Just ran across a mention of Vellum as the Mac go-to programme for formatting eBooks (Kindle, iBooks, Kobe, etc) and print books. I'm not seeing it available in the UK, though. It's expensive, but might be worth it. I'd love to hear from anybody who uses it, either side of The Pond. Specifically it would be fantastic if I could convert my Pages-created book directly into Vellum, rather than having to mess around with Word.
Get it! I work in Adobe InDesign which has an amazing feature list. So I'm really spoiled when it comes to typography options and whatnot. I gave Vellum a test drive some months back and I was impressed. It's no InDesign, but it's powerful and easy to learn. Vellum does things that Word can only hope to do. In fact it can do many things that InDesign does, but easier.
That's great to hear. It's kind of my initial first impression about the programme. However, when I went to try to get it here in the UK, it's not listed in the AppleApp store, and I can't find any version online that isn't sold in American dollars. I've sent the company an email this morning, asking if there was a version available to users in the UK, and also if it can convert directly from Pages to the format I'd need for KDP. I await developments. Thanks for the thumbs-up.
Yep I use vellum - i'd highly recommend it for novels - its less good for non fic with lots of pictures or diagrams you can download it here https://vellum.pub/ its free to download - you pay when you want to export books so you can play with it and see if its for you for no cost also adam croft has a free course on vellum here https://adamcroft.teachable.com/p/formatting-your-books-wi…/ that said at $249 its expensive if you only have a single book - if you are planning a career its an obvious investment (for a single book i'd be inclined to use polgarus studios who will charge you between £80-100 for the service)
I've just signed up for the course. I'm not seeing anything in the course text about Pages, though. He assumes, like everybody else seems to, that authors all work in Word. OR Scrivener. (Scream scream.) He doesn't say that Vellum won't work with Pages—and if it's a Mac-only programme, it should, as Pages is the Mac's own version of Word, with more or less the same level of features. He just doesn't mention Pages at all. We await developments. I did ask the Vellum company the question about Pages in my email to them. Anyway, thanks for the tips. This looks (pretty) good. But not if I have to get Word before I can use it.
yep and yep - you download it and pay the 'dollars' with a credit card - you'll be billed in GBP (about £180 depending on the exchange rate) you need a mac running at least el capitan (or sierra, high sierra, or mohave) - if you are running Mohave make sure you get the newest version of vellum as the older version doesn't like it .... that should be the default but its worth checking
You have to upload the file to vellum as a .docx - however pages can save a .docx file http://osxdaily.com/2014/08/06/save-pages-file-as-word-format/ It doesnt matter that you can't open the word file to check it since your final formatting will be done in vellum anyway
Yeah, I can (and have on occasion) export my files to Word, which creates a .docx file. So that should be okay. As you say, I can't read the docx file, without converting it back, so I can't check to see whether everything transfers. But I'll be doing the work in Vellum, so it doesn't matter. I'm really excited. This sounds like exactly what I was looking for. I have a version of Calibre, but it's just too complicated for me at the moment. Vellum sounds ideal. And now you and @Iain Sparrow have recommended it. Fantastic. I'll wait till I hear back from the company, then I'll download the free practice version and get started. Thanks again.
Thanks for the tip about Mojave. I was worried that there doesn't appear to be a UK version of this programme for sale (why, I wonder?), and I didn't want to get into bother by downloading one that wouldn't work here in the UK—or that isn't licensed for use in the UK. That was why I was wondering about the price being in dollars. I order stuff from the USA all the time, and pay in GBP (via card or Paypal) so that wasn't the issue. It was the license to use it here that I was concerned about.
note that the version you download is the full version... all that happens is when you buy it you get an alphanumeric key to unlock the export. I found it really easy - it did in five minutes what it took me several hours to do with jutoh. The top tip is to keep the source document simple - ie with hardly any formatting, styles etc applied, and makesure that your chapters are clearly identifiable and absolutely consistent ie if the first one is Chapter one, don't make the next Chapter :2 Also don't include back matter, sample chapters of sequels, authors notes etc in the source document - you add them into vellum as elements later. The licence to use it is global btw
You're making it sound like it's just the thing for me. I'm so glad I discovered it. It was @Lew 's recommendation of Joanna Penn's book on self publishing that put me onto it. She mentioned using Vellum to format on a Mac and my whiskers began to quiver. Heyyyyyyy....
yep thats where i got it from originally too - on the cost front although its £180 I've so far put seven books through it, his year i shall do at least 6 more and the same the year after that ... its a lifetime cost so it doesnt take long for it to only be a few quid a book. the only word of caution i'd give is that it is template based so you don't have full creative control (you have options on a lot of things but not full control to change everything) so you can't for example import fonts - it has a fairly big range but if you bizarrely had your own font designed for the cover and want to import it and use it on chapter headings, you're out of luck (some silly sod on IAM was moaning about how vellum was crap because of that)
I am so excited. Just got this back from the Vellum people. I'm away to order the programme now. Very helpful, and the link to exporting from Pages is a skoosh. Thanks so much, Iain and Moose, for giving me the confidence to do this. ..........
