Contact the copyright holder for the work you wish to digitize. If you have difficulty with this, make sure it is documented that you have exhausted all efforts to secure permission to digitize the work.
Scan each page of the book using the scanner and scanning software. This will vary, depending on what kind of scanner and software you have. Make sure you save your work every 50 pages or so.
Click the desktop icon for the OCR software, or click "Start," then "All Programs," and select the OCR software from the programs list.
Click "File," then "Open" and select the scanned image you've just created. The OCR software will analyze the scanned images and extract the text from it as well as it can. If it comes across a word it doesn't understand, it will ask you if you wish to change the word, ignore it -- or add it to the software's dictionary.
Make yourself a big pot of coffee with the coffeemaker, and compare the text file generated by the OCR software with the original text. Go one paragraph at a time, and take regular breaks.
Wrap each paragraph in HTML paragraph tags (<p> paragraph text </p>). Many word processors will do this for you automatically.
Wrap any italicized text in HTML italics tags (<em> italicized text </em>), wrap any bold text in HTML bold tags (<strong> bold text </strong>). Likewise, mark up all formatting by wrapping it in the appropriate HTML tags. Again, many word processors will do this for you automatically.
Add any other images and footnotes using the word processor.
Click "File," then "Save As," and save the e-book as an .html file.