[Hitch]

Originally Posted by slowsmile

@Hitch...I hope you don't mind me asking you some questions about the new Kindle format that are a little 'off-piste' but they do concern oddities or things that are somewhat unclear wrt the KPF format.

You can ask...I may not have very good answers.

I think it's clear that that Amazon Kindle have made some massive changes to their conversion platform at their end. And, as you've pointed out from their laissez-fair attitude towards the irksome problems with links in print replica or fixed format, they are not there yet. I'd like to add to this with two questions.

For reflowable ebook uploads only, is it best to upload an epub(with ET enabled) or a KPF file to KDP? The reason I'm asking is that if you upload an Epub, I've assumed that the epub will still be converted to mobi, KF8 as well as KFX format at the Amazon Kindle end whereas if you upload a KPF file then it will only display on KFX enabled devices(and not on older mobi or KF8 devices that don't have ET capability). I could be way out of the ballpark here but would love to know the answer to this question. Do you still upload your ebooks to KDP as epubs?

ACTUALLY, we still give our customers made-to-order MOBI files. I mean, sure...if a customer is having a cow, because they read some blog somewhere, we'll give them (solely) an ePUB, but generally speaking, we don't trust the auto converter. (Plus, don't forget, we do a TON of font work!) We build and test the MOBIs ourselves. We don't believe in the "one file to rule them all" approach, e.g., give the client an ePUB and turn 'em loose.

When you do that, you can't use media queries for the Kindle versions. We prefer to optimize the files for the Kindles, both new and old. (I just updated my K2, for crying out loud and it still works, chugging along...)

I mean...if we're asked for a single ePUB, and no mobi, we can and will do that but our preference is to optimize the files for the environment to which they are destined.

Like you, I'm concerned about the realities, behind the scenes, with KPF uploads. Not that my job is to think about folks who might buy a book and want to download it and er, tweak it or whatever, but...just the same...

I like sticking with stuff that I can dissect, if need be. Take apart, find out what's wrong, see the code...all that.

Second question. Part of the ET specification mentions Progressive Download capability for KFX files, which allows the purchaser of any KFX or ET-enabled ebook from Amazon to actually start reading their ebook while its downloading. So, since download time is now irrelevant for KFX ebooks, why the heck is Kindle still charging a download penalty of $0.15 per Mb for file sizes over 5 Mb for those ET-enabled ebooks??

Well...the progressive part doesn't eliminate the bandwidth usage, though, does it? Or do I just not understand something here? I freely admit, I've never had much of a wait time for a Kindle eBook to download and I live in the Far Boonies. So...I never thought about it.

I truly don't know how PD (Progressive Download) affects bandwidth usage. Maybe one of the Nerdier Dudes here can speak to that?

Hitch