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Book Publishing - Scrivener or purchase used Mac + Vellum?

7K views 29 replies 24 participants last post by  RayBright 
#1 ·
I've almost got my first two books in my first series completed and starting to look toward getting them published. 

I am a windows guy.  All of my software is windows, to include my practice management software that runs my law practice and bills my clients. 

For those that have published book with both Scrivener and Vellum, is it worth it to purchase a mac just to purchase vellum?  Have any of you had to go this route?  I know some have used the web workaround.  That's not what I'm talking about.

Since the rest of my world, to include my prime income stream at this time, is windows-based, the mac would only be used for the vellum software.  This isn't a matter of switching over to being a Mac guy. 
 
#2 ·
I think you're much better off learning to format instead of relying on cookie-cutter software.

But if you like cookie cutters, why not try Kindle Create? At least one author on the KDP forums has only good stuff to say about it. It's true that he or she is in the minority, but if one person can make a success of it, why not two?

 
#3 ·
I'm totally a Windows person, and I always have been. But I bought a MacBook Pro just so I could run Vellum and the Mac version of Scrivener, and I've always been extremely happy with my choice. Vellum creates beautiful books, quickly and easily, and although it's not super customizable, you're guaranteed a book that looks neat and professional.
 
#4 ·
It seems like a little bit of a stretch to buy a Mac just to use Vellum. There's also Jutoh. Or you could do the Mac Online thing as Vellum is so easy to use that you'd be in and out in a flash. Or there's also the draft2digital thing, they upped their game a lot on formatting. Scrivener isn't a great option for creating ebooks. It creates them, but with little or no control and some things can be downright irritating to do with it. You're just as well off going with docx and converting in calibre.
 
#5 ·
Depends on where you want to print and how picky you are about formatting.

If you want to put in the time and effort you can use DIY software like Calibre or Sigil.

Draft2Digital is free. You don't have to be a D2D user. And it's good for ebooks and print. But it's not the same quality as Vellum

Kindle Create. There were issues with file size but I've read stories where that's no longer an issue. But it's supposed to be close to Vellum quality and free. Only problem is it's only for Kindle ebooks. It doesn't work for paperbacks or Apple, Kobo, etc.

Vellum is probably the best software but you need a Mac and you have to pay $200. I'm really picky and I want to sell paperback and eventually go wide so I'll probably end up using Vellum.
 
#6 ·
Speaker-To-Animals said:
It seems like a little bit of a stretch to buy a Mac just to use Vellum. There's also Jutoh. Or you could do the Mac Online thing as Vellum is so easy to use that you'd be in and out in a flash. Or there's also the draft2digital thing, they upped their game a lot on formatting. Scrivener isn't a great option for creating ebooks. It creates them, but with little or no control and some things can be downright irritating to do with it. You're just as well off going with docx and converting in calibre.
Scrivener has its faults, especially on the PC, but I never had a single glitch in ebook creation when I was using it. If someone needs control over something Scrivener doesn't provide, I'd recommend exporting an epub and making whatever changes you want in Sigil. PC Scrivener didn't do internal links as well as I would have liked, so I just added them in Sigil.

Vellum is a great program, though you're right--buying a Mac just to use it seems like a big expense. I already had an old Macbook that works just fine for the purpose. I now compose in Word for the PC and format in Vellum. However, Vellum isn't a must-have in the sense that we all managed before without having drop caps in our ebooks. As NotJohn suggested, most people could probably learn their way around formatting themselves. Vellum is a good option, though, for people who want a consistent (and very decorative) result without having to learn the level of programming that would be necessary for DIY. However, Vellum Print does things, like handling justification and spread balancing more effectively than most people could do on their own.

Let's keep in mind that, although some people have good results with it, Calibre was designed to allow readers to copy their books into other formats. Unless something has changed, it wasn't designed for writers to format their ebooks. I believe there used to be a disclaimer to that effect right on the site. I also know some people have had difficulties creating an epub that would pass validation tests. That's not really a problem for a writer who's in Select, but it could be a headache for someone going wide.
 
#7 ·
Let's keep in mind that, although some people have good results with it, Calibre was designed to allow readers to copy their books into other formats. Unless something has changed, it wasn't designed for writers to format their ebooks. I believe there used to be a disclaimer to that effect right on the site. I also know some people have had difficulties creating an epub that would pass validation tests. That's not really a problem for a writer who's in Select, but it could be a headache for someone going wide.
Most of the issues went away when they added the docx converter for input. It's much better than converting from html
 
#9 ·
You could, of  course, pay someone to format the book for you. My guess is that it would take having ten or more books formatted before you would have spent what it would cost to buy a mac.
The other option is to format in Word. It is very straightforward and although it might not look quite as pretty, it is perfectly possible to get a perfectly adequate e-book or paperback formatted in Word for no extra cost and upload straight from Word.
 
#11 ·
A Fading Street said:
You could, of course, pay someone to format the book for you. My guess is that it would take having ten or more books formatted before you would have spent what it would cost to buy a mac.
The other option is to format in Word. It is very straightforward and although it might not look quite as pretty, it is perfectly possible to get a perfectly adequate e-book or paperback formatted in Word for no extra cost and upload straight from Word.
You can get a Mac Mini for a decent price, or a used MacBook on ebay or Kijiji for a greatly reduced cost. I just bought a 15" MBP a couple of years old for about half of what I would have paid if I'd bought it new.
 
#12 ·
I've been self publishing for nearly a year now and I've used Vellum since day one. I have five books out and a 6th on the way. At first I used Mac in cloud, which yes was a PITA but it worked, which is what mattered. I didn't even realize that it was such a PITA until, many months later when I bought a Mac and used Vellum on that instead which was simpler.

I know there are all kinds of different ways to format, and also paying for formatting, but I decided to go ahead and invest in Vellum from day one. I figured it would pay for itself over the years, which it already has. I'm happy I'm not paying someone and doing it myself because I can go in and update the front/back matter at a moment's notice and up load quickly. I have it for print now too. *cue choir of angels*

I didn't want to bother learning any of the other more DIY ways to format because I had zero interest in the time suck and I feel my time could be better spent elsewhere.

Also, my Vellum books format beautifully every time.

So I vote for used Mac and Vellum- lots of authors who are Windows based and want to stay this way do this. I went for it and eventually invested in a new MacBook and switched over to Mac only (and love it!).
 
#13 ·
I've formatted 50+ books with the Mac in Cloud option via Vellum. I've also done Word templates, InDesign, Scrivener and custom pro formatting.

Pro formatting is useful in certain cases and can add a custom "branding" touch to your books that Vellum cannot. It is, however, expensive (~$150 or so a book if you want a slick looking interior). Scrivener, Word and InDesign all pale in comparison to Vellum, and I'm super happy I will never have to use any of them to ever format a single eBook again.

Using the remote Mac isn't great, but Vellum is so good that it makes up for it. I would never use anything else; it's painless, intuitive, and generates a file that always works with every single platform with zero troubleshooting, ever. Vellum is easily the best $250 I've ever spent in self-publishing and might be the best designed program I've ever used. It's cheaper than a good many of the options, and the time savings alone make it worth the trouble. And it is worth buying a Mac for, even if that's the only program you ever use. I would get a Mac Mini for $400, or a used MacBook Air. I'm probably going to switch from the cloud option eventually, since it's way cheaper. I have zero interest in using a Mac for anything else; Vellum is just that good.

The only caveats are if you need to print paperbacks bigger than 6 x 9, or write non-fiction with extensive footnotes and so forth. Vellum isn't built for non-fiction. Otherwise, for novels and so forth, it cannot be beat.

Nick
 
#14 ·
Michael, I think I'm much like you. Die-hard Windows and PC user. There are three other options if you're just getting started out that you didn't mention:

1. Just use Word. If you're publishing novels, you can format using Styles in Word and upload to all the sites and have a perfectly decent ebook. It won't have drop caps or pretty section breaks, but it's perfectly functional. (And I removed all drop caps from my titles after I saw how they appeared on some older devices so that benefit of fancy formatting was lost on me.)

2. Use Pronoun to create a nicely-formatted file. (You download it right before you hit publish and it will say something about Pronoun on the title page, but it's an easy way to have a file with the same basic thrills you'll get from Vellum.)

3. Use D2D to create a nicely-formatted file. (Same as above. On the third screen, you can download the .epub and .mobi files.)

This year I ended up buying a used Mac for $250 and buying Vellum and converting my files over using it after three years of just using Word files. I only use that Mac for Vellum, but I had fifty-plus files to convert so it was worth the expense to me. I'd never hire out formatting because I like to be able to update files easily if I find a typo or there are links I want to update. Even having to use the Mac is a bit annoying to me and there's some versioning issues if you've done a lot of formatting on the file, so there's a part of me that wishes I'd just stuck with Word docs, but I had some conversion issue on some of my files that kept them from being eligible for Overdrive and it was also helpful to have those standalone files to provide for the StoryBundle.

I poked around at Calibre and Sigil, etc. but the learning curve was just too high. Vellum, especially if you're using it for novels and you format your .docx file before you load it, is very very easy to use. (As an aside, I don't like its print version and only use it for books I don't think will sell much in print.)
 
#15 ·
Michele_Mills said:
I've been self publishing for nearly a year now and I've used Vellum since day one. I have five books out and a 6th on the way. At first I used Mac in cloud, which yes was a PITA but it worked, which is what mattered. I didn't even realize that it was such a PITA until, many months later when I bought a Mac and used Vellum on that instead which was simpler.

I know there are all kinds of different ways to format, and also paying for formatting, but I decided to go ahead and invest in Vellum from day one. I figured it would pay for itself over the years, which it already has. I'm happy I'm not paying someone and doing it myself because I can go in and update the front/back matter at a moment's notice and up load quickly. I have it for print now too. *cue choir of angels*

I didn't want to bother learning any of the other more DIY ways to format because I had zero interest in the time suck and I feel my time could be better spent elsewhere.

Also, my Vellum books format beautifully every time.

So I vote for used Mac and Vellum- lots of authors who are Windows based and want to stay this way do this. I went for it and eventually invested in a new MacBook and switched over to Mac only (and love it!).
I echo Michele here. I went the route of an emulator installed on my pc at first to run Vellum and that was a real pain. After that, I picked up a MacBook Air and it is my new best friend. This coming from a diehard PC user, who I guess, died hard. I also used a chromebook for years for web browsing and I think that helped me bridge the gap between PC to Mac. I've achieved a smooth workflow between Dropbox, Scrivener, Grammarly, Vellum and Depositphotos+Gimp for covers. One stop shop.
 
#16 ·
There's also the consideration if you ever wanted to go wide and upload directly to iBooks. From what I've researched, and tried, as a PC user, Mac in Cloud does not work to upload to iBooks. It requires you to install something and you need the administrator password to do so, which is not given.

So if you ever think you'll want to upload direct, a Mac is a good investment.
 
#17 ·
Speaker-To-Animals said:
Most of the issues went away when they added the docx converter for input. It's much better than converting from html
That's good to know. I haven't tried using it recently.
 
#18 ·
Anna Lace said:
I echo Michele here. I went the route of an emulator installed on my pc at first to run Vellum and that was a real pain. After that, I picked up a MacBook Air and it is my new best friend. This coming from a diehard PC user, who I guess, died hard. I also used a chromebook for years for web browsing and I think that helped me bridge the gap between PC to Mac. I've achieved a smooth workflow between Dropbox, Scrivener, Grammarly, Vellum and Depositphotos+Gimp for covers. One stop shop.
My experience was similar, except that I stuck with my PC for most things. With a wireless network and something like Dropbox to exchange files between the Mac and the PC, it' surprisingly easy to have a smooth workflow between the two devices. It's not quite seamless, but it gives me the best of both worlds.
 
#19 ·
You really don't need Vellum. I spent my first two years of publishing formatting with D2D and Calibre and my books looked fine. In fact, I prefer my previous formatting as I could do a lot of things I can't go in Vellum, like internal links. I bought Vellum to use on my husband's computer bc it was supposed to break PageFlip, but that is no longer the case, do I'm only using it bc I've already converted everything to Vellum.

If you don't like Macs, you won't like Vellum. It's very Mac like in the way it does a few things very well, but does nothing else, and does this things in a way that isn't always intuitive.

I use the PC Scrivner to write and I've never had problems.
 
#20 ·
I do have a Mac and use Vellum but there are other options. For fiction I can't recommend it more. Nothing touches it, but I'd say it's only worth the investment in a whole new OS and hardward if you are really selling well or if you are struggling a lot with formatting.

As others mentioned, Caliber is good and free. As long as you have a well-formatted .docx or .rtf it'll convert it to a solid if basic epub and mobi. You only need to make sure you have your chapter headings listed correctly and Caliber will format it for you. I used it for a couple of years, pre-Mac, and I have no real complaints.

Reedsy's formatting software is pretty good, although they were ironing out some bugs 2-3 months ago. Worth a try, though.

Kindle Create looks good, but I haven't tried it personally. Looks like it may work someowhat like Vellum.

If you're also struggling for print, if you sell a lot of paperbacks the Mac/Vellum purchase may be worth it, as that really does save a ton of time. Sooooo much easier than the Ingram / Createspace templates.
 
#22 ·
I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I have a related question. I'm not a Mac guy at all. I know nothing about them.

I checked Vellum for system requirements and they call out the following:

Vellum requires a Mac running one of these versions of macOS:
macOS El Capitan (10.11)
macOS Sierra (10.12)
macOS High Sierra (10.13)

Are those versions pretty standard at this point? Or is that something I need to be aware of? I see some older Macs on Amazon, but they don't always specify the OS or just say X Leopard. (for ex.: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MB417LL-20-Inch-Desktop-2-66GHz/dp/B001U0OGQS/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1509388649&sr=1-4&keywords=apple) I don't want to get an old Mac and find I need to spend $$$ on new OS or, worse, it can't handle these versions. Thanks!
 
#23 ·
David Peterson said:
Are those versions pretty standard at this point? Or is that something I need to be aware of? I see some older Macs on Amazon, but they don't always specify the OS or just say X Leopard. (for ex.: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MB417LL-20-Inch-Desktop-2-66GHz/dp/B001U0OGQS/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1509388649&sr=1-4&keywords=apple) I don't want to get an old Mac and find I need to spend $$$ on new OS or, worse, it can't handle these versions. Thanks!
That iMac can run macOS El Capitan (10.11) but not any newer versions.
 
#24 ·
Crystal_ said:
You really don't need Vellum. I spent my first two years of publishing formatting with D2D and Calibre and my books looked fine. In fact, I prefer my previous formatting as I could do a lot of things I can't go in Vellum, like internal links. I bought Vellum to use on my husband's computer bc it was supposed to break PageFlip, but that is no longer the case, do I'm only using it bc I've already converted everything to Vellum.

If you don't like Macs, you won't like Vellum. It's very Mac like in the way it does a few things very well, but does nothing else, and does this things in a way that isn't always intuitive.

I use the PC Scrivner to write and I've never had problems.
The bolded part isn't necessarily true. I'm a PC guy, but I also like Vellum. I'd agree, though, that there are other alternatives. People who like total control would probably have problems with the fact that Vellum doesn't allow everything to be customized, just as you suggest.

I would think Vellum would save time for people who are wide because it can create a different version for each major store with the correct store links to other books. It also adapts to the slightly different specs on each platform, though, since D2D users don't report any problems with the D2D generic epub, that particular feature may not have that much significance.

I don't remember if nonfiction has been mentioned here, but Vellum isn't very supportive of it. There is no support for footnotes, endnotes, or bibliography, all of which you'd have to do manually. That's not the end of the world, but it does make the process less automated than it can be with fiction.
 
#25 ·
Vellum is probably my number one piece of indie publishing software.
I would never go back to any other method.

Also, as has been noted, a Mac gets you access to direct uploads to iBooks, and the better version of Scrivener. Which makes a Mac a pretty decent investment for an indie publisher/author.
 
#26 ·
Bill Hiatt said:
The bolded part isn't necessarily true. I'm a PC guy, but I also like Vellum. I'd agree, though, that there are other alternatives.
I agree that you can dislike the Mac pretty intensely and still like Vellum. I got a MacBook thinking I'd use it for both the "better" Scrivener and Vellum. All the propaganda about how intuitive the things are is IMO what my mother used to call donkey dust. And after a couple tries at better Scriv, I abandoned it and went back to Windows Scriv. However, once I'm in the Vellum program I'm fine and can almost forget how much I dislike the machine it's on.
 
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