I don't have any direct experience with working with ePub as a file format. What I can say though, is that typesetting is highly skilled work, and although computers make the job much easier than in the old days of manual compositing, there is still an enormous amount of tweaking and fiddling around which has to be done by the editor/s, proof-reader, author and typesetter, prior to any book being sent to press. Though the reader takes these for granted, these small things make an enormous difference to what the finished product looks like (they are one of the things which immediately distinguishes a professionally published book from a self-published one, however nicely done).
Even in an electronic book, design and typesetting considerations will apply (probably a whole set of different ones which we haven't even thought of). For this reason, I doubt very much that producing an ePub "book" will be quite as simple as pushing a "SAVE AS" button on a word-processor.
That said, while there might not be any readily available software out there at the moment, if people want it badly enough, someone will come up with something to sell them, and probably sooner rather than later.
Even in an electronic book, design and typesetting considerations will apply (probably a whole set of different ones which we haven't even thought of). For this reason, I doubt very much that producing an ePub "book" will be quite as simple as pushing a "SAVE AS" button on a word-processor.
That said, while there might not be any readily available software out there at the moment, if people want it badly enough, someone will come up with something to sell them, and probably sooner rather than later.
