Many people argue that ebooks don’t have to be beautiful: the ebook readers or apps will ‘strip’ their formatting anyway, letting the user set their preferred font and line space. But, on the other hand: why shouldn’t ebooks be beautiful? A book that is not only written well but also visually appealing to the reader has a better chance of enchanting customers and get them to come back. We are not even thinking about bad formatting.

There are many steps between a book that provides bad user experience (has, for example, forced line breaks, or is unreadable) and a book that is beautiful. Creating beautiful ebooks, however, can be easier if you have an ebook template. It can also come handy when you are a beginner in ebook formatting and would like to check your book against a ‘professional’ example. When to use an ebook template? What are the common formats? Is using a template for everyone? Read on.

Too cool for school? Download our valid epub sample made using Sigil and use it as a template.

This article lists some ebook templates you should never use, and a few that formatting beginners can use in order to produce valid epubs. To use the templates we provide below we recommend that you download and install Sigil, the free to use professional ebook editor. Many freely available or low cost ebook templates will require to use Adobe InDesign.

What is an ebook template?

Ebook templates are ebook layouts filled with ‘dummy’ text (like lorem ipsum) and stock photos or free to use photos. To use an ebook template, just download it, open it, click ‘Save as’ and name it as your book. Then change the text and the images: delete the old text and add your own. Most cases, you can simply copy and paste your book from Word chapter by chapter.

Remember to change the metadata as well: check the language code, date of publication, contributors and the title. Once you have changed everything, don’t forget to update the table of contents.
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Following the success of our last article on ebook editors, we decided to create an Ebook formatting 101 with the most popular converters. If you are aiming for a valid epub, we usually direct people towards the professional Sigil. Although it is not difficult to use, many people feel disheartened when they are asked to edit some html or change something in the css. I don’t blame them. Creating beautiful epubs is a serious profession, especially if you are trying to convert picture-heavy or interactive books. Today, however, there are multiple great, accessible and easy-to-use options at the table.

You don’t need to learn how to code (or how to set the margin, for that matter), as Reedsy Book Editor can do this for you. The online author-marketplace (pairing writers and publishing professionals) has a free and easy to use ebook editor. It exports into a valid epub or print-ready pdf: there is nothing more I can dream of.

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