Easily create eBook and ePub files
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Easily create eBook and ePub files

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by Chris Smith
Easily create eBook and ePub files

If you are looking for a way to more easily create ebook files for all major platforms and devices, you may find a new tool, Playwrite, from Wundr to be useful. It is designed exclusively for creating eBook files using the ePub format. Wundr creates ePub3 files that can be distributed on the iPad, nook, kindle, kobo, and Android platforms. The app is available for the MacOS from Apple’s App store, and is available for a $50 one-time cost, not a subscription. The Playwrite app also integrates into a distribution platform from Wundr which makes it possible to distribute a book across all major book stores. Of course, Wundr takes a fee for using this service which is on top of the fees charged by the book stores.

Who is this eBook creation tool good for?

Anyone that doesn’t have InDesign and wants to create an eBook may find this an attractive option. The integration into an eBook distribution platform also makes this useful for small publishers that do not yet have accounts with Apple, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Google, and are not interested in managing multiple distribution channels. If you value the convenience of having a single distribution point for your books, rather than working with each eBook seller independently, you will need to provide Wundr an additional percentage of your revenue that you would normally keep if you distributed the books on your own.

Alternative to InDesign for creating eBooks

While Adobe InDesign can be used to design print and digital books, it can be expensive, and often require InDesign training in order to learn how to use the application followed by eBook classes to learn how to format and generate ebooks. Yet InDesign isn’t needed to create eBooks. You can use tools such as Playwrite from Wundr or even hand-code the HTML and related files that comprise an ebook.

When should you use InDesign for creating eBooks?

InDesign is a good choice if you want to create eBooks as well as print and PDF versions of documents. InDesign makes it possible to create multiple formats from a single InDesign file. It is also useful if you want to fully control the formatting and distribution of a digital book. One concern about using InDesign to create ePub and eBook files is that you can only edit the original InDesign file as long as you maintain an active subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud, which requires a monthly or annual fee.

About the author

Christopher Smith is president of American Graphics Institute. He is the co-author of Adobe Creative Cloud for Dummies and more than 10 other books on design and digital publishing. He served as publisher and editor of the Digital Classroom book series, which has sold more than one million books on topics relating to InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere Pro and other Creative Cloud apps. At American Graphics Institute, he provides strategic technology consulting to marketing professionals, publishers designers, and large technology companies including Google, Apple, Microsoft, and HP. An expert on web analytics and digital marketing, he also delivers Google Analytics classes along with workshops on digital marketing topics. Christopher did his undergraduate studies the at the University of Minnesota, and then worked for Quark, Inc. prior to joining American Graphics Institute where he has worked for more than 20 years.