How should learning Sigil be structured?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

Is it such a big difference? (And what's "an html-type environment")

Yes. It's a huge difference for writers who have a workflow they're perfectly satisfied with. Maybe new writers will be OK with it, though. But I doubt it.

An "html environment" is one where NOT knowing html/css can hamper your ability to achieve what you want to do (or what the app you're using is capable of doing). Like Sigil and ePub in general.

[exaltedwombat]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

An "html environment" is one where NOT knowing html/css can hamper your ability to achieve what you want to do (or what the app you're using is capable of doing). Like Sigil and ePub in general.

Or like Word, if you don't understand what subset of the available features will translate to epub? :-)

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

Or like Word, if you don't understand what subset of the available features will translate to epub? :-)

Stop being so obtuse. What I'm saying is: there's likely to be a disconnect between "writing a book" and getting said book into epub form for quite some time yet. No matter how much you, or anybody else, wishes it were different. We just got authors (most of them anyway) to switch from the typewriter to the word processor on a computer. You don't believe any more than I do that they're going to switch en masse to a semi-wysiwyg html editor to do their writing.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Stop being so obtuse. What I'm saying is: there's likely to be a disconnect between "writing a book" and getting said book into epub form for quite some time yet. No matter how much you, or anybody else, wishes it were different. We just got authors (most of them anyway) to switch from the typewriter to the word processor on a computer. You don't believe any more than I do that they're going to switch en masse to a semi-wysiwyg html editor to do their writing.

+1

For the LOVE OF GOD!

Enough, enough, enough already. Let me tell you something: of the 2,000+ authors that have come through my doors this past 4-5 years, do you know precisely--precisely--how many have been able to go back through a manuscript and "clean" it, if it had broken paragraphs, etc.? Meaning, were able to figure out HOW to use the pilcrow icon, and then remove the closing paragraph tags that were errantly placed? Come on...take a wild guess. 100? 200?

TWO.

Yup, TWO (2). That's how many. Replete with screenshots from me, video links, instructions....two.

And now there's some type of suggestion that magically, they're all gonna work in html or an html environment?

That is never going to happen. Authors will spend hours, if not days, trying to find their next new shiny "writing program," like LSBXE or Scrivener or whatever, based on how it keeps images, or a gallery, or what music it will play; not how much HTML they can work in. The "writing programs" out there all essentially use RTF, not HTML or Markup. This entire discussion is painfully ridiculous. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be dismissive, but my "sampling" of ~2,000 authors just says that this is beyond wishful thinking. Authors do NOT want to think about what a paragraph is, or how it's created, or whether or not to use empty paragraphs to create a scene-break; they want to be utterly unhampered in their writing. Expecting them to learn html when they won't even learn something as simple as WORD is just....I don't have the words for it, pun intended. I mean, hear what I'm saying to you: most of them do not know how to use WORD correctly. Never mind Sigil. It's DAFT.

Hitch

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

Or just code directly into Sigil. Once authors stopped being scared by <h1> and <p> tags, they'd probably find them no obstacle to their creative flow!

My two cents: when I read this I feel quite oooold. I remember Latex (directly, not nice program for creating latex), I remember VAX Document, where you compiled (yes, that is the right word) the text and printed it, so you could see the final effect.

I find quite more comfortable writing now, sorry. Not having to be worried about nesting correctly the tags, ending them when you need... So I'm all for word processor.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Hitch

[...]It's DAFT.

Some day I'll have to write a book and hire you for formatting/publishing... just to make you happy

[theducks]

I remember using T[sub]E[/sub]X

IMHO eBooks contain 3 distinct disciplines:
1) Word craft, the telling of the story

2) Artistic craft, The presentation of the words (mostly page layout and Style) and Illustrations

3) Typesetting (OK the term is mostly obsolete, but the results are the same) Transferring (coding) #1 using #2 to the output media format

What seems to be the thrust of this topic is to merge #2 and #3 into #1 and have require the author to be good at all these tasks

No way am I any good at #1. I take an 'engineers' form of #2, Art: Functional (Solid, won't come apart in a storm). I am a Mechanic type. Give me tools, and I will beat it into the shape specified in the print (#2)

Self publishing is eliminating a lot of specialized crafts that really make a book ready for market. In many cases it shows .

The author needs a simple word processor to get the prose into a file with minimal markup (Bold, Italic) and allow copy editing.

The final results are then transferred to the coder who implements the Artistic instructions using available toolS for the job.

Somewhere we have gotten into a OSFA mentality. That is not the best way for an excellent product to get to market.

[mrmikel]

Everybody wants to be a star. But all we epub makers are is new-fashioned typesetters and layout people. Let the authors do their thing and desist from imagining themselves as typesetters and layout people and vice versa.

Unless you are self publishing, the money is in the content, so that is what the authors should concentrate on. Then at the end, consult with those who must actually make a book either physical or electronic.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Some day I'll have to write a book and hire you for formatting/publishing... just to make you happy

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Oh, Jellby. Would that you would. But as we know, that's where the cow eats the cabbage, as we say here in Uhmur-ika. I mean, authors that CAN write in html will--and they'll make their own books. Those that can, do. Those that can't, oh, man...they really, really can't. ;-)

If they could, I would not have a biz. Thus...one can't complain about it. What I was ranting about was the idea that a bunch of right-brainers are going to sit there and write their novels (or whatever) in html! Are there some? Sure, we see them here daily, on MR. But the vast majority--guys, if you knew how much time I spend on the phone walking people through stuff as simple as "downloading a file from a browser," instead of a word-processing file "saving" (because they have a program that will launch it from within their email) by "magic," you'd have a whole new vision of life. Trust me, I sure did.

Before I owned this business, it never really crossed my mind--I mean, I'm not young--that all these people out there in the world could NOT do things that we all do like breathing. Can't use Paypal; can't download from browsers, don't know how to save a file that they can't launch first, don't know how to use Word's outline function, don't know that headers are for structure...I mean, I walk authors through the icons on Word menus DAILY. Don't know how to copy a file, in a directory (folder, whatever). Word is a program that they live and breathe with, right? Something that they are using, in the hope of making a living from the output? But they don't know how to use it, and have displayed very little interest in learning it.

It's been very eye-opening for me. It truly has. I think that those of us who are remotely nerdy or tecchie forget that there's an entire world of people out there who really are NOT. I have clients (via publishers) that don't OWN A COMPUTER, never mind don't have Twitter, etc. I get paid by check all the time, even though we take Goog Wallet, Paypal, etc. I am not complaining about all this, I'm not. I'm trying to say that when "we" all live on the Internet, surrounded by other people who are ALSO tech-oriented, people who post on fora, yadda, we FORGET. Not everyone is "like us."

Hitch

[exaltedwombat]

You're getting so ANNOYED, Hitch! No-ones trying to steal your job. :-)

[theducks]

Like many of us, Hitch has been called in AFTER the mess has been made
They want it fixed, but for the price of a clean source.

Hitch can have her Biz, she gets to deal with the customers

[exaltedwombat]

The problem isn't in converting what the customers give us. That's our trade, and if we didn't enjoy solving the problems we wouldn't be in it.

The problem is in managing customers' unrealistic expectations.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

You're getting so ANNOYED, Hitch! No-ones trying to steal your job. :-)

You utterly mistake my annoyance. Yes, I'm annoyed. NO, it has nothing to do with people wanting "my job."

It's about silliness. It's about the idea of herding kittens AND getting them to voluntarily BATHE in running water while you're at it (Authors: HTML). Or the idea that because some itinerant would-be bookmaker wandered in here and couldn't blow Rachmaninoff out his butt the first time he sat down at the piano, we have some obligation to all put our time in to create some "course" for all the would-be bookmakers out there. And now I'm annoyed because every time I say something irritable, you ascribe my motive for irritation to the idea that I have some nefarious commercial interest behind it.

Really? You see a crapload of other professional bookmakers in here helping others? You see Josh and Rob and Liza and Liz and all those guys in here telling people on the Workshop how to make mobi toc's work? Giving out helpful info for no remuneration, on a forum where, by definition, there's no paying work? I'm here exactly why I said I'm here: to relax amongst my peeps.

I don't have "side." I'm a WYSIWYG person. When I have a commercial interest, I say so. When I'm irritated at time-wasting silliness, I say so. And trust me: if I feel that something here is threatening my commercial interests, you won't have any doubt about my motives. Only an idiot would not know that commercial ebooking's days are numbered. None of us know how many days that is; we just know that it is true. There are at least five firms I know of that folded their tents this year alone.

BTW: when I say "finite," I mean, "finite." I mean "bounded." I mean, defined and established. Not guesstimation. Finite (defined and established) control.

Now, seriously: not gonna respond on this thread any longer. It's screwing with my Tao. If I want to be annoyed, I can go to the KDP forums.

Hitch

[theducks]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

The problem isn't in converting what the customers give us. That's our trade, and if we didn't enjoy solving the problems we wouldn't be in it.

The problem is in managing customers' unrealistic expectations.

Don't tell them you enjoy doing it... They will want you to do it for FREE

[exaltedwombat]

Originally Posted by theducks

Don't tell them you enjoy doing it... They will want you to do it for FREE

Good point! Conversely, I really do seem to be getting more work since I stopped quoting low.