Editing and publishing ebooks

How to create   e-books   and which platforms you can choose on line

This post is about my recent EVO 2016 e-book session  - you  can see more details online   http://ebookevo.pbworks.com/w/page/70262228/Welcome

 I have just learnt how to approach writing, editing and publishing an e-book.
After considering the type of book I wanted to write and brainstorming content and main topics of the book I had to think about which e-book creator I wanted to use. I had never written an e-book before so I had to try the different platforms online. I wanted to try something which was free so I tried to work on some of the  tools  which   were  suggested by Shelly Sanchez and the tutors in the course.
I had already bookmarked this collection thanks to Pearltress- www.pearltrees.com/  :

Book Creators, by smberdaxagar

Then I used what the tutors in the course had  suggested us. I tried the following  platforms- before using them I had to create an account, I chose a free account for all the e-book creators on line.

1)             http://issuu.com


It is free- if you want you can upgrade to have more services- but the free account  offers the basic functions. You can  edit an e-book in an easy way: just upload the pdf document/or the document that you created online by using also Google slides  and  any link and videos which you chose in the book will appear. The  book  will be published in a short time. The document can be deleted if you are not happy with the final output.  You have unlimited  number of documents which can be uploaded. The ebook can be shared on line and can be embedded in your website.
This is my first attempt: to read it just click on Read now then click on the first image and move the pages  : you will have more pages and the links for the websites and videos will open online
http://issuu.com/tizianaangiolini/docs/copia_di_english_on__line_evo_e-boo/1

The book can be shared on line on Social Networks and you can send the links to  people. It is a pity that it cannot be printed or downloaded. You should therefore have a backup copy of the book as you might lose the book once the publisher closes down.  


2)         www.free.yudu.com

I was able to upload a first document online and it seemed to work as I could  have links and videos which opened - this is a trial for my lesson about the Holocaust :


http://free.yudu.com/item/details/3684497/The-Holocaust----Teaching--Unit--January--2016large

I uploaded a pdf file and it worked for the first document. I could not upload  the second one.  It cannot be downloaded, people need to read it online  and you need to keep a file of the book in your computer if the publisher does not  offer the service anymore.

3)     Widbook                        https://www.widbook.com

This is a nice  tool but you need to work on line.  You can change your chapters and what I liked  were the videos which can be seen in the book . You can have the links which open easily. You need to keep the main notes of the links and of anything that you write because if you upload the pdf it will not be easy to work on the pages which you want to edit. 
If you want to collaborate with another  person you can do it but  the person needs to have an account.  You can embed the book in your  website/ blog.  You  cannot download the e.-book.





4)      http://fliphtml5.com/


This is a nice tool online.  I have tried to upoload my presentation for an EVO CLIL lesson. I had edited the document by using Google docs, then I uploaded the document as pdf. The document can be seen here embedded, it can be seen online and you can enable students to  download it as  a pdf.
For another document I could not have the links open, in this case I was able to get links to videos, my padlets and also all the documents online.
The basic account offers you to publish/upload 1,000 uploads per month, there is also a storage which is  20 Giga for a free account. 






To conclude I would say that both  Issuu  and  Flipthlm5 are great tools. Flipthlm5 has also a bookcase where you can embed your e-books and showcase it in your website.  Fliphthlm5 is better because students can also download the e-book in  pdf.

This is the link to my    bookcase   on  line  :                                                                                                                               http://fliphtml5.com/bookcase/zgts

I will try  to use  both  of them and I will share the  links but the material which I am going to use for my first e-book  will be saved in pdf and online thanks to Google slides and Google docs.

I hope that more free e-book creators will help me develop the e-book I am still trying to write.  All these tools do not offer much interaction so I will have to create activities in the cloud and also support for my students.  I think that only  a good LMS can help us devise all the tasks which  I have in mind and which cannot be covered while  reading and studying by using an e-book.























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