Your book is finally ready for the world. The publish step is probably the most fun and quickiest. Lacuna Books produces three types of files— HTML, EPUB, and PDF. HTML version is styled in a book format and can be easily shared with others. EPUB file needs to be downloaded and read on a computer or mobile device, and PDF can be printed or read on a tablet.

Click the Publish button top right corner of the Content Editor.

This brings up a modal window for customizing your cover page. This step is designed so that your book cover contains correct information and looks good.

Figure 4-18 Publish options window allows you to customize details like the order of authors and title appearance.

• Authors to display: If no change is made, the authors in your Team page are listed in alphabetical order. If you want to change the order or add someone who is not using Lacuna Books, enter the person's name and add. Switch the order as necessary.
• Prefix phrase: This optional text adds a phrase in front of the author's name. Try adding something like "Written by" and preview it in the Cover Preview window.
• Title HTML: In case the automatic line breaks look awkward, you can add HTML tags to the title so that you control exactly how the title appears. For example, A Book about <br>Lacuna Books ensures that there's a line break after "about". Without this option, it will appear A Book about Lacuna / Books where the slash is a line break.

You can play around with these options by previewing the changes in the right window. When you're ready, enter a brief description and press Let's do this button. The description is for your information only and is not displayed to your readers. It can be updated later in the Publication page.

The  modal window will indicate that it has been submitted. Close the modal window and go to the Publication page. Depending on the length of your book, the publish process may take 1 to 5 minutes. You will get an email when it's ready for viewing.

When you publish your book, don't forget to change the status of your book to Published. It's in the General Info page.

This page has links to your latest HTML and EPUB books and previously published books. The history table has extra information such as published date, description, status of publishing job, and the published person. The edition flag indicates that the book is a major edition and needs to be accessible by readers. Your readers can get to the previous editions by going to the Edition page from the HTML book.

Figure 4-19 Publication page has a list of previously published books with download links.

The HTML book (probably the one you're reading now) is using Classic theme. It's designed to be classic, simple, and clean, appropriate for any type of materials. I have plans for other themes more targeted to the nature of its content such as reference/manual, screenplay, or recipes.

Classic theme is using Palatino in body text, Big Caslon in heading text, Baskerville as drop cap, and Lucida Grande for sans serif text such as image caption.

The top navigation bar contains links to the Cover page, a modal window for Table of Contents, and Editions page. You browse from page to page via previous and next navigation links on each side of the page.

Let me first show you how you can transfer the file to iPad or iPhone using iTunes. From the Publication page, download your EPUB book to your computer. In iTunes (currently version 10), go to Books section and drag-and-drop the EPUB file in the iTunes window. Alternatively, go to File > Add to Library... and select the EPUB file. The book should appear in the listing. 

Connect your iPad or iPhone to your computer, and make sure to check Sync Books option for your device as below.

Figure 4-20 On iTunes, select which books you want to sync on your device.

On iPad, launch iBooks app. Your book should appear in the bookshelf and you can start reading the book. 

Figure 4-21 This is a table of contents in iBooks on iPad.

Figure 4-22 This is the current Publish chapter displayed in iBooks on iPad.

EPUB version shares the similar look-and-feel of the web version. iBooks (and any other ebook readers) provides ways to customize viewing options such as background color, font size and type, and brightness of the screen. It also has useful features like search and bookmarking.