I've created this thread for people to post tutorials on how to create eBooks for the Sony Reader.

To start things off, attached is a detailed illustrated tutorial (as a Microsoft Word document) showing how I create Reader e-Books from "Project Gutenberg" files, using "Book Designer". I hope that people find this useful. This is the exact process that I use to create all the books I've posted in this forum.

Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions or suggestions for improvements.

EDIT: 24th Jun 07

Uploaded v1.1 of the tutorial, which is rather more generic, and stresses that the techniques described can be used to produce a book in any format supported by Book Designer, not just Sony Reader books.

Having now bought an Iliad, I've started seriously exploring creating MobiPocket format eBooks. Using BD I've encountered a couple of problems:

1. No table of contents - I believe that's a shortcoming of BD. That means, though, that if you do create an MP book using BD, it's vital to create a manual TOC (or use the "Insert TOC" menu command) because otherwise the user will have no way of navigating the book.

2. Illustrations in the books come out VERY small and checking or clearing the "Keep Pictures Sizes" box on the "Make Book" dialog appears to make no difference at all. What should be a full-page illustration comes out as perhaps a 2" square picture.

Does anyone know of a way of getting full-sized pictures in a MobiPocket book using BD?

I just played with MobiPocket book creation and I've noticed that the graphics don't work very well. if I have keep graphics sizes (or whatever it is) then I get a small cover and if I uncheck it, the cover is even smaller. I guess it's something you'll just have to put up with.

I suspect that the graphics are being sized to the resolution of the Palm/Pocket PC screen that BD "thinks" the file is being created for, so I'm finishing up with a 320x240 (or whatever) graphic even through I'm viewing it on a 1024x768 screen :).

Strangly, though, it doesn't seem to be a "universal" problem. The "full screen" illustrations I've converted have gone really, really small, but the much smaller graphics in the "Dancing Men" story in the Sherlock Holmes omnibus have come out OK.

I think it's time to ask vvv to add iLiad to the list of devices in the MobiPocket creation screen so BD can format properly for it. The ILiad support seems to be for PDF in BD.

I've already sent him a PM :grin:.

The mobipocket image support includes the option to have three sizes (losrc, src and hisrc), see Image support and display (http://www.mobipocket.com/dev/article.asp?BaseFolder=prcgen&File=images.htm). I'm not sure which the iLiad will display when there is a choice. Most books I have tried don't seem to include multiple sizes, and tend to have rather small images. If large images are included, adding a small alternative image would not increase the file size much and would aid readability on low res devices.

So, how do you create mobipocket books in BD?

Do you choose Make eBooks -> Palm/PocketPC option?

Have you solved problem with inserting pictures?

What type of device do you choose in the option device?

Use the "Palm" option. Set the format to "MobiPocket" and the device to anything except "Palm B&W". All the other three device options are the same, and give you colour pictures in the resulting file, which is nice if you're using the desktop reader.

One thing to note with Mobi books is that you need to insert MANUAL pagebreaks at the start of chapters - you don't get them automatically as you do with the Sony Reader option.

Is there a Mobipocket emulator what I can install on my PC to have any idea of how my mobipocket book is going to behave/looks like on the iLiad?

Just out of curiosity, if I had cybook gen3 would I have to re-edit mobipocket books created for the iLiad and vice versa?

FBReader should work: http://www.fbreader.org/

You could download the Mobipocket reader from Mobipocket. The iLiad books are just text based. There is no reason they won't work with the Gen3 or Mobipocket Desktop.

FBReader should work: http://www.fbreader.org/
Thanks.


JSWolf
this one - Mobipocket Reader Desktop 6.0?

Use the "Palm" option. Set the format to "MobiPocket" and the device to anything except "Palm B&W". All the other three device options are the same, and give you colour pictures in the resulting file, which is nice if you're using the desktop reader.

One thing to note with Mobi books is that you need to insert MANUAL pagebreaks at the start of chapters - you don't get them automatically as you do with the Sony Reader option.

I have done it as you explained and it works fine - manual page breaks and TOC. There is only one thing I miss. When I am at the beginning of a book (where my TOC is located) I can choose any chapter I want and it takes me over there. What if I want to jump to another chapter? How do I get to this page where I have TOC, so I can choose where to go?
In Sony reader it is not a function of LRF, it is reader's function, I just hit MENU wheel once it gets me back to TOC.
What do you do in iLiad? Is it possible?

Has anyone found a decent way to create Mobi books in OS X?

I've had a very useful day today; I've figured out how to create a "proper" MobiPocket format book (using the free "MobiPocket Creator" tool), using a BD-generated book at the starting point. I've posted a new version of "Bleak House" as my first example of this.

Once I figured out how to do it, it's pretty straightforward. I'd guess that, given a nice book in BD, one can have a Mobi version created with about 10 minutes work.

Anyone interested in a tutorial about how to do it?

The benefits of a proper Mobi version are many:

- Proper metadata in the file for author, title, category, etc, so it shows up properly in the library of a Mobi device.

- Full-sized cover image and pictures within the book (BD shrinks them down to tiny images).

- Centred text for titles, etc. (it all comes out left-aligned with a BD book).

- Proper "table of contents" link in the reading device.

etc etc.

I'm feeling very pleased with myself about this! I can now, finally, create illustrated MobiPocket books which as as nice as those I've created previously for the Sony Reader.

I'd love to see a tutorial - the version of 'Bleak House' looks brilliant; many thanks :D

Boy, I'd really be interested, Harry, if you'd be so good as to take the time. And would you tell us what version of the Book Creator you're using and whether it's the Home or Professional edition?

Jim

I've had a very useful day today; I've figured out how to create a "proper" MobiPocket format book (using the free "MobiPocket Creator" tool), using a BD-generated book at the starting point. I've posted a new version of "Bleak House" as my first example of this.

Once I figured out how to do it, it's pretty straightforward. I'd guess that, given a nice book in BD, one can have a Mobi version created with about 10 minutes work.

Anyone interested in a tutorial about how to do it?

The benefits of a proper Mobi version are many:

- Proper metadata in the file for author, title, category, etc, so it shows up properly in the library of a Mobi device.

- Full-sized cover image and pictures within the book (BD shrinks them down to tiny images).

- Centred text for titles, etc. (it all comes out left-aligned with a BD book).

- Proper "table of contents" link in the reading device.

etc etc.

I'm feeling very pleased with myself about this! I can now, finally, create illustrated MobiPocket books which as as nice as those I've created previously for the Sony Reader.

nice. :)

I have been madly tweeking and peaking both HarryT's tutorial and the perl script if found for creating mobi files for my brand new kindle. On my Sony I was able to create 'collections' that could group series of books together in the order they were to be read. Is there a way to do this in the creation process for the Kindle/Mobi? Is there some sort of metadata that can be set?

You could obviously indicate series order in the book's title. I don't believe the Kindle has any direct equivalent of the Sony's collections.

Hey all -

I'll ask this question here as this is the tutorial thread for BD... if I need to ask elsewhere, please let me know.

In using the guide at the beginning of this thread (thanks, HarryT!), I'm finding that I am unable to create a 'page break' in my BD file.

I use the 'create page break after selection' icon (after placing my cursor where I want the break), and I get an error 'beep.' If I select any text and try the same button, I get a message window that says 'page break can be inserted only after elements selected in the "one-click" element selector" mode.'

What am I doing wrong? I am in the 'editor' mode of BD, and everything else seems to work ok.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!

Well, I just figured it out (of course, right after I get done with my question!).

For those that have had a similar issue, you need to click the mouse icon on the Corrector panel (top left icon). That gets you into 'one-click selector mode.'

Then, select a line-break (or whatever) and you can then choose the page-break button.

I think that BD must be a different version than what is referenced in HarryT's tutorial, as this and some of the other buttons were in different places, just FYI.

Yes, my tutorial illustrates a slightly older version of BD than the current one.

Very nice. Thanks!

Harry,
How do I remove/delete page break?

:chinscratch:Charlie

select
format/moretransformations/remove all page breaks.

A page break is shown in BD as a line across the page. Simply delete it, as you would any other text. You wouldn't normally want to remove ALL the page breaks, since you generally want a page break at the start of each chapter.

Thanks to Patricia and Harry!

I must not have some elective enabled. When I click on the Page Break little boxes appear around it showing it to be selected. Neither the del key or the big X in the Corrector have any effect.

Patricia's answer worked, and I then selected Insert All Page Breaks and every thing came out fine.

Great tool!!

Charlie

How do I remove empty spaces between paragraphs?
I just got a book which has empty paragraph after every paragraph. It drives me nuts!

P.S. found it :)

Just in case anyone else is wondering about the line breaks: go to tools/ element browser/empty paragraphs. Delete the unwanted empty paragraphs. (Keep them before chapter titles, otherwise they won't work properly.)

Just in case anyone else is wondering about the line breaks: go to tools/ element browser/empty paragraphs. Delete the unwanted empty paragraphs. (Keep them before chapter titles, otherwise they won't work properly.)

It would not help in my case.
1. It would help but then it would take me a full week of 8 hours shifts of deleting all of them one by one, the book was very long.
2. Bizzare, but the empty paragraphs were not recognised as such by BD.
I knew about your solution. That was one of the very first things I have tried.

So, my solution was a bit different(although lengthly process as well).

I was selecting as much as possible of text that I can see on one screen. Then either go to: Format/more transformations/select elements -> paragraphs or right click with a mouse on selected text and select more transformations/select elements -> paragraphs in a drop down menu.

It would remove all the fake empty paragraphs in select text.
You cannot use "select all" because it would remove all empty paragraphs which would be a bad solution as well.

Hello All
I have been using BD for a while and though I am by no measure an expert I have been able to produce some nice looking books. One thing still still stumps me.

I can drop a jpeg of the book cover into the book file or into the Palm builder. The book cover shows up in MOBI desktop in full glory. On my PPC, the picture is clipped on all sides.

When I bring up the picture editor, nothing seems to work as the help file describes. I adjust width by percentege and look for the "Apply" selection which eludes me. There is something in the picture editor I am not seeing.

By the way, a jpeg of the author, lower down in the file, shows up fine in both readers.

BD rocks!
Charlie

I would strongly recommend that you don't use BD to create MobiPocket books - it does a very poor job of it.

As I describe in my tutorial, you'll get MUCH better results if you export the book from BD as HTML, and then use MobiPocket Creator to create the book.

Harry,
Where can I find your tutorial on using BD file and MOBI Pocket Creator?

Thanks, Charlie

Harry,
Where can I find your tutorial on using BD file and MOBI Pocket Creator?

Thanks, Charlie

Here (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17914).

Thanks, Harry

HarryT,
I followed your tutorial and it worked great on your book. I'm running into a problem with my own.

In BD, I have placed th title and author on a seperate page, a jpeg of the author on its own page, and the toc on a seperate page. In the final prc, all of the above are on one long page, but each of the chapters begin on a new page.

In checking the html file, a page break (<mpb:pagebreak/>) appears after each of the above items. I have searched the tutorial for any mention of pagebreaks other than the replacement of <HR> and can find nothing.

I know that this will be a forehead slapper, but can you point me to a solution?

Thanks,
Charlie

P.S. The tutorial worked great!!

I'm afraid that I can't think of any reason for this behaviour, Charlie. A page-break has always been "honoured" by the Mobi Reader in my experience.

Sorry!

Harry,
Where can I find your posting of "Bleak House?"
Charlie

Click "E-Books" in the blue bar at the top of the screen. Search for it, either by author or title.

In checking the html file, a page break (<mpb:pagebreak/>) appears after each of the above items. I have searched the tutorial for any mention of pagebreaks other than the replacement of <HR> and can find nothing.



That is very mysterious. I'm wondering whether a few empty lines before the pagebreaks would help. Perhaps it might be worth adding a few <br> tags into the html just above the pagebreaks?

Patricia,
I tried the <br> before the page break. Good idea but no good. In checking HarryT's "Bleak House" the same thing thing is true. I posted the problem the the Mobipocket Creator form and their answer is the same. It's supposed the work!! I think that the problem resides in Creator.

I even re-downloaded Creator but no change.
Perhaps the next version???
Charlie

Patricia,
I tried the <br> before the page break. Good idea but no good. In checking HarryT's "Bleak House" the same thing thing is true. I posted the problem the the Mobipocket Creator form and their answer is the same. It's supposed the work!! I think that the problem resides in Creator.


Sorry, Charlie, what's true in "Bleak House"?

Harry,
If a chapter ends in the middle of a page, the next chapter should not start until you move to the next page. If a chapter now ends in the middle of a page, the header of the next chapter appears immediately after on the same page. This is not true with BD page breaks. If a chapter ends in the middle of the page, the remainder of the page is empty and the reader must page foward to see the next chapter.

If a page break is after the title page,the reader must page foward the see the graphic of the author. The same is true moving to the toc and from and from the toc to the start reading.

All of this is not happening with Creator except by accidental occurance of text. BD makes it very simple.

Charlie

Harry,
If a chapter ends in the middle of a page, the next chapter should not start until you move to the next page. If a chapter now ends in the middle of a page, the header of the next chapter appears immediately after on the same page.

With Mobipocket books you have to put in a manual pagebreak at the start of each chapter to make this happen. It certainly SHOULDN'T happen with any of the books that I've created - please let me know if it does, because it's a mistake on my part. In my Mobi books I always put a manual pagebreak at the start of a chapter.

A random thought: you're not using Book Designer to actually create your MobiPocket books are you?

:smack:
Harry, you have my most sincere apologies! Once I learn to read there will be less frustration. There is an old army saying that covers it, RTFM (Read the f... book). I was using <mpb ... rather than <mbp ... Once that chage was made everything was fine. I have some work to correct the italics, and then I will post the book for your critique. I have been following your tutorial, using BD to format the book and Creator for the final creation. Thanks for all your help.

Charlie

Glad you found the cause of the error. An easy one to make!

Harry,
Here is my first success using both of your tutorials. One of my favorite SF authors downloaded from Gutenberg. It becomes great fun when everything works.

Thanks for all the guidance.:thumbsup:

Nice work, crutledge. Why not upload it in our Book Upload section, so that more people can find it?

(Go the the blue bar at the top of this page and click on Ebooks, then start a thread in the mobi/prc section and attach you book.)

Patricia,
Dumb question! How does one start a new thread?

Charlie

Go to the forum of your choice. In your case, I'd suggest the Mobi Books section. On the left-hand side, immediately above the blue bar with various thread options, there is an inconspicuous blue box with "start new thread". Click it. Don't forget to add a thread title (author surname, comma, firstname then colon: Title, , v.1, date.) or to upload the attachment. (Believe me, I've forgotten.)

It's not a dumb question at all. We all have to start somewhere, and you should have seen the help I needed when I was starting out.

HarryT,
I followed your tutorial and it worked great on your book. I'm running into a problem with my own.

In BD, I have placed th title and author on a seperate page, a jpeg of the author on its own page, and the toc on a seperate page. In the final prc, all of the above are on one long page, but each of the chapters begin on a new page.

In checking the html file, a page break (<mpb:pagebreak/>) appears after each of the above items. I have searched the tutorial for any mention of pagebreaks other than the replacement of <HR> and can find nothing.

I know that this will be a forehead slapper, but can you point me to a solution?

Thanks,
Charlie

P.S. The tutorial worked great!!

If you truly are editing the text the way you've outlined, you're making a mistake. It should be <mbp:pagebreak/>, not mpb.

Jim

Patricia,
I finally figured out that I had to go to the beginning of the eBook forum. I also read your and others posts, I will need to become more formal:).

This forum has been educational and informative. In 72 years, I have learned a lot of things, but this is just for fun. So now I just enjoy my grandchildren and great-grand children and making eBooks. What more could could I want.

Thanks for all the help to you and HarryT.

Charlie

A pleasure!

I've started working on various help files/tutorials for Feedbooks too: http://www.feedbooks.com/help/publishing

Still a work in progress but I'll have everything ready before the end of the month: in November it's NaNoWriMo and I'd like to provide an easy way for any person that participates to publish and distribute their work as an e-book if they'd like.

All of this self-published books are now available directly inside Stanza in our "Original Books" catalog, and the most popular english ones are in the Kindle Guide too. French authors have been fairly active so far and there's already a good selection of short stories: http://www.feedbooks.com/userbooks/recent?lang=fr

Harry,
Here is my first success using both of your tutorials. One of my favorite SF authors downloaded from Gutenberg. It becomes great fun when everything works.

Thanks for all the guidance.:thumbsup:

Great! Thanks for the book. I know sometimes creating the book is almost as fun as reading it. But if you ever get the urge to read more Public domain and don't find it here you can visit FeedBooks (http://www.feedbook.com)

Here's Feedbooks version of Cosmic Computer (http://feedbooks.com/) (direct mobi link (http://feedbooks.com/book/311.mobi))

=X=

Harry,
I have downloaded your Sherlock Holmes Omnibus. A great build! I've been thinking of how it might be done. One is to link several HTML files and the other is to cantenate all of the files and do a careful format in Book Designer. A very large file.

Perhaps you might consider another of your very useful turorials:).

Just a thought!

Charlie

Well,I went ahead to find out if catenating files would work. I going thru the HELP fileand I found "Join books" so I guess this is common. I joined two short novels - one with 4 chapters and the other with two and a couple of short storys. The file was loaded into BD and a normal formating routine was done.

I built a master toc which links to the book and story titles. Within the books, I built a toc pointing to the chapters. Not as hard as I had thought. Every thing worked after the file was built by Creator except for one item.

The book and story titles all come out left justified and not formated as titles. The html looks fine. I've chased this all day with no success.

Anybody have any ideas?

I think I will watch some Telly and goto bed.:angry:

Charlie

:)I have egg on my face again. I went back and inspected Harry's omnibus more closely and finally saw that the sub-toc was placed on it's own page. Once I did this all was right. I still don't understand why this is so because the HTML indicates everything is OK, but I can live with it. Harry's tutorials even teach silently.

Thanks, Harry.
Charlie

Well,I went ahead to find out if catenating files would work. I going thru the HELP fileand I found "Join books" so I guess this is common. I joined two short novels - one with 4 chapters and the other with two and a couple of short storys. The file was loaded into BD and a normal formating routine was done.


Yes, that approach certainly works. I do it a slightly different way myself: I load the first book into BD in the usual way, but for 2nd (and subsequent) books I simply open the book in the web browser, select all the text and copy it to the clipboard, then simply "paste" it at the end of BD window.

It's one of those things that there's no "right" or "wrong" appraoch for; there's lots of ways to do it.

Yes, that approach certainly works. I do it a slightly different way myself: I load the first book into BD in the usual way, but for 2nd (and subsequent) books I simply open the book in the web browser, select all the text and copy it to the clipboard, then simply "paste" it at the end of BD window.
But don't forget to let people know that doing a paste bypasses Book Cleaner so all the fixes in Book Cleaner do not get applied.

But don't forget to let people know that doing a paste bypasses Book Cleaner so all the fixes in Book Cleaner do not get applied.

That's true but, on the other hand, a lot of the stuff that's in the BC files is there to "put right" the reformatting that BD does when you load a file, such as breaking lines after a ".", even if that "." is part of an abbreviation like "Mr.". That reformatting isn't done when you paste text into BD, so those "fixes" are unnecessary.

The only thing that "breaks" when you paste into BD is that em-dashes get converted into hyphens, so before I paste, in the source material I replace em-dash by "--" and then, after pasting, replace "--" by em-dash in BD.

That's true but, on the other hand, a lot of the stuff that's in the BC files is there to "put right" the reformatting that BD does when you load a file, such as breaking lines after a ".", even if that "." is part of an abbreviation like "Mr.". That reformatting isn't done when you paste text into BD, so those "fixes" are unnecessary.

The only thing that "breaks" when you paste into BD is that em-dashes get converted into hyphens, so before I paste, in the source material I replace em-dash by "--" and then, after pasting, replace "--" by em-dash in BD.
I'll have to give it a try and see if anything actually breaks other then emdashes.

I'll have to give it a try and see if anything actually breaks other then emdashes.

I've done it a LOT, Jon - in fact with pretty much every one of the "omnibus" edition books that I've posted here. I really think that I'd have noticed if it did "break" anything significant.

I've done it a LOT, Jon - in fact with pretty much every one of the "omnibus" edition books that I've posted here. I really think that I'd have noticed if it did "break" anything significant.

I agree with Harry. Pasting keeps everything except emdashes.

Sometimes when one puts a file into BD it becomes one long paragraph. If you can't find the stray tag then pasting is the solution. It has another occasional tendency to include later chapters twice (especially with PG australia sources). Again, pasting is a quick workaround.

But the Book Cleaner files are very useful when the source files behave themselves.

Sometimes when one puts a file into BD it becomes one long paragraph. If you can't find the stray tag then pasting is the solution. It has another occasional tendency to include later chapters twice (especially with PG australia sources). Again, pasting is a quick workaround.


The trick with PG Australia HTML files is to open them in a text editor and delete the advertising script functions at the start and end of the file (everything between the "<script>" and "</script>" tags). They are what often confuse BD; it works fine if you get rid of them before opening the file.

New blog post about self-publishing on Feedbooks: http://blog.feedbooks.com/?p=106

There's now 2 different help pages:
- one dedicated to self-publishing: http://www.feedbooks.com/help/self-publishing
- another one about our publishing feature in general: http://www.feedbooks.com/help/publishing

I'll do another help page dedicated to public domain books next. Most of the tips concerning formatting (blank lines, emdashes etc...) will be very similar to what you usually discuss here with BD.

Thanks, Harry. I've tried that and you are right. It works for me 99% of the time. When it doesn't I just paste. But I'll try to be more precise with the deletion in future, so it will probably work all the time.

Hello All,

While using BD I called up the Spell Checker. It reports no dictionary. However there is a file in BD folder entitled "custom dictionary.dat." This leads me to believe that a dictionary can be installed. By some means, it is entered into "custom dictionary.dat." and performs spell checking.

Does anyone have any information? I assume that a spelling dictionary is different from a normal (??) dictionary. If a dictionary is obtained, how is it activated for BD?

Thanks,
Charlie

Are there any particular steps to getting an illustration in a mobi book or things I need to check? Over the long weekend I worked on 4 different books with varying degrees of success. All four look fine in BD. The first one came out fine. The second one MobiCreator insists on replacing the author's picture with the cover art. The third looks fine in BD and as a web page but the art disappears in MobiCreator. The fourth one the art disappears when viewed as a web page. Any hints on where I am missing a step?

Are there any particular steps to getting an illustration in a mobi book or things I need to check? Over the long weekend I worked on 4 different books with varying degrees of success. All four look fine in BD. The first one came out fine. The second one MobiCreator insists on replacing the author's picture with the cover art. The third looks fine in BD and as a web page but the art disappears in MobiCreator. The fourth one the art disappears when viewed as a web page. Any hints on where I am missing a step?

This clearly sounds like "The Mystery of the Missing Link" to me. Ya know, whenever Mobi creates a book, it creates its own folder in "My Publications" containing, in principle, all the files this book includes. But not all the images are moved to that same folder (Why you ask? Answer: Don't know). Result: Missing pics in the book.

Solution: When creating the file in BD or however you do it, just keep the source file and the images together. Then copy and paste the images to the new My Publications folder created by Creator after import of the source file. Bingo!

PS: If there is an error in finding the relative pics, Creator gives you the detailed info on where it looked for the images in its error messages. Just look at those to find the exact links if you have taken pics from outside your rootdirectory. You might have to change the more complex links (well, that shouldn't happen if you are consequent) with your associated editor to have them show up in the book.

So as a general rule, keep your images in an images folder in your root folder, then do a copy and paste to the My Publications folder.

PPS:You do not need your roots folder anymore once the ebook creation has been done as you can use the My Publication folder as the place where all your source files lie.

PPPS: Make sure you edit the html file in your MyPublications folder (not the one in the roots folder) when changing any pic links.

Sigh, it sounds more complicated than it really is. Honest!

Hello All,

While using BD I called up the Spell Checker. It reports no dictionary. However there is a file in BD folder entitled "custom dictionary.dat." This leads me to believe that a dictionary can be installed. By some means, it is entered into "custom dictionary.dat." and performs spell checking.

Does anyone have any information? I assume that a spelling dictionary is different from a normal (??) dictionary. If a dictionary is obtained, how is it activated for BD?

Thanks,
Charlie

I don't know about the standard dictionary but the custom one would be where you would add your own words.

So can you create books for the Kindle? is there a link where I can find out more? Thanks,!

So can you create books for the Kindle? is there a link where I can find out more? Thanks,!

Kindle can use MOBI format eBooks from Mobipocket. As a matter of fact the Kindle format is MOBI with slightly different DRM. You can read about MOBI format in the wiki along with how to generate eBooks and there is a forum devoted to this format. Amazon owns Mobipocket, by the way.

Dale

Thanks man, will try the tutorial. Just started to read novels right now.