How I Made a Box Set - Info for Authors

I am going to describe how I made a box set myself. I posted twice on KBoards looking for help but no one came to my rescue, so I can only assume this is an unknown quantity and the need for this post might be valid. At any rate, for the next person searching these boards for a Box Set How-To, here we go.
Disclaimer: For all I know, how I did this might be the worst way to do it. I honestly don't know. So if you can add (or subtract) anything to this, please do. 

STEPS FOR MAKING A BOX SET:

Materials:
--3d cover
--3 book covers (assuming it's a 3-book set)
--1 word document consisting of your three novels property titled and chaptered (page break chapters with number at top of each chapter)
Steps I took:
1.Open Word doc in Vellum. It responds with consecutively numbered chapters. Add front matter and back matter. I added front matter and back matter to each one of the three novels, separate set for each. Jason at Polgarus Studio told me you only need it for very front of box set and very back of box set. I chose to do it for all three, but that's just me and my sense of everything presented as three separate interior packages, like I would expect to receive if I were buying a dead tree box set. Use Vellum to generate the epub file.

2. Using Sigil, open the epub file that Vellum generated. Drag cover file to very top. Right click cover and select "Add Copy" -- make two more cover files. Titles of all three are now Cover, Cover2, Cover3 or whatever you like.  Go to images folder and bring in cover images. Now there are four images inside: Box Set cover, Book 1 cover, Book 2 cover, Book 3 cover. Connect images to cover files and place appropriately in the xhtml hierarchy -- left hand side of screen.

3. Add front matter to Box Set and back matter to Box Set, or add same to each book individually--your preference

4. Generate TOC in Sigil: First go to each individual chapter file in Sigil for each book and number the chapters 1-10, start over for book 2 1-10, start over for book 3 1-10. Now each book has its chapters number sequentially within that book, not sequentially in the box set. Very important not to confuse the two.

5. My TOC file was duplicated twice (right-click "Add Copy") and positioned within the hierarchy at the beginning of each book. TOC for Book 1 contained links for each chapter, and at the end of those I added a link to book 2 and a link to book 3. Did the same thing for book 2: first a link back to book 1, then book 2's TOC, then a link to book 3. Repeat for book 3.

6. Now you can go to the page just after box seat cover and add a page with three links: book 1, book 2, book 3. Now your reader can select which book to go to. The way I set it up, each of these book 1,2,3 links connects to the TOC for each interior book.


7. Use Sigil to save the epub file

8. Open epub file with Calibre, make your mobi file forKindle.

9. Make yourself a nice cup of coffee and pat your back, put your feet up, try to do this math: 70% times full cover price (book 1 + book 2 + book 3) = price I'm going to set my box set at. Or something like that. Some people give them away, some price at .99 and up to 9.99.

10. Add the book to KDP. Use a blurb similar to this:

Books one through three of the popular Thaddeus Murfee series by John Ellsworth are offered in a box set at a discounted price. "The Defendants," "Beyond a Reasonable Death," and "Attorney at Large" have received a combined 1xx FIVE-STAR reviews from readers in less than three months. All three of the novels are consistently rated among the top-1x bestselling legal thrillers, and all three are among the most highly-rated novels on Amazon. Enjoy a quality set that will offer you more than twenty hours of pleasure and entertainment -- nearly x000 pages.

(Please, no complaints about the blurb. It's an example, not a suggestion).

That's it. You just made your own box set. BTW, Vellum can be downloaded free and you can pay $50 for a one-time use to make your box set. $50 Vellum, Sigil $0, Calibre $0