Smashwords,
First of all, let me say: You're pretty cool. Easy distribution to a bunch of different markets, well-organized site, good accounting and payment, I get $0.59 out of $0.99? Good stuff. That's why I care about this one thing so much: Formatting for your Meatgrinder is obnoxious and my books still look kinda ugly after it all.
Let's break my problem down:
One, DOC format. I shouldn't have to own Microsoft Word in order to format an eBook. It not only complicates the process (see Two) but it also makes it more difficult for me to work on multiple computers with different operating systems (see Three). It's limiting, and unnecessarily so.
Two, Meatgrinder limitations, most egregiously 'Linked Table of Contents' & Space After Paragraphs. Creating a linked table of contents in Word is a time-consuming and annoying process fraught with peril, especially considering that properly formatted EPUB and MOBI files will create one automatically (see Three). Then there's the matter of restrictive formatting: I read a lot of eBooks while preparing to format my own, and the ones that looked best (to my taste) had indented paragraphs and a little (.2em) space after each paragraph for easier reading. When I put that space into the DOC for Meatgrinder, it rejects it for Premium Distribution. This makes my product look bad, unnecessarily, and I'm tired of dealing with Premium Distribution errors.
Three, HTML. It takes 15 minutes to format an eBook from plain-text into HTML, and that eBook will convert, via Calibre, to pretty much any format and look good doing it (and have a Linked Table of Contents appended in EPUB and MOBI, the two main formats). Doing it via the Smashwords Style Guide takes much longer, especially considering creating a Linked Table of Contents.
Four, Pictures. All those combined means that there is no way that I would ever put pictures in a file going to Smashwords, unless it was only for PDF distribution. Which is, again, unnecessarily limiting.
Solution (for you):
First of all, I love that you've focused on expanding distribution channels! Keep it up, that's one half of your selling point. But I need you to upgrade focus on upgrading your Meatgrinder to accept HTML (or at least EPUB) and convert it from that file. Let people continue submitting via DOC if you want, but let those what can handle it submit via a method that's both more convenient to prepare and looks more professional.
Solution (for me):
All this really only applies to longer fiction where more complicated formatting is necessary. I'll certainly still use Smashwords for short story distribution. I write a lot of short stories and I sell lots of short stories through your distribution networks, so you earn your 10% there (and I get more than the Amazon 35% Great!) But! Until Meatgrinder is upgraded, I'll upload my books (and short story collections) directly to my three focus sites: Amazon, B&N, and Kobo, so that I can be sure of my formatting and the quality of my product.
Thanks for your time,
David Barron
Update: November 3, 2011, Mark Coker announces "Smashwords Direct", "a Meatgrinder bypass option", to be available "by the end of 2012". I await developments.
feel free to comment
Friday, June 10, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
ebook Formatting Workflow
Since I've trial'd and error'd it out for myself, and it's not that difficult, here's the Official David Barron eBook Formatting Workflow! Note that it doesn't include how to do images, because I haven't tried that yet. It's also pretty bare-bones, but you can probably figure it out... (This doesn't count as my Friday article) If you totally want to hire me to format an eBook, first, seek professional help because you're insane, then give me $50 and I'll do it, I guess. Free money, am I right? (This takes...15 minutes.)
eBook Formatting
Programs
FocusWriter for text
Microsoft Word 2007 for DOC and pre-formatting
jEdit for HTML
calibre for conversion to EPUB and MOBI
GIMP for cover art
Kindle Previewer
FocusWriter text
type, use -- for — (em dash)
Microsoft Word 2007 preformatting
double quotes : " with "
single quotes : ' with '
em dash : -- with —
ellipses : ... with …
Ctrl-i to
jEdit entities
paragraphs:
search for <p></i> and fix
” with
“ with
‘ with
’ with
… with
— with
è with
é with
Bold with
Strikethrough with
jEdit styles
Apply this header, wrap with body tags
Book Chapters/Collection Stories =
<p class="chapter">Chapter Title</p>
Individual Short Story 'chapter' (for clean ToC) =
<p class="chapter" style="display:none">Short Story Title</p>
<p class="story">First paragraph of text</p>
Apply other styles
*** with <p class="centered"><span class="centered">***</span></p>
Search for & in browser window, then manually replace & with
Calibre conversion
Add HTML to Calibre, edit metadata, add cover
Convert to EPUB
Table of Contents
Level 1 TOC (XPath Expression) = //h:p[re:test(@class, "chapter", "i")]
EPUB Output
check 'Preserve cover aspect ratio'
Convert to MOBI
Check DOC in Word 2007, upload to Smashwords
Check MOBI in Kindle Previewer, Upload to Amazon KDP
Check EPUB in calibre, Upload to Others
Samples
eBook Formatting
Programs
FocusWriter for text
Microsoft Word 2007 for DOC and pre-formatting
jEdit for HTML
calibre for conversion to EPUB and MOBI
GIMP for cover art
Kindle Previewer
FocusWriter text
type, use -- for — (em dash)
Microsoft Word 2007 preformatting
double quotes : " with "
single quotes : ' with '
em dash : -- with —
ellipses : ... with …
Ctrl-i to
<i>^&</i>jEdit entities
paragraphs:
^(.+)$ with <p>$1</p>search for <p></i> and fix
” with
”“ with
“‘ with
‘’ with
’… with
…— with
—è with
èé with
éBold 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
*** with <p class="centered"><span class="centered">***</span></p>
Search for & in browser window, then manually replace & with
& in jEditCalibre 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
Check DOC in Word 2007, upload to Smashwords
Check MOBI in Kindle Previewer, Upload to Amazon KDP
Check EPUB in calibre, Upload to Others
Samples
 |
| Collection |
 |
| Short Story |
Friday, June 3, 2011
Sexy eBooks
I finally formatted an eBook up the right way, and I just want to lay out what I did. My main text was Guido Henkel's Take Pride in Your eBook Formatting and I don't intend to repeat any of it. Consult that guide,just consider this a personalized companion article as well as a guide to people who are using jEdit to follow that series because they don't own a Mac. Your Mileage May Vary, I'm just muddling through while taking notes. If you want somebody to design your ebook for you, send Guido Henkel an e-mail. (Don't ask me.)
I don't really feel like waiting until Friday to post it. It still counts as my Friday article for this week, because it's really freakin' long, OK? Let's just jump into the freezing water.
UPDATE: I've formatted two more eBooks since I wrote this, so I'm updating the workflow to reflect what I actually do. I'll update the actual HTML head later, because I'm narrowing in on a universally useful one for my purposes.
Programs you will need:
Microsoft Word 2007
or the word processor of your choice. If you're on Linux, you can use OpenOffice.
jEdit
Calibre
you should have this already if you own or publish eBooks. Get it now.
Workflow
Word 2007
Make all the paragraphs, italics, and punctuation that you want, make sure the smart quotes and other auto-replace options are on and Find and Replace:
double quotes : " with "
single quotes : ' with '
em dash : -- with —
ellipses : ... with …
Just replace them with themselves and this will transform them into the appropriate special characters, and you won't have to think about changing all the straight quotes into curly quotes. Easy. If it doesn't happen, make sure the appropriate AutoFormat options are on in Word.
If you have a bunch of italics scattered through your text, do this!
italics : Ctrl-i to
Warning, when I did this, and there was a
jEdit Cleaning
Copy and paste your text into jEdit. Good. Now we want to put in our paragraph tags, so go to Search - Find, check the 'Regular Expressions' box, and Find and Replace like so:
paragraphs:
Sexy. Now, save it as an html file. And make a backup for when you screw up. Then, if you took Option 1, you'll want to do all these Find and Replace
(DO NOT do & with
“ with
” with
‘ with
’ with
… with
— with
Bold with
In mine, I had these things too, so I assume you might too:
è with
é with
Strikethrough
:
Good times, but now we have to make it look pretty.
jEdit Styles
Go Here for super details from Guido Henkel, so I'll just put the head I eventually cobbled together for a collection of short stories. (Feel free to steal it, if you can, but it's easy enough to make your own.)
Put
Now we can put the appropriate chapter styles in (in this case, the title is "The Littlest Barnacle"):
<p class="chapter">The Littlest Barnacle</p>
We can find and replace our section dividers (replace *** below with whatever you happen to use):
*** with <p class="centered"><span class="centered">***</span></p>
Sprinkle the html file with the other appropriate style tags. Mostly I used "noindent" to remove the indentation for some paragraphs, but I also formatted the front and back matter to taste.
Finally I opened the saved html in a browser window and searched for &, then manually found it in jEdit and replaced:
& with
I only had three in the whole eBook, so it didn't take long.
So, now if you didn't do anything wrong, you have a sexy html to convert to various eBook formats. Thus:
Calibre
Go Here (Part IX of Take Pride in Your eBook Formatting), Do That. Basically, in Level 1 TOC (XPath Expression) add:
//h:p[re:test(@class, "chapter", "i")]
I don't have anything to add, except to note that when it converts to MOBI, it will add a linked table of contents to the end of the ebook, so don't bother to put one in yourself. As for my actual html, I claim no special expertise, so if you spot any stupid errors, shout out!
Now put that MOBI up on Kindle and use the EPUB wherever they'll take it. It'll be pretty. Comment below with a link when you do, then consider joining me as I try to get Smashwords to take my pretty EPUB (or even PDF) instead of my utilitarian DOC.
Conclusion
And but so: check out my newest short story collection on Amazon. Preview it. It looks pretty damn good!
I don't really feel like waiting until Friday to post it. It still counts as my Friday article for this week, because it's really freakin' long, OK? Let's just jump into the freezing water.
UPDATE: I've formatted two more eBooks since I wrote this, so I'm updating the workflow to reflect what I actually do. I'll update the actual HTML head later, because I'm narrowing in on a universally useful one for my purposes.
Programs you will need:
Microsoft Word 2007
or the word processor of your choice. If you're on Linux, you can use OpenOffice.
jEdit
Calibre
you should have this already if you own or publish eBooks. Get it now.
Workflow
Word 2007
Make all the paragraphs, italics, and punctuation that you want, make sure the smart quotes and other auto-replace options are on and Find and Replace:
double quotes : " with "
single quotes : ' with '
em dash : -- with —
ellipses : ... with …
Just replace them with themselves and this will transform them into the appropriate special characters, and you won't have to think about changing all the straight quotes into curly quotes. Easy. If it doesn't happen, make sure the appropriate AutoFormat options are on in Word.
If you have a bunch of italics scattered through your text, do this!
italics : Ctrl-i to
<i>^&</i>Warning, when I did this, and there was a
</i> at the end of the paragraph, when I later ran <p>$1</p> (see below) it put the </p> before the </i> and sent that to the start of the next paragraph. So, in addition to the jEdit stuff below, search for </i> and make sure your tags are closed.jEdit Cleaning
Copy and paste your text into jEdit. Good. Now we want to put in our paragraph tags, so go to Search - Find, check the 'Regular Expressions' box, and Find and Replace like so:
paragraphs:
^(.+)$ with <p>$1</p>Sexy. Now, save it as an html file. And make a backup for when you screw up. Then, if you took Option 1, you'll want to do all these Find and Replace
(DO NOT do & with
& at this time!)“ with
“” with
”‘ with
‘’ with
’… with
…— with
—Bold with
<strong>Bold</strong>In mine, I had these things too, so I assume you might too:
è with
èé with
éStrikethrough
:
<del>Strikethrough</del>Good times, but now we have to make it look pretty.
jEdit Styles
Go Here for super details from Guido Henkel, so I'll just put the head I eventually cobbled together for a collection of short stories. (Feel free to steal it, if you can, but it's easy enough to make your own.)
<?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.title
{
font-size: 3em;
font-weight: bold;
margin-top: 5em;
}
p.front
{
text-indent: 3em;
font-size: 2em;
}
p.chapter
{
page-break-before: always;
text-indent: 1.5em;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 2em;
margin-top:5em;
margin-bottom:2em;
}
p.centered
{
text-indent: 0em;
text-align: center;
}
span.centered
{
text-indent: 0em;
text-align: center;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
Put
</body> at the end of the html file.Now we can put the appropriate chapter styles in (in this case, the title is "The Littlest Barnacle"):
<p class="chapter">The Littlest Barnacle</p>
We can find and replace our section dividers (replace *** below with whatever you happen to use):
*** with <p class="centered"><span class="centered">***</span></p>
Sprinkle the html file with the other appropriate style tags. Mostly I used "noindent" to remove the indentation for some paragraphs, but I also formatted the front and back matter to taste.
Finally I opened the saved html in a browser window and searched for &, then manually found it in jEdit and replaced:
& with
& I only had three in the whole eBook, so it didn't take long.
So, now if you didn't do anything wrong, you have a sexy html to convert to various eBook formats. Thus:
Calibre
Go Here (Part IX of Take Pride in Your eBook Formatting), Do That. Basically, in Level 1 TOC (XPath Expression) add:
//h:p[re:test(@class, "chapter", "i")]
I don't have anything to add, except to note that when it converts to MOBI, it will add a linked table of contents to the end of the ebook, so don't bother to put one in yourself. As for my actual html, I claim no special expertise, so if you spot any stupid errors, shout out!
Now put that MOBI up on Kindle and use the EPUB wherever they'll take it. It'll be pretty. Comment below with a link when you do, then consider joining me as I try to get Smashwords to take my pretty EPUB (or even PDF) instead of my utilitarian DOC.
Conclusion
And but so: check out my newest short story collection on Amazon. Preview it. It looks pretty damn good!
