Learn about the tools and tricks you need to create your own elegant eBooks
When I got my Hewlett-Packard Jornada Pocket PC I became immediately hooked on Microsoft Reader eBooks. I like reading and do so constantly. But I've only read two paper books since May of 2000 when I got my Pocket PC! I'm constantly looking for new eBooks and have even started my own
publishing company and Web site to distribute free eBooks for the Pocket PC and Microsoft Reader (esspc-ebooks.com).
Creating eBooks for your Pocket PC is easy, inexpensive and fun.
Microsoft Reader eBooks are formatted in Microsoft's proprietary "dot lit" format, so called because the file extension is LIT. There are a number of places where you can get eBooks for your Pocket PC and your
desktop computer, including Barnes & Noble (http://ebooks.barnesandnoble.com/pocketpc/index.asp) and the University of Virginia E-book Library (http://etext.virginia.edu/ebooks/ebooklist.html). But because of evolving Digital Rights Management (DRM) standards used by major eBook publishers, not all eBooks in the LIT format can be opened with the Pocket version of Microsoft Reader found on the first release of Pocket PCs. A new version of Pocket Reader is supposed to solve this problem. It is expected to be released in the second quarter of 2001.(For more on this see the Digital Rights Management and Pocket Reader sidebar.)
Fortunately, many sites have royalty-free books, magazines and other documents available for download. These are in various formats, including LIT, but the most popular is plain text files, sometimes called "e-texts." My favorite site is Project Gutenberg (http://promo.net/pg), which has thousands of e-texts available for downloading. A simple Web search will list other sites where e-texts of all sorts can be found.
Making your own eBooks
Microsoft Reader cannot open plain text documents. But it's pretty easy to turn them into LIT files. The first eBooks I created from text documents were pretty crude. When I decided to publish eBooks for others, I knew I had to do it right. I went through a lot of trial and error but I finally got to the point where I could produce a pretty nice looking eBook in a relatively short period of time.
One of the best tools available for making LIT eBooks is a product called ReaderWorks from Overdrive (www.overdrive.com/readerworks). The Standard Edition, available for free, lets you create simple eBooks. Another great free tool for creating simple eBooks is Microsoft's eBook plug-in for Word 2000 (www.microsoft.com/reader/info/selfpublish.htm). You must already have Word 2000 installed on your desktop PC. The plug-in lets you save any open document in Reader (LIT) format. Neither ReaderWorks Standard nor the Word 2000 plug-in let you insert cover graphics into the eBook. Instead, they provide a standard cover for all books. Copyright pages, About pages and
Begin Reading pages are not available in those products either. If you want to create more sophisticated and professional looking eBooks, check out ReaderWorks Publisher (see Screen 1), also available from the Overdrive site. Among other features, it lets you add your own custom cover artwork to an eBook. That feature alone is worth its $119 price.
Screen 1: ReaderWorks Publisher lets you create sophisticated and professional looking eBooks.
The art of making eBooks
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