iSiloX eBook Compiler

I finally got around to really sitting down and investigating the iSilo ebook software for reading and converting text into ebooks. It seems that I might have saved one of the best options for last. iSilo offers some of the best features for publishing ebooks I have yet seen.

iSiloX [Compiler] - since this blog is about epublishing I will start with iSiloX which is the compiler (the software that converts your source document into iSilo format.) iSiloX is where iSilo blows the competition away. It offers most of the features that the EReader or the paid versions of Adobe Acrobat offer but it is absolutely free software. Moreover, unlike eReader, there are no royalties to pay for publishing an ebook in iSilo format!

A quick rundown of features:

Image inclusion: Want to put pictures, drawings or cover art in your ebook? You can with iSilo.

Font support: you can use different fonts in your ebook.

Hyperlinks: You can use hyperlinks within your document. This is especially great for short story collections, anthologies and collections of poems because a reader can go straight to the story or chapter they want.

Data Compression: Documents take up less room in memory.

Character formating: Bold, italics, underline are preserved.

Optional DRM: if you really need to copy-protect your ebook you can.

iSiloX converts TXT, PalmDOC and HTML to iSilo format. It is in the conversion of HTML to iSilo that lets you include hyperlinks. As a side bonus you can also capture webpages and read them offline.

iSiloX has versions that run on either Windows or Macintosh so just about anyone can publish ebooks in iSilo format.

Why Not just PDF? A lot of people ask me 'why not just publish in PDF alone and be done with it?' While I recommend always offering a PDF version of an ebook, PDF does not work very well on a PDA. Frankly most fiction readers prefer to read their ebooks on something other than a computer or laptop. Therefore, you really should offer at least one PDA-friendly ebook format.

The support for bold and italics, images and hyperlinks are what set iSilo up over the popular PalmDOC format, which is pretty bare bones.

Is there support for this format? sBookselling giant Fictionwise offers iSilo as one of their multiformat options and the two large free book collections, Blackmask and Manybooks both offer iSilo format so there seems to be some support.