It's a Control Issue
I prefer to drive a car with a manual transmission. Why? Well, a number of reason: 1) It's fun! 2) I'm more in control of
the car, and 3) It's way more fun!
When I drive an automatic, I don't even feel like I'm driving. Yes, I get to steer and decide how fast I go, but other than that, I'm not the one in control, the car's computer is. It decides if it needs to down-shift for more power going up a hill, it decides when to switch to a higher gear so that I can go faster. If I want more traction on a slippery road, I've got to wait for the car to figure out that the road is slippery — usually by actually slipping on the road. I hate that.
I want to make these decisions myself. I want to be in control of my vehicle. So, it really annoyed me when I wanted better gas mileage and so decided to buy a Toyota, Prius. It only comes with an automatic transmission. Honda has designed a manual transmission hybrid, and the Civic Hybrid used to come with a manual transmission, but just try finding one in this country. Hah! Good luck!
Ok, so what's all this got to do with writing and self-publishing? Excellent question, I'm so glad you asked! It's about control. I like to drive a manual. I like to be in control. I code my books into HTML myself before I upload them (well, at the moment, it, but there'll be more in the not too distant future!). I don't want to rely on a program to convert my book for me.
Most blogs that discuss formatting e-books tell you to first convert your Microsoft Word document into HTML. There are a couple of programs which will do this for you — Mobipocket Creator is the one recommended by Amazon itself. I've tested it out and it works great if all you've got is basic text. But what if you want to put in a picture or a fancy embellishment under your chapter titles? Forget it. Won't do it. No pictures. And, just like with Smashwords, if your styles are not just right, you could end up with different fonts here and there (my book in Smashwords still has different fonts in it even though the original document doesn't — I've uploaded it three times and it's still not right — why? Because their "meatgrinder" is screwing with the Word document I was forced to use).
The thing is, you can't control how your book looks if you use one of these programs. You have to hope that they'll convert your book to look the way you want it to look. Just like if you drive a car with automatic transmission and start going up a hill. If the computer doesn't down-shift that engine, you'll be chugging along at 15mph and there won't be anything you can do about it.
If you format your own book into HTML you get to decide how it looks. You get complete control with very little pain and just a little effort. With that manual transmission, you can down-shift when you need to — yes, you've got to clutch, but once you get the hang of it, it's so easy and takes so little effort.
It's all a matter of control. Do you want to have it or are you willing to give it up to a mindless machine?
And just as a little reminder, if you don't want to do the work of formatting your own book, I will do it for you. Email me for more information on my novel formatting services.
