diff --git a/resources/templates/new_book.html b/resources/templates/new_book.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..bb765addea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/resources/templates/new_book.html
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+
+
+
+
+ _TITLE_
+
+
+
+ _TITLE_
+
+
+
diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/polish/create.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/polish/create.py
index 81993c7940..f6b01edd40 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/polish/create.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/polish/create.py
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ from lxml import etree
from calibre import prepare_string_for_xml, CurrentDir
from calibre.ptempfile import TemporaryDirectory
from calibre.ebooks.oeb.base import serialize
+from calibre.ebooks.metadata import authors_to_string
from calibre.ebooks.metadata.opf2 import metadata_to_opf
from calibre.ebooks.oeb.polish.parsing import parse
from calibre.ebooks.oeb.polish.container import OPF_NAMESPACES, opf_to_azw3, Container
@@ -63,19 +64,13 @@ def create_book(mi, path, fmt='epub', opf_name='metadata.opf', html_name='start.
'''.format(prepare_string_for_xml(opf_name, True)).encode('utf-8')
- HTML = '''\
-
-
-
-
- {0}
-
-
-
- {0}
-
-
- '''.format(prepare_string_for_xml(mi.title), lang).encode('utf-8')
+ HTML = P('templates/new_book.html', data=True).decode('utf-8').replace(
+ '_LANGUAGE_', prepare_string_for_xml(lang, True)
+ ).replace(
+ '_TITLE_', prepare_string_for_xml(mi.title)
+ ).replace(
+ '_AUTHORS_', prepare_string_for_xml(authors_to_string(mi.authors))
+ ).encode('utf-8')
h = parse(HTML)
pretty_html_tree(None, h)
HTML = serialize(h, 'text/html')