Editio Self-Publishing discussion
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Eric Muss-Barnes
Self-Publishing questions
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How to program an EPUB file from scratch?
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Thanks Eric, I just went through it - I'm not an expert but having run into a submission issue with Lulu I was asked to edit core HTML to fix the problem. Your very clear tutorial will help in future.I use Scrivener to produce my docs, but Lulu would not accept the epub generated for submission to iBookstore and B&N despite the document working perfectly well on the devices. It was a problem apparently in the headers. Both support desks suggested using Sigil to sort the file out without explaining how. Your tutorial will guide me in the right direction without learning yet another application. I'm supposed to be writing not learning software.
Philip wrote: "Your tutorial will guide me in the right direction without learning yet another application. "Yes, headers are a big issue. Chapter titles MUST be inside H1 tags for many distributors. Just follow my template and you should be fine. Also remember to follow the rules of grammatical structure for your title too. That one got me a few times. For example, my books were getting rejected for being all capitalized.
The Gothic Rainbow: Beginning Volume Of The Vampire Noctuaries need to be changed to The Gothic Rainbow: Beginning Volume of the Vampire Noctuaries.
Good luck!
Read the tutorial on InkShard:
http://www.inkshard.com/how-to-make-a...
Watch the video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dz4Rl...
Why do I boast so confidently? Because mine is the ONLY tutorial I have ever seen teaching how to hand-code XHTML to build a valid and publishable EPUB file from scratch, that will be accepted for publication by:
Lulu
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Smashwords
iBookstore
There are other tutorials teaching how to program EPUB files that validate, but those EPUBs are missing data required by some publishers.
There are other tutorials teaching how to convert Word documents, or how to use Sigil, or calibre, or other manners of WYSIWYG software. But, all of those require conversions and end up inserting gratuitous code.
To heck with that. This is for the programmers. This is for the people who want to write some real code and have a streamlined book without any superfluous junk.
If you're not a programmer, my tutorial will be too technical for you. But if you know your way around HTML, you're going to love this. You will finally have the detailed information of how to build a file properly. No extra code. No unnecessary and extraneous garbage thrown in by some WYSIWYG program. This is the real deal. Super clean and stripped-down efficient XHTML that is 100% valid in conforming to all the EPUB standards and accepted for publication at all the major distributors.
Enjoy!