Exporting Your Book
Turn your manuscript into a finished EPUB or a portable backup archive — directly from the Dashboard.
What it does
The export panel lets you produce two kinds of output from a finished or in-progress book. Download EPUB builds a reader-ready EPUB 3 file — the format accepted by Apple Books, Kobo, and any EPUB-capable reader, and importable into Kindle via the Send to Kindle app. Back up packages the raw source into a .tgz archive you can store offline or use to migrate to another machine; a variant of the same button also lets you include the full version history in the archive.
Both outputs are generated on demand and reflect the book as it stands at that moment.
Filling in Publishing details
Before exporting, open the Publishing section of the Dashboard and fill in the metadata that will be embedded in the EPUB file.
Title and Author are the two fields that matter most — they appear on the cover, in your reading app's library shelf, and in any catalogue that indexes the file. Set them accurately before you share or publish.
The remaining fields are optional but useful:
- Subtitle — appears on the cover page inside the book.
- Language — sets the
xml:langattribute used by screen readers and reading apps. Defaults to English if left blank. - Publisher — the imprint or press name, if any.
- Description — a blurb, shown in reading-app metadata panels.
- Rights — a copyright or licensing statement (e.g. "© 2026 Jane Smith. All rights reserved.").
- Series — the series name and position, if the book is part of one.
- Cover image — upload a JPEG or PNG. The image is embedded in the EPUB and shown as the book's cover in reading apps. A cover image is not required, but most reading apps display a blank placeholder without one.
Publishing details are saved as part of your book and persist between exports, so you only need to fill them in once.
Where to find the Export panel
Open the Dashboard (/books/{slug}/dashboard) and scroll to the Export section, which sits below Publishing. You can also reach it directly from anywhere in the editor: open the sidebar (⋮) menu and choose Export — this deep-links straight to the Export panel on the Dashboard.
EPUB vs. back-up archive
| Download EPUB | Back up (.tgz) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it contains | A single .epub file — your book formatted for readers |
A compressed archive of your book's source files |
| Use it to | Share, publish, or read on a device | Keep an offline copy, migrate, or archive raw files |
| Opens in | Apple Books, Kobo, Kindle (via import), any EPUB reader | Terminal, archive tools, or another Skribex instance |
| Includes version history | No | Optional (use the "+ version history" variant) |
Choose Download EPUB when your goal is a finished artifact. Choose Back up when your goal is a portable, restorable copy of your working files.
What the EPUB contains
Your manuscript exports with:
- Footnotes — reader footnotes become pop-up footnotes in the EPUB (tapping the marker shows the note inline). Author-only notes are stripped from the export.
- @-Mentions — entity names and their formatted text carry into the book.
- Paragraph styles — heading levels and prose styles you applied in the editor are preserved in the output.
The file is validated against the EPUB 3 standard using epubcheck 5.3.0 before it is delivered. If validation finds errors, the export does not complete.
Notes
- A spinner appears while the EPUB is building — for a long manuscript this can take a few seconds.
- Each book gets a stable identifier when first exported. Re-exporting the same book produces a file with the same identifier, which reading apps use to recognise it as an update rather than a new book.
- The EPUB format is widely supported but reading-app rendering varies. Test your export in the app your readers will use.