Vellum

Vellum does not seem to do footnotes, something which would be necessary for non-fiction books. If I am wrong (I hope) please correct me.

Vellum has changed my life. Time is money, and the money saved by the time it takes to create beautiful printable reliable books far outweighs the price of this software. I am using it to create text books as well and look forward to updates that will better reflect that capacity such as Figures in Table of contents etc. I can’t recommend Vellum enough as the ultimate text processing app, and not just for ebooks, where it leads other software for usability, simplicity and timeliness.

There's a lot of bilious ire directed at this software in the comments, which is misplaced. Yes, it's expensive. Yes, you can use other software or hand-code the things yourself if you want — and I've done both of those in the past. But if you need to semi-regularly produce attractive it-just-works ebooks in a variety of formats, then Vellum is exceptionally good and a massive time-saver.

I can produce a perfectly-functioning ebook in multiple formats from a Word file in about twenty minutes using this software, depending on how many import glitches arise from the original doc. There is no other piece of software that comes remotely close to that speed or ease of use. When muttering about the cost, factor in your own billable time. When you do that, Vellum very rapidly pays for itself even at an admittedly high price.

The developers are responsive, and constantly adding improvements. It's also rock solid as a piece of software — a professional tool that's FAR easier to use than any of the alternatives. I'm giving it 4 stars because, sure, I would have loved to have paid $99 instead. But for fast, reliable and WYSIWYG creation of ebooks, there's nothing like it.

If the price isn't worth t to you, fine — don't buy it. Hand-tool your books, and deal with the problems caused by multiple formats and idiosyncratic HTML. But don't trash Vellum until you've spent a while working with it.

MacUpdate currently lists this new version 2.0 as $29.99, but now there are only two purchase levels: $199.99 and $249.99.

There's apparently no way to create an ebook for test purposes,...unless you've got $200 lying around you don't need.

Looks like 180g is only targeting the high volume publishers, not the occasional user.. They lost this potential customer.

I'm upvoting the similar software listed above. Forget it, Vellum.

Prohibitively expensive for its targeted audience and users. Especially when compared to iBooks Author and Scrivener. Maybe I'd give this a shot for USD 29.99... but please not only ONE book.

Nice app. Good to middling interface. Just one thing: Creatives are NOT walking ATMs for app developers to (ab)use. There's lots of competition and I end up hand-coding some stuff anyway. Now if this app makes me coffee in the morning and serves up a brandy at night, maybe it'll be worth it. As it is, it's deleted off my HD and I'm moving on to other apps that actually have a much fairer, reasonable and logical pricing scheme.

It seems a more than decent software but when I was ready to buy it I found out its indecent pricing structure. A way Adobe would charge, although it doesn't look a good choice when you don't have a monopoly like Adobe has and there are some few great free alternatives in the market.

Yes, it's elegant and capable software. I would love to use it. But,... Apparently it does not accept graphics or images. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.) Lacking these, it's a show-stopper for me under any price plan.

If you are creative enough to write a book, you should be smart enough to use the app iBooksAuthor, which gives you all the tools to publish an attractive book.

While I would tend to agree with the criticisms being laid at the developer regarding its business model, none of the critics are completely honest and accurate in their critiques, hence their comments are misleading. A quick visit to the developer's home page explains the pricing structure in better detail: Unlimited $299.99 10 Books $149.99 ($15 / book) 1 Book $49.99 So, you can either view this as a $300 application that creates an unlimited amount eBooks without a per book price; or you can view this as a $50 per book application; but neither of those interpretations would be correct and complete, because the developer gives you to choice of choosing one or the other, which means both. Hence, to only state that the software is offered for sale on a per book basis is false and misleading. I think reviewers should be more responsible about what they say, because some people actually believe incorrect information, rather than investigating the facts for themselves, like I did, since I was so intrigued by such a business model.

As an update for one of my previous comments... The new prices are pills thats much easier to swallow although still a bit pricey but you've taken your customers number one tip and made it possible to create unlimited books as should have been there from the beginning. Better late than never. Now people can take this beautiful app seriously. Keep it going

I cannot believe that this app is proposed on a per book basis!!! Follow a free suggestion: place a fixed, simple and honest price to buy this app, otherwise nobody, let me repeat: NO-BO-DY will buy it! Please note that with this price strategy many people even will not evaluate the app.

Licensed on a per book basis? What are you thinking? Ever heard of iBooks and calibre, both of which are free? Sorry, it's nice looking… but I prefer writing in Scrivener, and then creating the book in iBook or calibre or an ePub engine.