Quote:
Originally Posted by Man Eating Duck
I have read a few of their books, and obviously the submitters are quite inferior to trained chimpanzees 
Obviously it wouldn't be that simple for a submitted epub. It was just a random thought anyway, nevermind. |
Yes, @teh603:
If you believe that "trained chimpanzees" can follow the Smashword's so-called "Style guide," you should spend a few hours on the KDP Formatting forums. Trust me, there are more of those that cannot than there are people like those here on MR. I know it seems inconceivable that people find things like "styles" or "pilcrows" incomprehensible, but they do.
At least 3-4 times a week, I send out a (now canned) email telling someone that their book is full of broken paragraphs, and that they need to fix them. I send screenshsots, with the pilcrows highlighted, big arrows pointing to them, etc. I tell them how to view them; I give them a link to a video that explains everything a Word user needs to know about styles, the pilcrow, etc. I have had ONE user, in the last two years, who could clean up his manuscript. ONE. Out of what, 150-200 users?
So, I think you are making assumptions about the Word-expertise of authors, in a very broad swath, that does not exist. I almost never get documents that have deliberate Styles used. Documents with hundreds if not thousands of ad hoc styles, yes. Deliberately set styles? No. Headers? No. For folks like that, the StyleGuide shan't help.
But, fortunately, as we've been discussing, it looks like SW will start intake for ePUBs. Assuming that they don't go the Kobo route, and then run them through the "Grinder" (Calibre) again, that should be a very good thing for everyone.
Hitch