people who will do a solid enough job. Careful though: do not assume you’ll also get a quality eBook conversion out of the deal, as many graphic designers simply lack the expertise. EXPENSIVE ROUTE The other alternative is to hire a real pro. More than any other part of the book creation process, except maybe editing, there’s a huge gap between good interior layout designers and mediocre ones. If you hire a bad editor, they’re worse than useless. If you hire a great editor, they can completely transform your book. Same goes with interior layout. The problem with the expensive freelancers in this space isn’t their quality; the quality is good. The problem is the price and the turn- around time. Because they’re in an industry with so little competition, they’re able to move slowly and charge a lot. But if you just care about someone doing a great job, the few freelancers you can find here do excellent work. DESIGNING THE EBOOK Compared to the horror of designing your print interior, designing an eBook is actually pretty straightforward. Unlike the manual work and design aesthetic that need to go into a print book, creating eBooks is mostly coding work and a lot of it is automated. The cost is lower, and the results are more consistent. UNDERSTANDING EBOOK FILE FORMATS There are two standard eBook file formats that you’ll see. EPUB (book.epub) is the universal standard, and is used by Apple iBook, Nook, Kobo, and most other eBook retailers. These files are a little more customizable, have a little more flexibility for design, and are frankly just easier to use. 302 · ThE SCriBE METhOD