Let's talk about software that you have found useful, or that you may have heard about, that can help with the process of creating e-books.
Heather Ross reminded me of Scrivener, a wonderful little tool for writing big projects (books, screenplays, etc) that she told me about when I was starting my e-book project and expressing some frustration with traditional word processors. Scrivener allowed me -- no, almost forced me -- to write in pieces, and it made me think differently about the chunks of material I was producing. Getting away from a linear mindset in my writing made a huge difference to me.
Then, also in another part of this seminar, Nicolas Bowskill mentioned:
"There's also things like Calibre software for converting from one ebook format to another and for creating ebooks from scratch. They can even be saved in pdf, epub or mobi (or all 3) so that they can be read on any device."
"When you create and post to Amazon I think you give away a good chunk of the price but you set that price in the first place. Plus you'll get one of the most popular shop windows there is. In addition, Amazon won't kick back your book like Apple might. You can publish whatever you like whenever you like for whatever price you like."
Let's follow up on these ideas. What software have you found to be helpful as you've designed e-pubs? How might you go about distributing your material after you create it? Amazon is a good option, but the last time I checked, they required you to sell your book -- no freebies allowed. So it wasn't an option for me. That policy may have changed, but regardless, what distribution channels have you thought about or tried?
