Build a book and a website in minutes with GitBook

GitBook is a great way to write a book online with nothing more than a web browser. Not just a book, either.

You can write just about any kind of book with GitBook, but this tutorial focuses on writing a technical book, say, on a programming topic. I wrote this to save you a few hours by putting the most common steps to publishing a book roughly in order.

Write once, publish many ways

You write it with a simple word processor/text editor and the result can be published as a PDF, an eBook, and a fully responsive website with built-in search--without making any changes to the original text.

Why GitBook?

What makes GitBook so compelling?

• There's nothing to install. You can use it from any web browser. That means you can start a book on your home computer, work on it from your office at lunch, and even make changes with your smartphone in a pinch, all without having to download an app.
• It's free or inexpensive (free for open source publications, pay a small monthly if you want more than a few private books)
• It automatically generates PDF, ebook, or web pages (HTML) from your source text. You have nearly unlimited options to customize the appearance of the final product.
• Your work is automatically hosted on the web by GitBook and appears within a few seconds of saving a file--sometimes before. GitBook.com seems to be well respected by search engines.
• As the name implies, it's based on Git, which means you have complete control of, and access to, all versions of your book. On the other hand, if GitBook goes out of business you'll be fine, because it uses standard text files to store your work. Of course, there's easy integration with GitHub

Guaranteed to work if you follow along

This tutorial takes almost nothing for granted. More important, if you can read and type you are guaranteed to have a working publication in only a few minutes. Everything you have to do is spelled out. Nothing is "left as an exercise for the reader!"

Contacting the author

You can email me at [email protected], although I can't promise to write back.