How do YOU make an ebook?

I'm considering getting into the ebook game as I expand my artistic offerings. I contacted two pro guys from NPN who gave me their preferred ways of making their ebooks and based on their responses and some googling, it appears there are many ways to go about it. So, I'm wondering what everyone here uses and how they go about it. I see Adobe has a nice suite of software for making high-end publications but that software is crazy expensive when a simple word processor and Adobe Acrobat Pro will suffice.

Also, wondering how many of you have your works used on ereaders like the ipad/nook/kindle etc. It's my understanding that .PDF's can be read in all 3 but any information would be helpful.

Also, I have a mac if that changes anything

- Luke

Open Office (open source software) has a word processor that's great & compatible with Microsoft Word. You could develop your ebook there, then convert to a PDF file. If you already have a word processor that allows embedding of images, you won't need anything else to create the books. There are lots of free and low cost plugins that allow you to create and edit PDF files, without having to buy Acrobat Pro. They act as a printer driver & you can take any document that you can print and send it to the PDF creator. It will render the document just as if you printed it, except in PDF format. The iPhone & iPad will read PDFs with no problem.

Programming and publishing a book as an app for iPad/iPhone is a huge hassle for those of us who aren't programmers by trade. There's a lot more to it than just creating pages using jpegs or PDFs. You have to become an Apple developer, program the app and then go through an extensive publishing process. Even if you use a pre-made app template, there's still a lot to learn. I wish it were as simple as laying out the pages and submitting. Alas...

Max

Max,

Thanks for the comment - I wasn't really talking about making it an "app" just making it readable as a .pdf on the iPhone or iPad or similar ereader