Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
What Smashwords needs to do is put up a list of what they expect from this new direct ePub upload so then it can be ripped apart so the stupid shit can go.
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Yes, and for anyone who's been following this thread: we've now issued SEVEN ePUBs for this client. Purportedly, the only issue for the last SIX that has been keeping it from intake is the "copyright" information, which has to have "SMASHWORDS" all over it in big type. I've actually removed the "real" copyright page, (and, BTW, the various book credits that belonged to everyone who worked on the book, including the cover designer, etc.) after the 5th version, and replaced the client's title page to match a previous title page he'd done in Word that did intake successfully. The book allegedly passed intake, and then three days later, he got the same error message about the "copyright information," which, FWIW, I copied-and-pasted directly from SW's Guide.
I told the client today that we would not provide any further ePUBs for "testing" at SW. I've had no end of back-and-forth emails with "just change this!" and "just change that!," and "advice" from (wait for it
SMASHWORDS FORMATTING EXPERTS that the client contacted, who said "follow the formatting guide and use the "nuclear" option (i.e., remove all formatting)...and I said,
enough of this crap.
I told him we'd give him the books in Word format, and he can format them to his heart's content. This is a simple fiction title. Nothing fancy. No embedded images, no dropcaps...not even smallcaps. It should have been a near-perfect test ePUB. Seven "versions" later, the book is still not in, for absolutely no apparent reason.
So, our participation in this experiment is over. I never thought I'd say that Apple had been surpassed in their ridiculousness in intake, but, they have been. Maybe people who are bookmaking for a hobby, or to blog about it, have the time to play around with making and remaking titles to see what submits, but we're producers, not authors or publishers, and we don't. Worse, since there's no such thing as publishing "draft," it's not like we can even test the intake for ourselves, so...it's over for us. If and when SW gets their procedures down, and has an actual Guide that can be relied upon, and if we have a client that wants to submit there (we get a few a year), then, great, but until then...
enough already. Creating a Beta with no visible rules, requirements, standards, etc., is just absurd. if authors want to be
tortured trying to hit an invisible target, and want to spend all
their time doing so, great, but, that's not for us. I'm out my own time on this, and as we only get 2-3 requests a year for SW "formatting," I won't earn it back any time soon.
Hitch