Vellum book formatting update#
Vellum book formatting pro#
Vellum book formatting Pc#
Vellum book formatting mac#
Vellum book formatting windows#

(And I removed all drop caps from my titles after I saw how they appeared on some older devices so that benefit of fancy formatting was lost on me.)Ģ. It won't have drop caps or pretty section breaks, but it's perfectly functional. If you're publishing novels, you can format using Styles in Word and upload to all the sites and have a perfectly decent ebook. There are three other options if you're just getting started out that you didn't mention:ġ. Otherwise, for novels and so forth, it cannot be beat. The only caveats are if you need to print paperbacks bigger than 6 x 9, or write non-fiction with extensive footnotes and so forth.

Vellum book formatting mac#

I have zero interest in using a Mac for anything else Vellum is just that good. I'm probably going to switch from the cloud option eventually, since it's way cheaper. I would get a Mac Mini for $400, or a used MacBook Air. And it is worth buying a Mac for, even if that's the only program you ever use. It's cheaper than a good many of the options, and the time savings alone make it worth the trouble. Vellum is easily the best $250 I've ever spent in self-publishing and might be the best designed program I've ever used. I would never use anything else it's painless, intuitive, and generates a file that always works with every single platform with zero troubleshooting, ever. Using the remote Mac isn't great, but Vellum is so good that it makes up for it. Scrivener, Word and InDesign all pale in comparison to Vellum, and I'm super happy I will never have to use any of them to ever format a single eBook again. It is, however, expensive (~$150 or so a book if you want a slick looking interior).

Vellum book formatting pro#

Pro formatting is useful in certain cases and can add a custom 'branding' touch to your books that Vellum cannot. I've also done Word templates, InDesign, Scrivener and custom pro formatting. I've formatted 50+ books with the Mac in Cloud option via Vellum. I went for it and eventually invested in a new MacBook and switched over to Mac only (and love it!).

Vellum book formatting windows#

So I vote for used Mac and Vellum- lots of authors who are Windows based and want to stay this way do this. I didn't want to bother learning any of the other more DIY ways to format because I had zero interest in the time suck and I feel my time could be better spent elsewhere.Īlso, my Vellum books format beautifully every time.

Vellum book formatting update#

I'm happy I'm not paying someone and doing it myself because I can go in and update the front/back matter at a moment's notice and up load quickly. I figured it would pay for itself over the years, which it already has. I know there are all kinds of different ways to format, and also paying for formatting, but I decided to go ahead and invest in Vellum from day one. I didn't even realize that it was such a PITA until, many months later when I bought a Mac and used Vellum on that instead which was simpler. At first I used Mac in cloud, which yes was a PITA but it worked, which is what mattered. I have five books out and a 6th on the way. I've been self publishing for nearly a year now and I've used Vellum since day one. That's not really a problem for a writer who's in Select, but it could be a headache for someone going wide. I also know some people have had difficulties creating an epub that would pass validation tests. I believe there used to be a disclaimer to that effect right on the site. Unless something has changed, it wasn't designed for writers to format their ebooks.

Let's keep in mind that, although some people have good results with it, Calibre was designed to allow readers to copy their books into other formats. However, Vellum Print does things, like handling justification and spread balancing more effectively than most people could do on their own. Vellum is a good option, though, for people who want a consistent (and very decorative) result without having to learn the level of programming that would be necessary for DIY. As NotJohn suggested, most people could probably learn their way around formatting themselves. However, Vellum isn't a must-have in the sense that we all managed before without having drop caps in our ebooks.

Vellum book formatting Pc#

I now compose in Word for the PC and format in Vellum. I already had an old Macbook that works just fine for the purpose. Vellum is a great program, though you're right-buying a Mac just to use it seems like a big expense. PC Scrivener didn't do internal links as well as I would have liked, so I just added them in Sigil. If someone needs control over something Scrivener doesn't provide, I'd recommend exporting an epub and making whatever changes you want in Sigil. Click to expand.Scrivener has its faults, especially on the PC, but I never had a single glitch in ebook creation when I was using it.