How to: make a photo eBook

mercphoto

I'm trying to put together an eBook of photos but I've only got part of the process down. Wondering if anyone else has done this or not. I plan to use Aperture to do the book design itself, probably using a custom page layout of a landscape orientation and a 3:2 aspect ratio. Will then print to PDF. I now need to convert that PDF to an ePub format.

I plan to use Lulu.com because they offer free ISBN numbers and they can get you into the iBookstore.

A few direct Q's that come to mind:

1) Is using a landscape orientation, or a 3:2 aspect ratio, a bad idea?
2) What is the best way to turn a PDF into an ePub?

My first attempt at this is going to be nothing special. Mostly just a learning process. Once I figure out how to go about this I hope to do a few more on a serious note and, hopefully, for small profit.

Thanks.

CWSkopec

mercphoto wrote: »

I'm trying to put together an eBook of photos but I've only got part of the process down. Wondering if anyone else has done this or not. I plan to use Aperture to do the book design itself, probably using a custom page layout of a landscape orientation and a 3:2 aspect ratio. Will then print to PDF. I now need to convert that PDF to an ePub format.

I plan to use Lulu.com because they offer free ISBN numbers and they can get you into the iBookstore.

A few direct Q's that come to mind:

1) Is using a landscape orientation, or a 3:2 aspect ratio, a bad idea?
2) What is the best way to turn a PDF into an ePub?

My first attempt at this is going to be nothing special. Mostly just a learning process. Once I figure out how to go about this I hope to do a few more on a serious note and, hopefully, for small profit.

Thanks.

Bill, I've only just begun to look into creating ePubs but I would recommend against a landscape orientation. I may be misinformed, but I think the iPad is the only eReader that allows you to rotate the screen to match that orientation, and problems will probably arise on other machines.

Also, the ePub document is meant to be re-flowable with re-sizable text. Turning your book into a PDF locks everything at the size you specify and could cause issues with eReaders of different sized screens than you initially had in mind. I've read that ePubs are generally done in HTML for that reason. That way, the text can still flow and resize as needed without having issues.

Like I said, I'm still trying to clear some free time so I can experiment. (If you're an InDesign user, Amazon recently released a plug-in to Export to Kindle. Though I think the Kindle uses a proprietary format as opposed to the open source format of ePub so that might not be helpful...:D)

mercphoto

Thanks, Chris. That's what I was afraid of in terms of landscape mode. I'll just have to figure a way to make this "work" in portrait mode. Also, I'm not trying to publish a PDF. Trying to convert a PDF into an ePub and don't know the best way to do that.

CWSkopec

mercphoto wrote: »

Also, I'm not trying to publish a PDF. Trying to convert a PDF into an ePub and don't know the best way to do that.

Right, but I think that having a step that creates the PDF is a step in the wrong direction. The very nature of a PDF locks everything in place, so that I can create a PDF, send it to you and it will print for you exactly how I envision it printing. That process of locking the elements where they are will create issues with the various screen sizes of the different devices. And I believe that most of the eReader devices allow you to change the size of the font for easier reading.

That flexibility is going to cause issues with the PDF step.

Take a look at this tutorial, you should just be able to create your ePub in a text editor with the aid of some HTML.