Welcome back; by now you should have chosen your format and are now ready to decide what tools you want to use to create your book. There are many to choose from and I’ve narrowed things down to the best of the best.

Web Apps and WordPress Plugins

There are loads of web-based applications and if you use WordPress for your website you can also use it to write your book using one of a number of plugins.

Pressbooks

Pressbooks is much like WordPress in looks but it is, in fact, a completely different website altogether. However, if you have some experience with WordPress then you won’t have too much trouble using Pressbooks to add chapters to your book, edit what you write, change a section, add a new one and more. Pressbooks is a free app to use but unless you upgrade to a paid subscription, a one-off payment of $19.99, the Pressbooks watermark will be on your eBook.

Beacon

Beacon is a popular WordPress Plugin that can transform blog posts into an eBook. It's up to you which of your posts you choose or you can use the category filter to make things easier. The posts will be converted to PDF or HTML 5 and there are also plenty of layout and book cover features to take advantage of. It’s a free plugin but you will need to sign up for a free account at beacon.by.

Google Docs

Google Docs is one of the easiest ways of writing content and converting it into PDF format and is completely free. All you do is type your content in and choose whichever font you want to use. It will sync with Google Drive so, regardless of the device, provided you have an internet connection, you can work on your book anywhere, anytime.

Zinepal

Zinepal is another platform that lets you convert blog posts into eBook content or start writing from scratch. However, if you only sign up for a free account there will be a Zinepal link on every page in your book. To get rid of this, sign up to a Pro account, starting at $5 for one book; this also gives you other features like publishing your book to Scribd.

PublishXpress

PublishXpress is a conversion tool online. It will take multiple formats, including TXT HTML, PDF, RTF, DOCX, and DJVU and convert them into EPUB or Mobi formats. This is a great tool if your book is written already and you just want it converted for an e-reader format. It is free but be careful to check your converted text for any issues.

Well, that’s the list of online tools that you can use. There are many more but these offer the best features even if you have to pay a little to get the best. If you prefer to work offline, in part 3 we’ll be discussing desktop applications that you can use to write an eBook. For most, you can simply use the offline tool and your book will be ready but depending on what format you want, you may have to use an online conversion tool first.