Elliott Turner's Blog - Posts Tagged "fun-ding"
Your Kickstarter Dollars: Re-Allocated
For my first book, I dropped a three digit figure to get it "professionally" converted from a Microsoft Word doc to both ePUB and MOBI format. For noobs, ePUB is the basic language used by the Nook, IPad, Adobe Digital Editions, and other e-readers. MOBI is the basic language used by the Kindle. I figured out how to convert it myself using the excellent open source Calibre software, but there was a problem: illustrations.
As in, every time I used Calibre, my eBook would have weird sized illustrations. I scoured user guides, forums, and message boards to find the problem. However, time ran out and I needed to publish or lose the much coveted summer reading window.
Not so for my second book! I have played around with Calibre and Open Office, and, thanks in part to the Smashwords Conversion Guide, I am confident I can handle the conversion to ePUB and MOBI even with illustrations. The trick is going from an HTML doc to MOBI, or going from an .ODT doc to ePUB. You also have to anchor the image as a character and play a bit with the actual proper image size bit by bit.
What will happen with those Kickstarter dollars you graciously gave me? Nope, no refunds. Rather, I will now be buying six or seven more books on the topic.
As in, every time I used Calibre, my eBook would have weird sized illustrations. I scoured user guides, forums, and message boards to find the problem. However, time ran out and I needed to publish or lose the much coveted summer reading window.
Not so for my second book! I have played around with Calibre and Open Office, and, thanks in part to the Smashwords Conversion Guide, I am confident I can handle the conversion to ePUB and MOBI even with illustrations. The trick is going from an HTML doc to MOBI, or going from an .ODT doc to ePUB. You also have to anchor the image as a character and play a bit with the actual proper image size bit by bit.
What will happen with those Kickstarter dollars you graciously gave me? Nope, no refunds. Rather, I will now be buying six or seven more books on the topic.
