Likelihood to Recommend Vellum is perfect for novels, novellas, short fiction anthologies, and any lightly illustrated fiction. It’s excellent for most non-fiction. It’s great for e-Books and Paperbacks. I haven’t tried using the file for hardcover but it is likely good for that as well. Vellum wouldn’t be the right tool for coffee-table art books, picture books or children’s illustrated books.
Read full review Really great for on-the-fly images for social media, blog posts, websites. It is extremely easy to use and new employees do not need to spend any time with training since its really intuitive. Less appropriate for graphic design like removing backgrounds, etc.
Read full review Pros Professional, Tasteful Formatting Table of Contents management File Management Ease of switching elements (i.e. Chapter, Acknowledgement, About the Author etc.) Beautiful Style Sheets Generating uploadable files quickly and painlessly Previewing for a variety of formats and devices Read full review Graphic art Social media imagery blog post images Read full review Cons Could improve ability to change the look of a design element like Ornamental Break. Doesn’t currently output in Smashwords .doc format (but does EPUB). Spell Check is rudimentary but accurate - still, it’s much better to use Word or Grammarly. If style uses initial drop cap, it doesn’t handle one-letter words well (I, A, O) - repeats letter in sentence. This may be standard practice, not sure. There are a couple dozen styles. I would gladly pay for a “Style Pack” to add on additional styles. Read full review load times windows not opening glitching when copying objects Read full review Alternatives Considered Up until purchasing Vellum, I’ve used Smashwords Meat Grinder template and Kindle’s PC-Only software. I had to buy a PC just to publish to Kindle - very expensive investment with modest return. Vellum is only for Mac. In fact, it would have been cool if it worked with a PC. But Mac is my ecosystem for writing, and the PC is a pain. I ultimately chose Vellum because it works with my MacBook.
Read full review I like both and use both but for different things.
Canva , I think has more templates overall. Support is better with Xara and my templates are already built in Xara. Also, detail attention is better in Xara. I have built very meticulous charts in Xara and even mocked up product designs here.
Read full review Return on Investment Less time publishing means more time writing Beautiful books sell better than Times New Roman dreck I’ve stayed away from Google Books but will move into that market now Read full review Less time on boarding interns Easy to copy templates for uniformity across the brand Quick downloads Read full review ScreenShots