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Hitch · 07-20-2012, 07:36 PM

Susan:

Seriously, welcome aboard. MR is a great place, and the forum-police are really very good about not going whacky with "post's in the wrong place" stuff.

I think in normal circles, they call that post a rant, but you are most welcome to it. If anything, the disparity is greater now than when I wrote it, which feels like an eon ago (a millenium in eBook years). Apple has new cover standards (not less than 1400px on the short side!), which Smashwords has, of course, adopted instantly, so as to keep their "premium" catalog program alive; Amazon has taken up embedding the product image as the book's cover, no matter what the designer does (heaven save us all from clients that don't like the way their cover looks on Amazon's website!), to save their DIY'ers from having to figure out how to DIY, and...

Nook hasn't done anything to make my head do the exorcist dance in at least 90 days, as long as you don't count the stunts they've pulled with the NookKids' deal-io. (i.e.: You can't publish a NookKids' book, fixed-format, with embedded audio/read-along, unless you are an approved NookKids' publisher. You can't be an approved NookKids' publisher unless they approve you, obviously. However, you can't be approved as a NookKids' publisher until you show them samples of your NookKid's books. BUT, you can't HAVE the NookKids' software [hint: it's iAuthor with a different name] for making a NookKids' book--required--unless you're an approved NookKids' publisher.) Get all that? If you think I meant that you can't get the software to make the books that you need to make to get approved UNTIL you get approved--yes, that's what I said. I was lucky--I got the software from someone ELSE, and just made the damn books and pushed my way in. And if you don't have a Mac? Oh, well...you're just outta luck.

Oh, and let's not forget LULU, who is still using ePUBcheck 1.x -something, so if you make books with embedded fonts for Apple, it'll fail at Lulu, unless you screw around with the OPF. {sigh}.

The Crazy is loose in the eBook world, and I don't think it's getting ANY better, I truly don't. I love the innovation, but I hate the stupid. If you make truly super books, the disparity will bite you in the ass; the alternative is to make vanilla books, that will work on all devices, but won't shine. It's frustrating, and I know that most serious hobbyists and pro's here would agree.

/rant

Hitch

07-20-2012, 07:36 PM	#42
Hitch Bookmaker & Cat Slave Posts: 11,462 Karma: 158448243 Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Phoenix, AZ Device: K2, iPad, KFire, PPW, Voyage, NookColor. 2 Droid, Oasis, Boox Note2	Susan: Seriously, welcome aboard. MR is a great place, and the forum-police are really very good about not going whacky with "post's in the wrong place" stuff. I think in normal circles, they call that post a rant, but you are most welcome to it. If anything, the disparity is greater now than when I wrote it, which feels like an eon ago (a millenium in eBook years). Apple has new cover standards (not less than 1400px on the short side!), which Smashwords has, of course, adopted instantly, so as to keep their "premium" catalog program alive; Amazon has taken up embedding the product image as the book's cover, no matter what the designer does (heaven save us all from clients that don't like the way their cover looks on Amazon's website!), to save their DIY'ers from having to figure out how to DIY, and... Nook hasn't done anything to make my head do the exorcist dance in at least 90 days, as long as you don't count the stunts they've pulled with the NookKids' deal-io. (i.e.: You can't publish a NookKids' book, fixed-format, with embedded audio/read-along, unless you are an approved NookKids' publisher. You can't be an approved NookKids' publisher unless they approve you, obviously. However, you can't be approved as a NookKids' publisher until you show them samples of your NookKid's books. BUT, you can't HAVE the NookKids' software [hint: it's iAuthor with a different name] for making a NookKids' book--required--unless you're an approved NookKids' publisher.) Get all that? If you think I meant that you can't get the software to make the books that you need to make to get approved UNTIL you get approved--yes, that's what I said. I was lucky--I got the software from someone ELSE, and just made the damn books and pushed my way in. And if you don't have a Mac? Oh, well...you're just outta luck. Oh, and let's not forget LULU, who is still using ePUBcheck 1.x -something, so if you make books with embedded fonts for Apple, it'll fail at Lulu, unless you screw around with the OPF. {sigh}. The Crazy is loose in the eBook world, and I don't think it's getting ANY better, I truly don't. I love the innovation, but I hate the stupid. If you make truly super books, the disparity will bite you in the ass; the alternative is to make vanilla books, that will work on all devices, but won't shine. It's frustrating, and I know that most serious hobbyists and pro's here would agree. /rant Hitch