ebook

June 25, 2011

Create your own book on a Kindle

This article was first published in the July 2011 edition of PC Update, the magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group. The article refers to a Kindle-formatted file of this article, which can be Download here: Create your own book on a Kindle

Kindle4

Let us assume you have bought a Kindle, the best selling ebook reader from Amazon. In addition to some free classic novels and a couple of best sellers you may have bought. you would rather like to add the first draft of your own Great Australian Novel, or, more likely, the report you have been preparing for your local service club.

I looked at several methods and my first attempt used a page layout program I am used to, InDesign, which recently included abilities to output to ePub files that can be converted for the Kindle and other ebook readers.

That worked well, but it was complex and I am not about to tell MelbPC members that they should go out and buy programs in the four-figure price range.

Can it be done for nothing? The answer is Yes.

Firstly, what is a Kindle book file? As supplied by Amazon they usually have an .azw extension and appears to be a proprietary format though similar to the published .mobi format. which is the same as the Palm format with the .prc extension. Both of these are recognised by the Kindle.

All these formats are based on XML, eXtensible Markup Language, which brings us to the best known such language which is HTML, Hypertext Markup Language, as used by the vast majority of web sites. In fact, a restricted form of HTML, with a small number of extra tags, is as good a means as any to use for creating an ebook.

There is a very limited range of HTML tags which can be used for formatting a book to read on a Kindle. If you have ever formatted a web page then this will come as no problem to you.

The main ones you have to play with are the set of heading tags: <h1> to <h6> getting progressively smaller (and their associated closing tags </h1> etc; <hr /> for a horizontal rule; <i> and </i> for italics (or you can use the <em> tags for "emphasis"; <b> and /b> for bold (or use the <strong> set); and <blockquote> and close with </blockquote> for a long quotation inset from the left margin.

As well you can use a limited number of CSS (cascading style sheet) commands either in your HTML file or in a separate file that is linked as it would be for a web page and include that in the same folder. If you are used to working with CSS do not try anything far from the most common tags.

Among a very few specific mobi tags is <mbp:pagebreak /> for a page break (suprisingly this seems to be forgotten by many book converters -- a new page for a new chapter does make the whole production look professional). Note that there is a space before the ending slash.

A PDF of the tags which can be used is available from http://kindleformatting.com/ but here is a simple template which might get you going:

<html>
<head>
<title>My first Kindle book</title>
</head>
<body>
<h2>My first Kindle book</h2>
<h4>By firstname lastname</h4>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Based on a template published in PC Update, the magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group</p>
<mpb:pagebreak />
<h3>Chapter one</h3>
<p>Here goes all the text you need in as many paragraphs as you need.</p>
<mpb:pagebreak />
<h3>Chapter two</h3>
<p>Here goes all the text you need in as many paragraphs as you need. </p>
</body>
</html>

This is simple enough to edit in Notepad without getting lost in the tags, but you may find it simpler to use a Text Editor, most of which put the tags in a different colour to the text so that you can easily tell the difference. I currently use Gizmo but I have also used NotePads++ from http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ which is also free.

Calibre at http://calibre-ebook.com/ is a program which will manage an ebook collection for one or more ebook readers and will convert between formats as needed within the limits imposed by Digital Rights Management. But Calibre offers many options, often hidden from obvious control, so while it is a program I would recommend, it is easier for the beginner in this field (which was me a matter of a couple of months ago) to use simpler and more specific converters.

For this article I used the free Mobipocket Creator from http://www.mobipocket.com which is a French company that was bought by Amazon in 2005. It is simple to use in that you create a new blank publication and then drag in the HTML file and any required graphics files (plus the CSS file if you are using one), and then click on the Build icon. We will ignore the optional steps to add a cover page and a table of contents. Try these when you have achieved your first success. There is a clear Help file.

Once you have you file, you can then connect your Kindle and drag the completed file, which will have a .prc extension to the documents folder of the Kindle, ready to read.

This article is available as a PRC (Mobi) file at the link shown at the head of this blog post and is available as a Zip file with the complete article as an ebook ready to view on your Kindle and as an HTML file so that you may examine the original code.

Posted at 03:56 PM in books, Business, ebook, graphic design, layout, Publishing, Writing | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

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April 19, 2011

Getting started with ebooks

The question: I prepare books for print and I'm wondering what are good resources for taking authors through the process of Kindle publishing; this seems a useful ability to pick up.

Getting in at what is still a relatively early stage would seem to be a good move -- and what Kindle books I've downloaded so far (admittedly mostly free) are, to put it mildly, not very well done. My first experiment a week or so ago of just a 2-page file was, at least in my view, well up to average standards. But the couple of print-prepared documents I've experimented with since have been disasters.

I found Joshua Tallent's site at kindleformatting.com very useful, but the free trials so far of various software to convert from pdf to epub and the mobi format (the latter being what the Kindle uses) have been disappointing. The best so far has been the conversion aspects of the Calibre ebook library and uploading/conversion program: calibre-ebook.com

A trial version of Adobe InDesign in the new CS5.5 edition holds out promise with its new Article palette to take a print file and reorganise the items into the order needed in an ebook and to leave out other items like running heads and page numbers. That will convert to Adobe's favoured epub format that Calibre and other programs can convert to .mobi. However getting InDesign for just e-publishing at its present level would seem an expensive outlay.

I would be interested in learning from others who have dabbled or more with Kindle or other e-publishing and what software they used.

My guess is that we have yet to see the software which will let us seemlessly change a print-publishing file into one for e-reading.

Posted at 03:04 PM in books, Business, DTP, ebook, Publishing | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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May 08, 2010

Open letter to a publisher thinking of switching to online

Yet another magazine sent me a notification that it was going online. This time it was to be just a trial, but here is a slightly edited version of my reply:

While I can understand the desire of publishers to change to online provision of magazines, I would suggest that this is not as much in a reader’s interest. It is largely a transfer of costs from publisher to reader rather than a true saving in costs (and therefore in resources).

For example, I have a 10GB monthly download limit and while I usually stay within that, it means that on the occasions when I might not, it is quite likely that a magazine file will have to wait until the new month or be ignored altogether. My minimum cost to add an extra couple of GB of download is a one-off $20 payment or, alternatively, to increase by $10 every month to go to a higher limit which may not be used.

If I wish to show something to my wife or look at it more closely it means printing it out which again increases costs at my end, and though I’d often choose to print on my relatively ancient laser printer at a few cents a page, it might have coloured content that makes it more likely that I’d print on my inkjet at perhaps a dollar or more a time for a 2- or 3-page article.

The print edition will also normally be passed on to someone at the local computer club or U3A or community house (or even the local branch of the Australian Shareholders Association  (though that I no longer attend with any frequency). At any of those it may well attract further interest and possibly subscribers before being recycled (at least I can hope it is recycled). The online edition, if downloaded, will consume electricity and broadband fees before being deleted, i.e. gone for ever. Online for you it will continue to cost storage fees.

I can see a lot of sense in making some content available only online, especially the tables which have to be printed in such small type that they cannot be read by most people with my aged eyes. News too may be better online but most articles tend to be scanned much more quickly on screen than in print...and therefore not read as thoroughly.

So, unless you plan to also reduce article lengths and their number and interest, I’d suggest that at the very least you investigate a thinner, more cheaply printed edition with web links, preferably in a short form or linking to an index page online for more information.

I note your comments that the online version is just a trial but it does take several seconds to go from low to high resolution on a page and I note that links within pages are not live.

Lastly, it is a Flash file and I presume you have noted that the iPad does not accept Flash files and does seem to be the only real eReader suitable for viewing online magazines, at least until we see HP’s contender.

Posted at 04:10 PM in Business, ebook, General, Publishing, readability, web-deign, Web/Tech | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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March 27, 2010

Get ready for the ISTC - a new book identifier

ISTC (International Standard Text Code) is likely to come into use in the book industry worldwide late this year or early 2011. Basically it goes beyond ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers) to identify content rather than edition.

Different editions of a work, even from different publishers, should have the same ISTC.

It will look something like:

ISTC 0A9-2010-12B4A105-7

and may appear on the back cover but is more likely to be referenced just on the copyright page and will be listed in database information about the book.

In this way, you'll be able to tell instantly whether a trade paperback, a hardback, an audio book or an ebook have the same content. It should also help end the confusion on whether different presentations of the same book should have the same ISBN. They should not. They should have the same ISTC.

The issuers of ISTCs will almost certainly be the same as the issuers of ISBNs, in other words the biggest players will be Bowker and Nielsen under the supervision of the ISTC Agency and using a single, global XML database system.

Items covered are described as "creative works" such as prose, peotry. lyrics, original screenplays, audio and stage scripts. Photographs, although they can be part of such works, are not in themselves covered and while graphic novels would be, the registration would cover only the text elements of these.

The registration agency will run a computer test to check whether the content has already been registered.

Works can be registered by an author, publisher, agent, library, rights management or collection agency or distributor. It is not yet clear what the fee structure is likely to be. The present ISBN structure is commonly a price per code which reduces with quantity, although there are provisions is some countries for free issue of ISBNs, especially single registrations.

The ISTC identifier is a 16-character code (using numbers 0-9 and letters A-F, i.e. the hexadecimal system) in four sections to identify the registration agency, the year of registration, the identifier and a check digit.

It has no section for registrant, so the same content can be published by diffreent publishers but would have only one ISTC. That's a major difference to the ISBN which identifies primarily a publisher.

A work that is translated, abridged, annotated, a compilation, criticism, excerpt, expurgated, revised or adapted, will get a new ISTC but the metadata for that must state the original ISTC and just what its relationship is.

This will also be a problem for authors and publishers of non-fiction works which have frequent editions. New ISBN are usually adopted if there is anything but superficial changes but often there are substantial changes between editions, and all degrees inbetween. It seems it will still be a matter of opinion with the publisher making the decision whether to use the same ISTC or gain a new one with a reference to the original.

There will be internet search engines to identify works from the ISTC and for prospective publishers etc to search on title, author etc to establish whether a work has been registered. They will not link to ISBN data and it would be normal for a work to be registered for an ISTC well before it gains an ISBN, such as that an author might register it before submitting to an agent or publisher, or an agent might register a work before submitting it to publishers.

No one will own any single ISTC once it has been created and an ISTC will not imply any rights to the material. (To my mind, however, it may discourage plagiarism).

It may help in book searches, since once a particular example of a work has been found, that will provide the ISTC which is what is needed to identify the work in other formats, even if they have a different title. It may also help avoid duplication of axquisitions by libraries.

The usefulness of ISTC will increase with time, more rapidly if the registration agencies and especially those who already maintain databases used extensively by the book industry decide to start entering past works. There seems to have been some indications that this will happen though that may depend on what they see as possible financial benefits.

For an author or small publisher I would suggest that ITSC is not something they need to act on instantly, but they do need to watch what is happening. Once the codes start to appear for new works by major publishers in your genre then that will be the time to act.

In the meantime you may like to delve further:

ISTC: http://www.istc-international.org/ (see resources page for a link to the user manual)

Book Industry Study Group discussion paper:
http://www.bisg.org/contentweb/papers/the-international-standard-text-code-istc-a-work-in-progress/

A 2009 overview by Andy Weissberg, VP of Identifier Services at Bowker: http://www.myidentifiers.com/multimedia/pdfs/ISTC_overview_ISQv21no3.pdf

Posted at 03:29 PM in barcodes, books, Business, ebook, Publishing, text | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

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February 19, 2010

'Large print' is not just type set larger

An interesting suggestion I saw on a publisher forum a while ago was to produce a large print edition and to just reduce the pages of this to make the standard edition. The logic was that some of the readers for which the book was intended were sufferers of diabetes, which often brings sight problems.

Unfortunately the internationally researched standards for large print books, are not just an enlarged form of normal typesetting. And there is a big difference in producing books for those who are substantially sight impaired, and books for those of us who may have a slight deterioration in sight within the normal ranges of variation with age.

A chapter in the current edition of Type & Layout (the book by Colin Wheildon republished by The Worsley Press) -- although this is a chapter in the additional material by Geoffrey Heard -- does describe how preparing a book for the non-fluent reader is different to preparing a book for a fluent reader who may have minor sight problems, or no problems at all.

Just one quick example: although Wheildon's research showed that for reasonably fluent readers, justified serif type is by far the most readable, that is not true for someone who is less fluent, either through education or sight.

The chapter also includes information on the alternative of "Clear Type", a standard developed by the Royal National Institute for the Blind, with standards which, while being acceptable to a wide range of those with site problems, is more acceptable to others. While tending towards sans faces it does accept fonts with a good serif definition such as Bookman.

I would therefore warn against producing a smaller version of a large type, or even "Clear Type" book as a normal edition.

If the text of a book is correctly tagged in its preparation it would be a very simple matter to run it through with alternative layout specifications. I'd estimate an hour or two in a program such as InDesign, maybe even less in an entirely tag based layout program such as TeX.

There will need to be an entire new round of research into legibility on ebook readers.

Posted at 04:50 PM in books, DTP, ebook, fonts, graphic design, layout, page layout, Publishing, readability, type and layout, typesetting, typography | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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August 05, 2009

Email: the world will know

One of this country's senior politicians has just found that emails may not be what they seem. In particular a forwarded email may be changed easily before it is forwarded. That should be a warning to everyone who uses email.

To start from the basics: There's a simple Law of Email, which states "Never send anything that you wouldn't want the whole world to know".

They are easy to copy, easy to change, easy to get out of even secure offices since the introduction of USB sticks, which has led some companies to disable the USB ports on their computers, a method which causes more problems than it solves.

Encryption should be used if you are sending confidential information by email, but encryption does not assure security since it has to be decrypted at some stage ("Decryption" rather than the unencryption which I've seen many times). Emails may be decrypted on the main mail server which offers little security within an office.

There are better ways, one of the simplest being to create a PDF of a document, encrypt that and sign it digitally. Warning: simply requiring a password to open a PDF is not securing it; a Google search will reveal programs that will ger around that (which I've needed to do to get an ad into a magazine that was secured by a foolish designer).

If you have this kind of material then you'll need to study the Acrobat help files. There are also some examples of commercial software programs that will make it a simpler task.

On the other hand, there are authors and others who are so scared of someone stealing a single copy of their ebook that they make access difficult for the people who have paid for the file. I would quote from my own experience when running a milk bar/convenience store. If you put a box of lollies on the counter they will sell, but a proportion will be stolen -- move them to the back or anywhere where the customer cannot easily pick them up and they stop selling. There will be a point at which theft is too great but it will always be worth losing a few.

It can also reflect on the trust between a business owner and his customers. In my book Success in Store there are two examples of the relationship between my wife and some local high school students who came regularly for fish and chips. In the first, they left wrappers and cans by the seats on the footpath until one of them saw my wife go out to clean up their mess as they left. "Do you have to do that?" one asked. No one else will do it, she said, and from that day there was no more mess; everything went in the bins.

Similarly, a sheepish youngster returned to hold out a confectionary packet, saying he'd forgotten to pay. Next day one of the other students asked if he'd returned to pay. "He told us on the way back to school and we said 'you don't do that there'."

Fair dealing will do a lot to reduce problems of theft but that does not help with the general continued availability of email and its likelihood to spread far beyond its original intended use.

A recent search for my name in Google, and going far beyond the first two or three pages where most of us stop searching, came up with an email I wrote in 1996 which is 13 years ago, long before the Internet was anything like it is today, and in the earliest days of the web when many exagerated claims were being made about "hits" on web sites. If you are interested, that email is at http://open4success.net/Olnews/mbox2/282.html

That was not the start of email for me as I'd already been using it for the best part of a decade; at that time the problem was that there were not many people you could send emails to but I did use an email-to-telex service to submit articles to some publishers.

In all that time, there have been regular warnings that normal email is the least secure communications system of all. At least with phone recordings you can be fairly sure that what is heard is what you said, and there are legal safeguards on what can be used. With email, forgery is simple, and preservation and distribution is even more simple.
 

Posted at 10:55 AM in ebook, email, losing money, PDF, sandwich store, security, security holes, Success in Store | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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June 06, 2009

How to make great ads

First I must declare an interest. The new ebook How to make great ads for (sm)all business grew out of my book  Success in Store, with co-author Geoffrey Heard, but this is entirely Geoff’s work. It consists mainly of short tips with examples from real life of what to do (and a few of what not to do). Most of the examples are of ads for small businesses and it is intended to be digested in small bites – taken a spoonful at a time, which suits ebooks, rather than read in a continuous session. You can download a free extract – a 30-page selection – and that should give you enough ideas to pay for the book several times over, because the full book as a download costs you only US$5.95 See details at worsleypress.com AD BOOK cover

Posted at 11:30 PM in advertising, Business, ebook, Publishing, Success in Store | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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