Open Source Ecosystems

= eBook Toolchain Templates

This is a simple test of various open-source or otherwise freely available toolchains for producing ebooks.

This is by no means a comprehensive survey. Tools that are demonstrated here probably share all of the following qualities:

open-source or public domain
source files may be stored in a non-proprietary text format
entire ebook project is suited to version control (i.e. no reliance on binaries that would need to be merged or regenerated)

== Calibre: generating EPUB {Calibre}[http://calibre-ebook.com] is a free and open source e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books.

=== Key Software Requirements Install the {Calibre}[http://calibre-ebook.com/download] application on your system, including command-line tools. Additional software for converting markdown source files are installed as ruby gems. See calibre/Gemfile and install with bundler by running bundle.

=== Sample Template The ./calibre folder contains the sample book project setup to build with Calibre.

== pandoc: generating EPUB or PDF {pandoc}[http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/] is the open-source swiss-army knife for convert files from one markup format into another. Amongst the many formats supported are the ones we're interseted in: EPUB and PDF.

=== Key Software Requirements Install the {pandoc}[http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/installing.html] binaries on your system. Note that additional LaTeX software may be required for your platform for PDF production.

=== Sample Template The ./pandoc folder contains the sample book project setup to build with pandoc.

== epubbery: generating EPUB {epubbery}[https://rubygems.org/gems/epubbery] converts plain text files into EPUB books.

=== Key Software Requirements All software is installed as ruby gems. See epubbery/Gemfile and install with bundler by running bundle.

=== Sample Template The ./epubbery folder contains the sample book project setup to build with epubbery. This is a very bare example right now.

== kindlegen: generating Mobi from EPUB {KindleGen}[http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000765211] is a command line tool provided by Amazon which can produce KF8 and Mobi format files from a variety of source formats including HTML, XHTML or EPUB.

== Live Examples Found in the Wild There's a growing number of authors who write in public. Sometimes that even means we get to see the mechanics of how books are made! Here are some live examples that are interesting studies of how to put together a complex ebook project:

{Developing Backbone.js Applications}[https://github.com/addyosmani/backbone-fundamentals], written by Addy Osmani and {published by O'Reilly}[http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025344.do].
{Pro Git}[https://github.com/progit/progit], written by Scott Chacon and {published by Apress}[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1430218339?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1430218339&linkCode=as2&tag=git-sfconservancy-20].

== Other Tools

{Apple iBook Author}[http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/] - if you want to just publish to iTunes bookstore.
{Sigil EPUB Editor}[http://code.google.com/p/sigil/] - a great little tool for directly creating and editing EPUB files.
{Scrivener 2}[http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php] - a complete writing studio, including ebook export. It's a commercial tool, but the small license fee is probably well worth it if you are a serious professional writer.

Software reviews:

{MobileRead Wiki Book authoring software review}[http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Book_authoring_software] - pretty comprehensive coverage of all the options.
{TopTenREVIEWS 2013 eBook Software Products}[http://ebooks-software-review.toptenreviews.com/] - commercial software comparisons.

== Contributing to eBook Toolchains

Contributions are most welcome! If you have examples of using other tools, or improvements to the existing examples, please do think about adding to this collection.

Simply fork the repository, make your changes and send a pull-request.

== Copyright