Self-Publish Your Own Free eBook in Minutes!

At Ourboox, we have created the world’s simplest self-publishing platform allowing anyone to create beautiful picture books online in minutes. Here are the basic instructions. With Ourboox you can create amazing page-flipping ebooks that incorporate text, pictures, videos and much more, all for free.

First, if you haven’t already, please sign up. Add your name (it will appear on your books), your e-mail and a password. Make sure you read and agree to the terms of service. Join!

Are you ready to start? Just choose “Create a Book“. You might have to log in first.

Type the title of your book in the space provided. You can change it later. Press “Next”.

Now you can choose either the ‘square book’ or the ‘pdf’ format.

The square picture book format is our most popular format. It allows you to add, on any given page, either text (up to about 15 lines per page, you can copy-paste or type it), or artwork. If you press artwork, a window will open where you can drag and drop jpeg images, gif, png images and you can select the one you want for the given page.

In the textbook format, you just drag in your PDF and it becomes a text book.

There are x signs on the right side for deleting pages, and + signs for adding pages. Sometimes you have to hover to see them.

You can click on “New Page” to add pages. Be sure to ‘save’ often.

Tip: I usually drag and drop all my jpeg images or png at the same time into the window and they are ready to be selected in whatever order I subsequently choose. Don’t forget that you must own the text and artwork that you upload. Many of our contributors use photos that they have taken themselves.

If you want to add a video, map, quiz, puzzle, you can select the source code button (<>) and copy in the embed code from any website that allows you to embed content (youtube, soundcloud, Google forms, Google maps, quizlet, padlet and many more).

At any stage, you can click on the ‘cover & info’ button at the top and then do several important things:

Type a description of your book (the description helps people search and find your book).

Click on “Book cover” to upload your cover.  The artwork window opens up and you can drag and drop the jpeg of your cover. Here is a book explaining how you can make a great cover for free or one dollar:

http://www.ourboox.com/books/how-to-make-your-own-book-cover-in-five-minutes-and-save-one-thousand-dollars/

Choose one or more categories, and the language your book is in.

If your book is in a right-to-left language (such as Hebrew or Arabic) you should check on the appropriate box.

Don’t forget to write a few words about the book in the description box. This meta text in HTML5 is very important for the visibility of your book by search engines.

At any stage, you can press the “preview” button in the lower right corner and have a look at how the book will look.

When you’re finished, make sure you’ve saved changes. Your book is now ready to publish!

Keep in mind that at any time, you can go back and make corrections, add or remove text or pictures. Even after you’ve published!

Each published book appears in the Ourboox library. Each book has its own URL which you can share on Facebook and Twitter, in your blog, etc.  This is the time to share your book and tell the world!  You can also embed it using the embed code! The content is also easily accessed and ranked by search engines.

Good luck! if you have any questions, you can contact us through this form

or e-mail me directly [email protected]

Good luck and welcome to Ourboox, the world’s simplest platform for self-publishing amazing eBooks in picture book and textbook format!!