ebook looks like and how the different changes you make affect the layout. Moreover, all the changes you make and save will apply directly to the EPUB file you have stored.
• Text editors. You can also use any text editor to play around with the code of individual files. These tools usually have color-coded tags and autocomplete features that will create closing tags for you. Some of the most popular text editors are Brackets, Sublime, Atom, and Visual Studio Code. If you choose to go this route, you will have to zip and unzip your EPUB file every time you want to work with it.

After you are done editing the code, you will have your complete ebook. But before uploading it to any platform, you need to validate it to make sure everything works and ebook standards are followed. And, of course, there are free tools for this step as well:

• Pagina’s EPUB-Checker. This tool scans your EPUB file for any errors. If errors are found, they will appear in red and be listed with details of the type of error and the file where this is. If everything is correct, the items listed will appear in green.
• Kindle Previewer. If you want to make your ebook available on Amazon, this tool is particularly useful because Kindle has its own specific guidelines. This tool allows you to execute a quality control and identify those elements that you need to change in order for your ebook to be accepted into Kindle.

Once your ebook is validated, it is ready to be uploaded. But do not forget to create a cover. Note that before uploading your ebook, you will need a separate file with your cover. If you still have not created one, a free and easy-to-use tool is Canva.

And now it is finally ready to become available to the public. Happy publishing!