Kindle only

[DreamWriter]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

If you do not go the smashwords route, due to their submission process, then you may be best off manually submitting it to the multiple various stores they link to. Sticking with one store may alienate potential buyers who would expect the items they buy from that store to be incompatible with their reader.

The thought of selling the ePub version at multiple stores makes my head hurt. I would prefer to offer a DRM-free ePub that can be purchased both in the U.S. and abroad from one location, but with all the different devices, it seems that readers shop for their e-books in a variety of places.

Since most Kindle users purchase their e-books at Amazon, offering the book there was so much more straightforward.

[starrigger]

Pubit allows DRM-free books. But they're not identified as such on the product page, so you have to include it in your description if you want people to know.

SW is about the only way to distribute to the other stores without going insane. Yeah, you can do Apple, but it's a major pain. The others, forget it. But really--if you already have a good Word doc, there's no reason not to do SW. It's an easy process, and why not take advantage of the distribution to all those other stores?

[Hellmark]

I just wish that you could submit to smashwords in something other than doc format. If you have a valid standards compliant file, why not?

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

I just wish that you could submit to smashwords in something other than doc format. If you have a valid standards compliant file, why not?

They're handling massive numbers of uploads of unpredictable quality. I imagine it's the only way they can keep the system working without significantly more human intervention.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by starrigger

They're handling massive numbers of uploads of unpredictable quality. I imagine it's the only way they can keep the system working without significantly more human intervention.

That's BS. There's no reason an ePub could not be uploaded directly and run through a validation check and if it passes, accept it.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That's BS. There's no reason an ePub could not be uploaded directly and run through a validation check and if it passes, accept it.

Are you offering to write the code to do that?

Are you offering to write the tutorial to explain how to make ePubs that pass SW's validation system, when as far as we know, every device, every program, has different ways of deciding what "valid" ePubs are? (Yes, there are official standards. None of the devices is actually using those, which makes them "more like guidelines, really.")

Smashwords isn't a publicly-traded company with a board of directors and a billion-dollar budget. It has a tiny staff. It may have a one-person staff. Insistence that it "should" provide various features need to be backed with an awareness of who would be providing them--and what services would vanish while they set that up.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Are you offering to write the code to do that?

Are you offering to write the tutorial to explain how to make ePubs that pass SW's validation system, when as far as we know, every device, every program, has different ways of deciding what "valid" ePubs are? (Yes, there are official standards. None of the devices is actually using those, which makes them "more like guidelines, really.")

Smashwords isn't a publicly-traded company with a board of directors and a billion-dollar budget. It has a tiny staff. It may have a one-person staff. Insistence that it "should" provide various features need to be backed with an awareness of who would be providing them--and what services would vanish while they set that up.

Actually, I am pretty sure they could find enough people to volunteer around here to help put such a thing in place.

[OneandonlyDoc]

Originally Posted by starrigger

They're handling massive numbers of uploads of unpredictable quality. I imagine it's the only way they can keep the system working without significantly more human intervention.

I figured what I was going to do with mine was run everything through Sigil first to make sure the background coding looked okay before I ran it through meatgrinder. Anyone else tried that?

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That's BS. There's no reason an ePub could not be uploaded directly and run through a validation check and if it passes, accept it.

Not saying that's impossible, but I can think of several reasons why they might choose not to do that:

1. It's not all about epub. They have a system designed to take a pretty universal writing-document format (Word) and turn it into a variety of ebook formats. They do it quickly, they do it for free, they do it for a huge number of books, and they do a fairly good job of it (if you don't count the .pdb, which comes out awful). It's a single workflow that applies to all submissions.

2. If they wanted to set up a separate workflow for people submitting epubs, they could do what you suggest. Pubit does this. But that wouldn't do anything to guarantee better ebooks. Most people would probably either continue to submit Word docs, or run their docs through Calibre (which is what I do), and produce epubs that might or might not pass validation checks.

(I'm chagrined to say that my epub of Sunborn's international edition, produced that way, flunked epub validation--whereas the meatgrinder output passed with flying colors.)

3. There always has to be a third reason, but now I've forgotten what I was going to say.

I'm not praising their system as perfect; I'm just saying it works pretty okay for a large number of people. Probably they'll make it better one of these days.

[JSWolf]

Calibre has never done eReader format well enough. I've mentioned it and it's still fairly useless.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by starrigger

(I'm chagrined to say that my epub of Sunborn's international edition, produced that way, flunked epub validation--whereas the meatgrinder output passed with flying colors.)

But if you remember, the hand crafted copy of Sunborn in ePub was quite a nice edition. It's easily better then a Word > ePub version. For authors who know how to do ePub well or have someone to help, it can be better.

If Smashwords was to all ePub uploading, I would also hope they'd have it showing that the ePub was the source and not Word.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But if you remember, the hand crafted copy of Sunborn in ePub was quite a nice edition. It's easily better then a Word > ePub version. For authors who know how to do ePub well or have someone to help, it can be better.

No question--though those authors have other ways to get their craft-brewed epubs on the market. And yes, the handmade version of Sunborn was lovely--though I learned later that it had some coding issues that caused display problems in some readers. I didn't use it because of that, and because it had very nice design elements that were a reproduction of the Tor paper book. I couldn't use that for my world edition because it was Tor's design. (It was okay when I was giving away copies, to promote the Tor book.)

If handmade epubs are craft brew, then SW is Budweiser. The first is a lot better, but there's a place for both.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by stevenreed034

Yes,Download free high quality epub eBooks for use on your iPad, Sony Reader, iPhone, Kobo, Nook, BeBook, Desktop Computer and other eBook Readers.

This post was ever so informative and helpful

[wannabee]

Originally Posted by starrigger

Pubit allows DRM-free books. But they're not identified as such on the product page, so you have to include it in your description if you want people to know.

SW is about the only way to distribute to the other stores without going insane. Yeah, you can do Apple, but it's a major pain. The others, forget it. But really--if you already have a good Word doc, there's no reason not to do SW. It's an easy process, and why not take advantage of the distribution to all those other stores?

You can upload DRM free to Amazon, Apple and B&N. I haven't uploaded to Kobo yet so I can't fill you in on that. Sony DRM everything.

Anyway, it hasn't been as big a problem to do it yourself as I thought it might be. Most of the uploads are no more trouble than filling out endless online forms. Once an account is opened each book takes about 5 minutes. If you copy and paste meta data you can do an apple book in about 2.

You need a US tax number and bank account though.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by starrigger

No question--though those authors have other ways to get their craft-brewed epubs on the market. And yes, the handmade version of Sunborn was lovely--though I learned later that it had some coding issues that caused display problems in some readers. I didn't use it because of that, and because it had very nice design elements that were a reproduction of the Tor paper book. I couldn't use that for my world edition because it was Tor's design. (It was okay when I was giving away copies, to promote the Tor book.)

If handmade epubs are craft brew, then SW is Budweiser. The first is a lot better, but there's a place for both.

The problem is though that you cannot do some things that were done in the hand crafted version via the meatgrinder. Can you have different fonts via the meatgrinder like say serif, sans-serif, & monosapce? I think Sunborn lends itself to font changes very nicely.

What was done int he hand crafted edition of Sunborn can be fixed. If I recall correctly, I believe it was the use of the <pre> tag that was the issue.