The Ubuntu Novel Project, Take Two
To prove a point, this month I decided to write, edit, layout, do the cover design, and publish a book entirely on the Ubuntu Linux operating system. I did this because I wanted to show it’s possible to write and publish a book entirely using a $200 Ubuntu desktop or laptop and the free software that comes with the Ubuntu Linux OS.
The book in question, SILENT ORDER: ECLIPSE HAND, is now completely finished, and it’s ready to be published in October with the rest of the SILENT ORDER science fiction series.
So what was the experience like?
-Ubuntu itself (specifically 16.04 Xenial Xerus) was rock-solid and gave me no trouble whatsoever. It was quick and efficient. And like everyone else in the world, I use DropBox for quick backups while working, and DropBox works just fine on Ubuntu. (In fact, I think it’s the only cloud storage provider that works flawlessly on Linux – neither Google Drive nor OneDrive nor iCloud have Linux clients.)
-LibreOffice Writer was pleasant to use as well. The layout, of course, is quite different from Microsoft Word, more reminsicent of the pre-2007 menu UI rather than the Ribbon UI that Office started using in 2007 onward. That said, the help files are good, so it isn’t a big deal.
The biggest problem I had was that I use so many made-up and custom words (a common peril of fantasy and science fiction writers) that I had to add them all manually to LibreOffice’s spell-checker. Fortunately, that is easily accomplished with a right-click.
-Unfortunately, when it comes to editing, LibreOffice Writer isn’t so good. I typically use Word’s Track Changes feature to edit books, and the equivalent in LibreOffice, just isn’t as functional. Also, I use the Grammarly plugin for Word, and there’s no equivalent for LibreOffice. That said, Grammarly does have a web editor, so I just copied and pasted individual chapters into that.
-I used Sigil to prepare the EPUB file, and it worked smoothly on Ubuntu. (If you want to learn how to lay out ebooks, you could do much worse than to open an EPUB file in Sigil and look at the underlying HTML code.)
-I used Calibre to convert the EPUB file into MOBI for Amazon. Calibre is a vital tool for any ebook reader or publisher. For instance, if a book is only available on Amazon, you can download the file from the Manage My Kindle page, convert it into EPUB in Calibre, and then sideload it onto a Nook or Kindle or iPad.
-I used The GIMP to create the cover for the book, using stock images licensed from Dreamstime.com. The GIMP has a learning curve like the Matterhorn, and it can’t do quite as many advanced things as Photoshop. But it’s free, which means you don’t have to deal with Adobe’s crazy Creative Cloud licensing scheme.
So, is it possible to write and publish a book using just free software? And it is possible to write and publish a book without spending a lot of money?
I think it is safe to say that it is. Clearly, the iPad Pro is not a better productivity tool than Ubuntu Linux.
That said, of course, you do have to spend some money. Ubuntu is free, and all the programs I listed above are free, but I the computer I ran them on isn’t free. I had to spend some money to license the stock photos from Dreamstime.com. Also, I pay for my Internet connection, electricity to run it all, etc. Learning how to use free software can be a time expense as well. I knew all this stuff already from previous IT jobs, but someone dropped into a Ubuntu desktop would have to spend some time getting their bearings.
And it’s a good idea to use the tools that work best for you. If you like writing on an iPad Pro (and you have $900 to drop on one), well, more power to you. But if you can do the job with a $200 Ubuntu desktop, there’s no reason not to use it instead of a far more expensive tool.
Would I do this again? Definitely. All the free software worked well, and it was pleasant to look at something other than Microsoft Word while writing. A little variety never hurts. Though when I do this again, I think I’ll write the book in LibreOffice and edit it in Word.
-JM