Learning to e-publish a book
Acquiring new skills daily
So I decided to create an e-book, it took me a day or two to wrap my head around how the whole process worked. Not a bad learning curve really, just enough confusion to make me curious, enough forward momentum to keep me motivated. “No programs were paid for they are completely free”
AI Definition of E-pub and E-book An EPUB file is a flexible, open-standard format used to package the contents of a digital book—its text, images, stylesheets, and structural metadata—into a single, portable container. Because it’s built on web technologies like HTML and CSS, an EPUB adapts fluidly to different screen sizes and reading environments, making it ideal for accessible, responsive publishing across devices and apps.
An ebook, more broadly, is a digital reading experience that can go far beyond the static nature of print. Depending on the platform, an ebook can offer adjustable typography, built‑in accessibility features, search, annotations, hyperlinks, audio narration, interactive elements, and seamless syncing across devices. It transforms reading into something customizable, portable, and often more inclusive for a wide range of readers.
Like most people, I began with the tools I already knew. I wrote in Word and LibreOffice Writer. Then I copied everything into Sigil (a free epub 2, 3 writer, very user friendly) and tried to shape it into an e-book from there.
It worked… sort of.
But it also brought along a lot of clutter, formatting baggage, and little gremlins that made the code messy. That first attempt is usually well, messy is an accurate word here. An ebook is really just an HTML file like a webpage so it needs clean, well structured code to display properly. If the coding is messy, the “pages” can break or format unpredictably. This took me down an entirely different rabbit hole. learning how to tag !
Pixel’s Notes for Beginners
A tag is an HTML element written with angle brackets that tells the browser how to structure or display content, with the text placed between an opening and closing tag. example <p>This is my paragraph</p> the opening tag <p> and the closing tag </p> must surround the paragraph.
Paragragh tag <p></p> copy and paste into your code editor click in the middle and start typing.
Heading tags <h1></h1>
<h2></h2>
<h3></h3> copy and paste into editor click and type
Image tag
<img src=”” alt=”” /> copy and paste into editor, image file name between first set of quotes, image alt text between second set of quotes
Let’s pause for a moment and go back to the beginning. This is the point where I realized there had to be an easier way to build an ebook — but the truth is, there really isn’t a shortcut. If you want to publish an ebook, the best thing you can do is invest a little time in learning the basic code behind it. It’s far less intimidating than it looks. On day one, nothing seems to make sense; by day two, you’re moving with the momentum of a freight train.
But assembling the actual book — putting everything in order, cleaning it up, and shaping it into something readable — was surprisingly fast. Within just a few hours, I had twenty pages fully built and organized. I’ll be including a video walkthrough of the entire process when this page goes live.
In just a few minutes I built the foundation of a basic book — nowhere near finished, of course, because real completion takes time, patience, and steady work. But the important part is this: it’s doable. Fifteen minutes into that video and I already had words appearing on a e-reader’s screen. That’s proof that the process works and that I can build this, step by step.
It took a few days to reach this stage, and it still needs polish and some formatting, but getting here wasn’t difficult — just a matter of time and patience. The foundation is solid, and the rest will come together step by step.