Sexy eBooks


H2NH eBook Formatting Workflow
Note!
This is the bare-bones, no explanation workflow that H2NH uses to produce an eBook in various formats. If you want a detailed overview and step-by-step walk-through, please consult Paul Salvette's excellent eBook Formatting Guide: Details 
TXT to:
*DOC - PDF
*HTML - EPUB, MOBI

Operating System
Ubuntu 11.04
Note: All programs below are available on Windows XP & Mac OS X

Programs
FocusWriter
-features: convenient timer and word count
-option for RTF format
-multi-platform
-full-screen text editor 
LibreOffice 4.3 for DOC and PDF
-better styles than Microsoft Office
-multi-platform, free software
-DOC works at Smashwords
jEdit for HTML
-robust, convenient
-multi-platform
-make a macro!
GIMP for cover art
-works fine for journeyman editing
-more cost-effective than Photoshop
-multi-platform
-free software
calibre for conversion to EPUB and MOBI
-easy conversion, table of contents creation
-also useful for managing eBook library 

FocusWriter
writing, editing
type, use -- for — (em dash)
LibreOffice 
pre-formatting

double quotes : " with "

single quotes : ' with '

em dash : -- with —

ellipses : ... with …

Format for Smashwords, save a copy as DOC
Format for PDF, save a copy as PDF
for HTML, find and replace: 

Ctrl-i to <i>^&</i>

jEdit
search and replace

search and replace (use Macro):

” with &rdquo;

“ with &ldquo;

‘ with &lsquo;

’ with &rsquo;

… with &hellip;

— with &mdash;

è with &egrave;

é with &eacute;


paragraphs: ^(.+)$ with <p>$1</p>

search for <p></i> and fix

Bold with <strong>Bold</strong>

Strikethrough with <del>Strikethrough</del>


jEdit
styles

Apply this header, wrap with body tags
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
   <head>
     <style type="text/css">
       html, body, div, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, ul, ol, dl, li, dt, dd, p, pre, table, th, td, tr { margin: 0; padding: 0em; }
       p
       {
         text-indent: 1.5em;
         margin-bottom: 0.2em;
       }
       p.noindent
       {
         text-indent: 0em;
         margin-bottom: 0.2em;
       }
       p.preview
       {
         margin-top: 5em;
         margin-bottom: 2em;
       }
       p.title
       {
         page-break-before: always;
         font-size: 3em;
         font-weight: bold;
         margin-top: 5em;
       }
       p.subtitle
       {
         text-indent: 3em;
         font-size: 2em;
         font-weight: bold;
       }
       p.author
       {
         text-indent: 3em;
         font-size: 2em;
       }
       p.matter
       {
         text-indent: 3em;
         font-size: 1.5em;
       }
       p.chapter
       {
         page-break-before: always;
         text-indent: 1.5em;
         font-weight: bold;
         font-size: 2em;
         margin-top:5em;
         margin-bottom:2em;
       }
       p.story
       {
         text-indent: 1.5em;
         font-size: 1em;
         margin-top: 5em;
         margin-bottom: 0.2em;
       }
       p.centered
       {
         text-indent: 0em;
         text-align: center;
       }
       span.centered
       {
         text-indent: 0em;
         text-align: center;
       }
     </style>
   </head>
   <body>
   </body>
Book Chapters/Collection Stories =
<p class="chapter">Chapter Title</p>

Individual Short Story 'chapter' (for clean ToC) =
<p class="chapter" style="display:none">Short Story Title</p>
<p class="story">First paragraph of text</p>

Apply other styles as appropriate.

*** with <p class="centered"><span class="centered">***</span></p>

To insert centered pictures between lines, put an image file [example.jpg] into the same directory as the html file, and then use:

<p class="centered"><span class="centered"><img src="example.jpg" alt="example" /></span></p>

Search for & in browser window, then manually replace & with &amp; in jEdit

GIMP
cover art

Post: Cover Art (by me!)

Calibre 
conversion

Add HTML to Calibre, edit metadata, add cover

Convert to EPUB

Table of Contents
Level 1 TOC (XPath Expression) = //h:p[re:test(@class, "chapter", "i")]

EPUB Output
check 'Preserve cover aspect ratio'

Convert to MOBI

Upload formats as appropriate.

Samples
Collection


Short Story

Comments: DavidalBarron [at] gmail [dot] com
If you've become lost in this rough-and-ready workflow, please see the excellent
eBook Formatting Tutorial
by Paul Salvette
which explains pretty much everything better than I can.
Notes to me: -- 
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...