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5 Step Conversion To eBook Process

November 5, 2012 by 1 Comment

Previously: Self-publish style preferences and eBook formatting

Once I had the complete manuscript file in OpenOffice format, I was ready to create the eBook. (Again, OpenOffice worked really well for this project.) The next step was to import the .odt file into Calibre, an open source electronic book management system.

Calibre is a great tool for converting a manuscript into the final stage—your completed book. Here are the steps:

1) Add book. First icon on the upper left of Calibre. Just select the file for your manuscript and Caliber loads it into the directory under that file name.

2) Edit metadata: Second icon from the left. This is where your book gets all that cool author and publishing info. And most important, this is where you can add a cover. However, when uploading to Barnes and Noble or Amazon, you also add your cover there as well.

3) Convert Books: Third icon from the left. This is where your book gets its “Look & Feel”. I generally use the icons “Look & Feel” and “Page Setup”. For the look and feel of the book, I prefer the selection “Remove spacing between paragraphs” and leave the indent size at the default 1.5 em. All other selections I have left at the default. For the page setup, I simply leave the “Input profile” at “Default Input Profile” and change the the output to the selected device I am targeting. I’ve only used .epub and .mobi formats, so I toggle between Nook Color and Kindle Fire for the output profile. I also leave the margins at 5.0 pt. Select OK to convert your book to the output format you chose.

4) Review Format: Now that your book as been converted, it’s time to review it and make sure it is properly formatted. I repeated this step several times in order to produce a product that met my expectations.

5) Proof and Correct: Don’t worry, you will have plenty of opportunity to create these files a few times over. Unless, of course, you’re a master at getting things right the first time. Now is the time to proof your nearly-finished book a few more times. Now that it is in it’s final format, simply upload your .epub or .mobi file to their respective devices and read through a few more times. Highlight those pesky errors and go back to your word processing document to correct the errors. (This is a main reason I tried to create a template that was as close to the finished format as possible. It made finding the fixes a lot easier.)

NOTE: When uploading a file to Barnes and Noble Pubit or Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, each publishing interface will accept native .epub and .mobi files. Using this process, I felt comfortable the finished product on each store looked like what I had created in Calibre.

Filed Under: Books, eBooks, Publishing Tagged With: , , ,

Self-publish style preferences and eBook formatting

August 14, 2012 by 1 Comment

As I talked about before, I used OpenOffice for setting up the electronic versions of our books, Eleventh Hour and Midnight Hour. I created a template that I copied each chapter into. The master template held all the formatting and style preferences, and as soon as I copied the text into the master, I saved it as its own chapter.

I made the template page dimensions approximately the same size as a standard electronic book so that what I saw in the word processing document would closely resemble what I saw in the finished product on my Nook Color. (This really helped when it came to proofreading.)

Once the working file was saved, it was time to begin formatting and correcting formatting issues. Of course, since we were creating a fiction book, there were not many styles to employ.

For the books Eleventh Hour and Midnight Hour, I was working with copy scanned using optical character recognition (OCR). Which meant a lot of conversion errors. Many of the errors were easily corrected by applying pre-designed body text and paragraph styles. However, text and paragraph styles don’t always convert the way they’re supposed to and often latent formatting continued to cause problems until they were completely removed from the document.

Filed Under: Publishing Tagged With: , ,

Big publishers, little readers, and indie authors

April 20, 2012 by 5 Comments

I have found the debate over the DOJ stepping in with a suit against Apple and five of the largest publishers interesting, if not confusing after reading debates over the matter. As an author, a book reader, and a former publishing employee, I have mixed feelings about the lawsuit, but I also realize this is a dusting-out period for the publishing industry. It should definitely be a wake-up call. Here are a few of the issues I see that have brought us to this point:

Digital revolution versus tradition:
I get that Amazon is a big, giant machine that threatens the existence of traditional book marketing and publishing. But, this wasn’t a problem until digital books were here to stay, largely, I must say, because Amazon almost single-handedly created the eBook market. I actually wish the largest publishers had had more foresight and accepted that digital was the future. There was certainly a lesson to be had with the music industry, after all.

Amazon knows how to make the customer feel good:
Amazon knows how to make money, and it didn’t do it by repeatedly telling its customers why it has to charge high prices. Amazon makes money by giving customers a better price. In the case of the $9.99 eBook, Amazon found a price point that made customers feel they were getting a good deal compared with the alternatives. Despite the loss on each book, Amazon made money selling the much more expensive (than a book) Kindle. Obviously, it’s not about money, its about perceived value.

My thoughts? Given the expense of creating an electronic book, why does $9.99 even sound like a good deal? For big publishing to come along and tell customers  they can’t make money selling eBooks for even $9.99, they faced an uphill battle. It’s a hard sell to convince consumers that an electronic book costs as much to produce as a hard cover book. Perception is everything, and publishers were unable to make a convincing argument.

Indie authors, the other elephant in the room:
While the DOJ, big publishers, and Amazon are still fighting over eBook pricing, indie authors are the next issue on the horizon for traditional publishing.

Back when I worked in the publishing industry, the idea of digital books had a sputter of a start with the eRocket ereader. I realized then that digital books would become the future of reading. The publishing industry, however, didn’t. Despite that first real trial, traditional publishers didn’t prepare for the future, didn’t develop a game plan, and amazingly, are still behind. Enter stage left, the indie author and self-publishing.

Traditional publishing used to decide who it signed as authors and how the product was edited, marketed, and sold. Now that publishers have been called out on collusion over the prices of eBooks and are still struggling to hang on to an old paradigm, I wonder if they recognize the threat from authors who are more interested than ever in self-publishing.

I think many authors realize they are the important commodity in the publishing world, which is the way it should be. Furthermore, authors today are savvy business people who embrace technology. They are obviously persistent, creative people—which as far as I know, is a dangerous combination. They are developing ever more publishing options. I am very interested to see how indie authors turn publishing on its head . . . again.

I welcome your thoughts on what is happening in the publishing industry.

Filed Under: Authors, Books, eBooks, Marketing, Publishing Tagged With: , , ,

Tweeking Twitter: Why pushing a sale isn’t for me

April 2, 2012 by 2 Comments

I realized something today. My welcome greeting was all wrong. By all wrong, I mean, it’s not really the way I wanted to project myself as an author. What prompted the realization was a post by Nick Thacker, a blogger I respect and who is creating, I think, a positive influence in the world of self publishing.

Nick has a post titled, The Ultimate Social Media Guide for Writers. The general theme of the post is that Twitter, and other forms of social networking, can be a pleasure and benefit to use if you figure out how to use them effectively. Nick refers to it as “add[ing] value to the conversation.” He draws from his experience in marketing and what he professes were a lot of mistakes starting out, but what he brings to the table now is certainly worth noting.

There’s something about Twitter that’s always bugged me. It’s a great platform, don’t get me wrong, but it seems like so many people treat it like it’s a gigantic networking event.

You know the type–slick salesmen walking around throwing their business cards at people like ninja stars, and forty thousand Avon or Sensy candle reps trying to get your attention.

Sometimes people treat Twitter like that as well. For those of you who think Twitter exists solely to slam your wares down other people’s throats, let me be clear:

Stop.

Sure, I would like to sell a few (more than a few) books. But, I know those books will eventually sell themselves because they are well written and have an interesting story. They probably won’t sell themselves, however, if all I do is tell people to buy them, which is why my greeting became something of an embarrassment to me.

I didn’t really want my first interaction with someone to be for them to check out my books. After all, I know how it feels to receive a greeting telling me to buy something. I don’t think I have yet clicked on a “buy this” link someone told me to go to. I have, however been intrigued through my interactions with fellow social media users to see what they’re all about.

I certainly have been pleasantly surprised by many of the people I have met through Twitter. And after meeting many of you, I decided that the best use of a greeting isn’t to push you to buy something, but to wish you the best in wherever life takes. you. After all, no one ever gets there alone.

Filed Under: Marketing, Publishing Tagged With: , ,