Free ebook: Mars Girl by Jeff Garrity

[jgarrity]

Heinlein is always considered science fiction as far as I know. I've got an hour drive to watch my daughter play volleyball this evening and the library is on the way ... I'll see where they categorize Stranger in a Strange Land and maybe find a librarian who has some hair-splitting genre knowledge.

I think Madam Broshkina's TOC makes a lot of sense. I don't see a need to list each short chapter title. Not that there's anything wrong with that, though.

Hadrien, I'll take you up on your offer of help with feedbooks soon. Thanks. I wanted to get back to that, just haven't had a chance.

I suppose ebook cover designs are often misleading because they're usually done by inexperienced people like me. After a few evenings learning the graphics program from openoffice.org and spending a week messing around with ideas, I was just happy to have it done. The experience gave me an appreciation for book designers.

[thianliongpatpoh]

Was off for a while, and when I checked the forum, wow! A new offering! Still in the middle of Strange Attractors, but the title "Mars Girl" quickly got my attention. Welcome aboard, Mr. JG.
Now, some input on the ebook?
Sometimes we take for granted putting a piece of paper between pages of paper books to mark the page we're in. In ebook, we have bookmarks and stuff. Then again, sometimes those 'go to last page read' bookmark might get erased or whatnot. Hence, proper TOC in ebook.
Personally, I have my own preferred ebook format that i chose everytime i buy ebooks from fw, powells or ebooks.com. The format provides (and when the publisher make it properly) TOC and it's very helpful. Try reading a 1,600 something pages in a windows-mobile phone/pocketpc. Without proper TOC, one might spend quite some time to look for her/his last read page.
After I downloaded and start skimming through the pages of the .lit version, one thing comes to mind: let's do this properly.... Cover page, TOC, copyright page (yes, i believe this should be an important part of the book), perhaps reference to other works, _about_the_author, then the package would look much nicer.
I'd be happy to help

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Madam Broshkina

I made a TOC for the following sections in the book:

Prologue
Day I
Day II
Epilogue

I'd like to ask what size font did you choose for small? Also, would it be possible to make it with a ToC for each numbered section please?

[JSWolf]

For those who converted the HTML code of Mars Girl, I have found something that may mean a lot of renumbering unless you've already caught it....

Day I
44. Friends
44. An idea
45. Show’s over
46. Let’s take a chance
Day II
39. Done
39. On with the show
40. Knock it off
42. She said
42. On the road with Jim and Cazin
43. She must be starving
44. Our kind of guy
44. Slow day

[pdurrant]

Thanks. There's also

Day II
31. Tell everyone
31. Turn around
33. Cold steel

and there's a problem up around 107 and 143 too.

Good catch. I'll upload a new version to the Mobipocket forum.

Paul

Originally Posted by JSWolf

For those who converted the HTML code of Mars Girl, I have found something that may mean a lot of renumbering unless you've already caught it....

Day I
44. Friends
44. An idea
45. Show’s over
46. Let’s take a chance
Day II
39. Done
39. On with the show
40. Knock it off
42. She said
42. On the road with Jim and Cazin
43. She must be starving
44. Our kind of guy
44. Slow day

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Thanks. There's also

Day II
31. Tell everyone
31. Turn around
33. Cold steel

and there's a problem up around 107 and 143 too.

Good catch. I'll upload a new version to the Mobipocket forum.

Paul

Missed those. Thanks.

[jgarrity]

Thanks for tolerating the multitude of chapters ...

I just realized I should have used the recommended naming format when I started this thread. Is there any way to redo it?

[pdurrant]

I'm not sure there is a recommended naming format in "Deals, Freebies, and Resources", only in the eBook upload forums.

Paul

Originally Posted by jgarrity

Thanks for tolerating the multitude of chapters ...

I just realized I should have used the recommended naming format when I started this thread. Is there any way to redo it?

[JSWolf]

Actually, the title of the thread seems fine to me.

[jgarrity]

My effort to change the title didn't seem to work anyway. I guess it doesn't matter.

[cbell]

I read Mars Girl over 4 nights and yawned through each day afterwards. I couldn't stop reading, as I had to know what would happen next... when I found myself cooking dinner with iLiad in hand, reading this book, I knew I was addicted!

I really enjoyed reading it and during each session I particularly looked forward to the chapters that were focused on Mirellen (Mars Girl). I laughed out loud at some of the images the author creates and I found some of the characters' quotes and behaviour astonishing - very entertaining. If you don't laugh when you read Cecilia's views on religion, then Ray's interpretation of which God is applicable at the time, I'd be surprised!

I also found some parts of Mars Girl confronting - the power of the press and the voyeuristic manner in which they reported the news, forcing their opinions on the public, the politics (the president and the FBI leader - their interaction at the White House - I read this section with amazement, then re-read it). Unbelievable behaviour for a president, I hope, but so very entertaining. Poor little Mars Girl was caught up in a very difficult situation, through no fault of her own, and the public showed an ugly side in supporting the inappropriate merchandise. Thought-provoking.

Thanks for sharing Mars Girl with us, jgarrity. If you had a tips or Paypal link on your website, I'd send you a donation. Please write a sequel - I'll buy it.

Thanks also to pdurrant for the very nicely formatted mobi version.

[mores]

Thanks for informing us (me), I just downloaded it and give it a spin.

Suggestions before even reading the book

*) Please give your files a proper filename. You may be the only ebook-author on your computer, but we have a whole bunch of book on our drives, so a standardized naming system is often used to organze. I personally like
Garrity, Jeff - 2008 - Mars Girl.mobi
since I like to go by the Author's last name, and the publishing date allows for ideal sorting when dealing with more book titles. Some people will download all your books at once, then they're able to read them chronologically.

*) The Website: it's ... improvable. People like pretty packaging, it's fundamental in selling yourself and your work. Right now it looks like a programmer's archive of coding bits that he basically puts online so that he can access it from anywhere. You're a writer, you want to interest people in the story ... add more love!
If you're an absolute newbie in this department, try setting up a blog and picking a neat template. This will also let you publish those webisodes (neat idea!) more easily and more prettily
Blogger, WordPress etc, they are really flexible and can be made to look very artsy, individualistic and non-bloggy, if that's your fear.
(Hint: static front page, the actual blog = news or webisodes behind another menu item).

*) Book cover: also improvable since it looks like it's been made in MS Paint. Which might be the look you're going for. If not, why not start a competition where people send in their layouts and you pick a winner and they get a free copy of the book ... uhm, okay, maybe they would just do it for the fame then. But you know what I mean. Generate interest, involve people, and get a cool cover to boot.

That's it from me
Now I shall actually open the cover and peek inside.

[cbell]

mores, I downloaded the Mobileread mobi version named "Garrity, Jeff: Mars Girl. v2, 13 Sep 2008". I think that filename is perfect.

I thought the Mars Girl website was limited and "improvable" too, but perhaps it was designed for IE users. I use Firefox.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did and I hope you'll post what you think of it.

[mores]

Originally Posted by cbell

mores, I downloaded the Mobileread mobi version named "Garrity, Jeff: Mars Girl. v2, 13 Sep 2008". I think that filename is perfect.

Yes it is ... too bad the marsgirl.us website has a link to http://www.marsgirl.us/Mars_Girl_mobi.zip, which then unzips to Mars Girl.mobi
And I just read through more of this thread and realized Jeff already adressed the cover.

I hope I like it too, because all the amazing comments and articles make me highly enthousiastic Will post my two cents' worth once I finish.

[jgarrity]

Thanks to cbell for her thoughtful comments. I appreciate it.

I strongly encourage anyone who wants to design a cover for Mars Girl to have at it and send it to me. I'll post them on my web site for people to view and vote on. Is it possible to post them here too? pdurrant already sent me a cover and I'll post that soon.

The only thing I like about the cover I made is the transparent space ship, but then I'm easily amused. As has been noted elsewhere, my cover doesn't have a lot to do with the book anyway. I think it would be best to have a cover design that reduces well. That seems to happen fairly often on the web and doesn't always have a happy result. I made the cover using the free graphics program from openoffice.org. It was a struggle. What the hell is a vector anyway?

Other than showcasing my limited abilities as a web designer and limited patience for design in general, what's wrong with the marsgirl.us site? I use Firefox and it seems to work. The template idea might be the way to go if I've gone too far astray. I downloaded a free web design program (Nvu) to make it. Maybe that was a mistake.

mores, I'll look into the problem you mentioned with the mobi file on my site. If you have any hints about where I went wrong, that might help. I'm pretty trainable.

I really appreciate all the input. Mobilread has been very helpful to me in a lot of ways. There's a long way to go before anyone even begins to hurt my feelings, so feel free to critique whatever you'd like and make whatever suggestions you feel are appropriate about Mars Girl, the site or the cover. Thanks!