Publishing

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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February 26, 2011

Better outlook for print media

A year ago, magazines were dropping like flies. However, over 2010, the ndustry stabilized enough for more magazines to launch than to fold – with a total number of 169 launches and 167 folds.

- State of the Media Report 2011, Vocus Media Research Group



That's a big turnaround, and the Vocus report, subtitled "Adapting, Surviving and Reviving" is encouraging reading for anyone in the media.

After the above quote Rebecca Bredholt, managing editor of magazine content at Vocus writes “I think publishers have figured out how people want to consume which types of content.”

In particular it will be interesting to see the continuing progress of AOL's offshoot, the Patch.org Foundation. This started almost 700 "hyperlocal news websites" and at least some of the staff are paid

There were 13 new weeklies and 5 new monthlies in the print side of the newspaper category. On the other side of the ledger, there were closures of 6 dailies, 109 weeklies, 12 monthlies, 9 online and 15 "other".

Of course all the above figures are for the USA. However, it does seem that the outlook generally is good for specialist publications at the expense of generalist. There is a good argument for putting some sections of print publications online, especially tabular material (one wonders why many daily newspapers still print detailed sports results and share prices).

You can download the Vocus report from:
http://www.vocus.com/resources/state-of-media/index.asp
(You do have to fill in a form first which asks details of name, job, email, etc but it does not seem to do any serious checking of what you enter),

Details on the Patch Foundation are at:
http://www.patch.com/foundation

Posted at 02:20 PM in Business, Newspapers, Publishing, starting business | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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December 26, 2010

Would you cut your editing or layout rates?

Whether you are editing books or articles, do you have a flat fee per page or hour, or are you prepared to cut your rates?

I am not suggesting that you should work for less overall, but there is a case for having discussions about the scope of your editing.

An example of the circumstances which can arise is the work which is being done to a budget. There has been an allocation within the budget for the work of editing and for layout. Both of these categories can sufffer from being near the end of the process and finding that costs have overrun at previous stages so there are only these last stages where cuts can be made. This may not be fair but it happens.

Sometimes layout work can be reduced by a degree of automation -- making the publication fit templates that already exist and reducing the complexity of the layout so there are fewer places where text has to run around illustrations. It may also be possible to run a long work over fewer pages by reducing text size so that production costs are reduced.

There are fewer ways in which editing costs can be cut.

Ways in which such costs can be reduced include reducing the time which will be spent on rewriting or on fact checking provided others in the process are prepared to take responsibility for such things being done at an earlier stage. Some of this comes down to a decision by the overall editor or publisher on whether the author is trusted (Nearly all author contracts require the author to take this responsibility and to indemnify the publisher).

It can mean deciding that the copyeditor is to increase the number of pages or number of words processed in each hour. Is quality to suffer? It may but there are times when a decision has to be made that the end result is "good enough".

This is a generally accepted process on newspapers and on many magazines. The deadline is fixed. As it approaches, so the final editorial processes which might have included rewrites come to focus on avoiding errors which would make the publication look bad. As the hands on the clock rotate ever faster you might hear a call to check proofs for "heads and intros" maybe with an added check to see that column ends read on to the top of the next column.

Fortunate is the editorial desk where a second edition will allow for more corrections later.

Similarly with freelance editing, the worker may have to work to a specific deadline. Sometimes the copyeditor may feel that quality has been compromised to the extent that he or she would rather not have their name associated with the work. However the skilled editor will still be able to justly claim that the limited job done is still better than it would be if a less skilled person had been involved.

So, do you insist on working to the standards you set for yourself or are you prepared to work to a budget and still feel that you did a good job in the circumstances?

Posted at 04:11 PM in books, Business, deadlines, layout, Newspapers, Publishing, template | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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November 13, 2010

Windows 7: should it be Windows Silver?

November 1985 saw Windows first shipped in the USA and not long afterwards in Australia. So I wonder why Windows 7 wasn't called Windows Silver?

I can still see quite vividly that MSDOS screen in front of me at the newspaper in the small High Country town of Myrtleford that required me to click on a file entry to start the runtime version of Windows which then started the desktop publishing program PageMaker.

I'd already used the same program with Apple Macintosh in Western Australia but a PC was half the cost. And had used Xerox Ventura on a PC with the GEM "graphic environment management" system on top of DR (Digital Research) DOS, but Windows was still a massive advance.

Businesses weren't buying Windows because they wanted to but because it enabled the program they needed to run. Even the most hard hearted accountant could see that new equipment was worth buying when it would pay its full capital and running costs in less than six months compared to how the job had been done before.

The hardest job, a year or two later, was persuading newspapers in the bush that they really needed a network to transfer files, and that "sneaker net" with a shoebox of 5.25" disks had had its day.

Posted at 04:20 PM in DTP, Newspapers, page layout, PageMaker, Publishing, Win 7 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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July 31, 2010

All those great unpublished books?

Having sold The Worsley Press to business consultant and fellow author Geoffrey Heard a few years ago, I've been slowly clearing out a lot of old paperwork.

Part of that was that I decided to rid myself of a stack of old manuscripts which I'd rejected, and not returned because they didn't come with a prepaid envelope or because return was not requested.

I decided to check a random sample by searching on Google for the authors' names.

Of about a dozen which produced some reference, only one was published (and by the larger publisher I suggested the author contact!) though it does not seem to have warranted a second edition in around 10 years.

Another came up with an author's site which featured her several successful novels but no mention of the book she submitted to me on how to run a low-cost wedding. Her novels have been published on three continents in several languages.

I was a just a little concerned that I might have rejected that major title which someone else picked up (after all I did listen to Brian Epstein extolling his new band which was to play at the Cavern club that night in Liverpool in the 1960s and did not take up the offer of a free ticket).

Fortunately, or unfortunately, according to your point of view, it seems that did not happen with these manuscripts.

Posted at 04:26 PM in books, Publishing | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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A magazine title someone else has used?

It is among the more common questions I get: I am starting a magazine and I assume I need to make sure no one else is using the title I want and that it is not already copyrighted. How do I check that and how do I then copyright that name?

Titles as such can't be copyrighted, but it is normal for them to be registered either as a trading (business) name or as a trade mark.

However, it really depends on how important this is to you. The protection you may need is only really within the narrow field of the publication. It is not unusual for regional publications, for example, to have the same name with a suffix or prefix added in very small type on the cover and seldom used within the local area. Think of newspapers and particularly the many with News, Times, Chronicle etc as their name.

Registration as a business name/trade mark is more common in the US than in the UK or Australia, but I've previously mentioned the magazine known as the Musician which I published in the UK in the '60s. There was also a Musician published by the Salvation Army and one by the Brass Band Association. I recall only one mixup which was by an advertising agency which should have known better.

Consideration of potential confusion is more important than registration as you do need to make sure you cannot be accused of "passing off" your publication as one owned by someone else. Also, many titles are generic descriptions of the field and would be unlikely to be allowed for registration -- but may still be an ideal publication title.

Posted at 02:01 PM in Business, Newspapers, Publishing, starting business | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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June 29, 2010

Still room for print in magazines

There's still room for new print magazines. Design students in Amsterdam have just published a new print magazine, Odd. The beginning of 2010 saw 56 new magazines on US newsstands and if you think that's just a chance number, the figure for June, the latest given on the Mr Magazine website is 77.


In 1986, Samir Husni published his first Guide to New Magazines listing the 234 new magazines that I was able to find and document in 1985. The 25th Anniversary edition of the Guide will be out soon listing 704 new magazines that were first launched in 2009.


If you subscribe to the Magazine Launch feed from http://www.magazinelaunch.com run by the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) you'll get their regular notifications -- and they are only the publications that make use of their service.


Among the most recent titles scrawere: Honor Student, Wine Press, Vintage Magazine, ChopChop (a food mag for 5 to 12 year olds!), Livestrong Quarterly (for cancer survivors and supporters), Parents of Color, and a number of regional magazines. The latter seem part of a strong trend in publishing.


All of these are in print, though all seem to have strong websites and, often, web editions. One innovation which cannot be duplicated online is the scratch-and-smell cover. 


So, while much effort goes in to finding a profitable means of having an online publication, it seems the most popular and successful way is still with a "dead tree" publication backed up by online extras and promotion.


One problem for publications which would like to be online is that a high quality file is still massive if you are to compete with printed graphics. Even publications which cater for the graphics industry find it necessary to resort to slimmed down versions for those without really fast broadband connections.


And I wonder how many other people have the same problem that I do? I subscribe to a top quality online magazine, and download it the instant I get the email advising that it is available. But often I do not even get to glancing through the PDF. It sits there on my desktop until a week or sometimes two later I will print out a sad looking grayscale version on my laser printer. 


A print magazine goes to our lougeroom where it will be read during rest periods or while watching TV. Sure, I can take a wirelessly connected laptop there too, but I seldom do. Reading on screen is not a relaxing exercise, reading a print magazine is.

Posted at 02:30 PM in advertising, Business, Publishing, starting business | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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June 26, 2010

Do how much of it yourself?

As a small scale publisher, what should you do for yourself and what should you pay someone else to do?

That is a common question, and someone on a publishing email list rightly commented that it always seemed that the "experts" were saying that the newbie should get everything done (at a fee) by someone in the industry.

There is nothing wrong with anyone learning to do everything for themselves -- I even did a course in paper making because I thought it might help me understand the most basic of the raw materials we deal with, and it did.

The problem is that too many people are misled by the promises of people that everything is easy.

If someone...

  • studies the book market,
  • spends time not only reading the books on the subject (and most can be found in public libraries so you need only to eventually buy the ones which are going to be essential to you),
  • talks to everyone in the industry (I've learned a lot from a bloke whose house I walk past into town who is a forklift driver for a major printer who seems similarly interested in learning more about the products he hauls around),
  • is prepared to do the job (for example the layout) and then to look at it critically and do it again (I nearly sent a printing business broke when I looked at a book we'd produced as I handed the first copies to the customer, and then said "it's not good enough, is it" and we did it again, but we grew into a much stronger company),

then that someone can match everything the experts can do. It's not brain surgery -- you can practice without doing too much harm to anyone but yourself.

BUT, someone who says, I've never done a book before but I have Word (or I've just bought InDesign) and then, with a printed copy in hand, looks at finding a distributor or for someone who will tell how to get publicity for it.

I'm all for people doing things for themselves. I tend to run a mile from anyone who adopts the description of "consultant", and I like the description of expert as "ex", a has-been, and "spurt", a drip under pressure.

Posted at 12:10 PM in Business, Publishing, starting business | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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May 26, 2010

Jack's an artist. That's what we need for the layout

It is a common question: The illustrator for my book is a talented artist, but should I ask him (or her) about doing the book layout?

It may also be suggested with magazine layout: he's a good artist, we should ask him to do our newsletter.

The real question should be to ask whether he has any experience and whether he wants to do the work. Then the publisher, or self-publisher, should ask himself or herself if they have time to cope with problems.

In a recent case the artist was being honest, and would have been prepared to put the time in (at his cost) to find out all the technical information he needed to know. However, there should be at least one person who has the professional knowledge of what makes a good book or magazine layout in the team.

The danger lies in the fact that publication layout and file preparation for printing is detailed, systematic work, and the skills for that are seldom those needed to be an artist and illustrator.

There are a few who manage to combine both skills but they are a minority and deserve every cent they can command. They will, for example, know that the uses of a book cover for thumbnails on the web or in catalogues and ads and possibly for posters as well as for the cover itself, puts severe restrictions on artistic talent.

More common are those designers and layout people who can take other people's illustrations and turn them into good looking and good working covers and pages and produce files which will print without problems. The person who creates good publication files and the illustrator and graphic artist may use much of the same software, but they tend to use it in vastly different ways.

The kind of questions one could ask someone who may be able to do this work could be whether he or she knows the common standards for relative margin widths, on the differences in specifications for different binding methods, and, for example if this includes, as is most likely, an all color cover, the maximum ink levels according to the printing process and paper stock.

He or she may not know the detailed answers but should know what you are talking about (even if you do not). Then (especially if there is time to go elsewhere if necessary), by all means give him or her a go.

Posted at 02:04 PM in books, DTP, graphic design, layout, page layout, Publishing | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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