sound Files

[John Amy]

I was under the impression that new Kindle guidelines say sound and Video are supported. Sigil even as a 'sound' folder. I have a job where I have to put small mp3 sound files into a book. I followed all the latest Kindle guidelines but it doesn't wrok.

In fact when I close Sigil, the sound files in the folder vanish!

Can anyone help or point me in the right direction?

Will sound files actually work on new Kindles or is it only supported by iPads as some blogs suggest?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by John Amy

I was under the impression that new Kindle guidelines say sound and Video are supported. Sigil even as a 'sound' folder. I have a job where I have to put small mp3 sound files into a book. I followed all the latest Kindle guidelines but it doesn't wrok.

In fact when I close Sigil, the sound files in the folder vanish!

Can anyone help or point me in the right direction?

Will sound files actually work on new Kindles or is it only supported by iPads as some blogs suggest?

A. This should be moved to the Mobi forum.
B. If your audio files are disappearing, you are using an old version of Sigil.
C. John, unless you have a publisher's contract with Amazon--which means you are not publishing files via the KDP but are instead publishing them via FTP--you cannot publish multimedia books via Kindle.

Hitch

[John Amy]

I am using 0.6.1.
I am trying to produce the mobi in Sigil. Epub then converted through Kindle Previewer. Why would Sigil have a Sound folder?

This is what it says on the Kindle Publishing Guidelines:
6.3 Embedded Audio
To embed an audio file inside a Kindle book, add a standard HTML 5 tag such as the following:
Example:
<audio id=”audio_1” src="audio.mp3" controls title=”Audio about ...">
<br/><br/><br/>
“There is audio content at this location that is not currently supported for your device. The caption for this content is displayed below.”
<br/><br/><br/>

Have tried this. then I contact KDP Help and get this:

I'm sorry, we don't currently support multimedia in the content or description of your KDP book, however, we're continually working to expand our supported formats to reach a wider audience, and we’re excited that you want to offer your title.

Am totally confused! All I want to add are small 10 second sound snippets.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by John Amy

I am using 0.6.1.
I am trying to produce the mobi in Sigil. Epub then converted through Kindle Previewer. Why would Sigil have a Sound folder?

This is what it says on the Kindle Publishing Guidelines:
6.3 Embedded Audio
To embed an audio file inside a Kindle book, add a standard HTML 5 tag such as the following:
Example:
<audio id=”audio_1” src="audio.mp3" controls title=”Audio about ...">
<br/><br/><br/>
“There is audio content at this location that is not currently supported for your device. The caption for this content is displayed below.”
<br/><br/><br/>

Have tried this. then I contact KDP Help and get this:

I'm sorry, we don't currently support multimedia in the content or description of your KDP book, however, we're continually working to expand our supported formats to reach a wider audience, and we’re excited that you want to offer your title.

Am totally confused! All I want to add are small 10 second sound snippets.

To repeat what I said, previously:

C. John, unless you have a publisher's contract with Amazon--which means you are not publishing files via the KDP but are instead publishing them via FTP--you cannot publish multimedia books via Kindle.

You do not have a "real" Publisher's account with Amazon, like Random House. if you did, those multimedia files would be deliverable and would work. You do not, hence, you are "stuck" uploading via the KDP. If you upload via the KDP, as a regular "self-publisher," that functionality is denied to you.

If you have other questions about this, and you search the KDP forums themselves, and the MOBI forum here, you will see that this has been discussed at great length. KDP Publisher are simply not able to publish multimedia books at this time. Only "real" publishers with FTP book upload can publish multimedia titles. You can fill out an application at Amazon to be accepted as a Publisher, but you have to have a backlist, and the application starts with "please provide the names/ISBN's of your top 25-selling titles..." or something along those lines.

With regard to your version of Sigil, I'll let meme or one of the others address whichever one it is that first allowed the use of the audio and video tags, and kept the files. I think it was 0.63, but in any event, 0.71 is available now.

Hitch

[John Amy]

... although the new version of Sigil doesn't want to load.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Hitch

C. John, unless you have a publisher's contract with Amazon--which means you are not publishing files via the KDP but are instead publishing them via FTP--you cannot publish multimedia books via Kindle.

Hitch

Nothing would prevent him from distributing a multimedia mobi outside of Amazon, though, correct?

Are there any policy restrictions about, say, including in the KDP version a link to a web site where one could get the multimedia version?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ApK

Nothing would prevent him from distributing a multimedia mobi outside of Amazon, though, correct?

Are there any policy restrictions about, say, including in the KDP version a link to a web site where one could get the multimedia version?

Hi:

You'd have to ask Amazon. If he puts it in KDP Select, yes, that would violate their policies. If he doesn't, I should think that no, it wouldn't be a problem. What I would personally avoid like the kiss of death, however, is providing tech support to those folks who don't know how to sideload.

I mean, here's a possible issue: I think it's possible that if you use the PDS (Personal Document Service, aka the Kindle email addy) to send your multi-media file to your Fire, say, it could get stripped in the Xfer.

Not that long ago, the PDS still used the old MBPC-method of converting files sent to the device, so even if you had a K8-mobi (say, with fonts), it would come out a .prc file at the device itself. That's been fixed, but it still indicates that a process/publishing workflow of some kind exists, similar to the KDP upload.

IF that is the case, then you would not be able to 'sideload' by emailing the doc to the device. This means manual transfer, either via USB and/or using a "real" wifi Xfer, *(not the faux, "send to Kindle by wifi," which uses the PDS) like Dooblou.

I can say with some authority that unlike MR'ers, the vast majority of the buying public does NOT KNOW HOW to xfer documents with USB, much less install a Doubloo (sp?) app and use that to transfer books to their Kindle. We spend a massive amount of time here at my company instructing people how to download a file from a browser, or even save a file that was emailed to them for which they do not have an existing program to "launch" it, so trust me, providing download tech support on something like this, assuming that it was intended for the average Kindle user, would have to be offset with very significant price point. The amount of tech support needed is truly mind-blowing.

I have had somewhere around 10 professional clients, companies that are lawfirms, other types of profesional environments, STOP selling any type of ebooks from their own websites because they got their asses handed to them on the costs of the endless phone calls about downloading, saving and launching/opening/sideloading, etc. In fact: I can state that not one single firm that took this on has kept doing it; they are all now THRILLED to pay Amazon, B&N, Kobo, etc., their percentage to deal with the tech support.

I know that's not really what you asked, but...thought I should mention it, as I have some not-insignificant experience with that end of it.

Hitch

[John Amy]

This is what they say:

"I'm sorry about the previous misunderstanding.

Currently, Kindle Edition with Audio/Video content is supported and available on Kindle Fire (2nd generation), Kindle Fire HD, iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Kindle e Ink devices do not support Kindle Editions with Audio/Video.

KF8 features are not currently supported in Kindle Edition with Audio/Video content. The file delivered to Amazon should be a Mobi 7 EPUB with self-contained audio and video or a Mobi 7 .prc file with self-contained audio and video. (If delivering a .prc, make sure the file was created using the latest version of KindleGen available from www.amazon.com/kindleformat).

Please see section 6 in the Kindle Publishing Guideline for more details on how to do so."

[John Amy]

ApK. Of course you can put links to anything.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by John Amy

This is what they say:

"I'm sorry about the previous misunderstanding.

Currently, Kindle Edition with Audio/Video content is supported and available on Kindle Fire (2nd generation), Kindle Fire HD, iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Kindle e Ink devices do not support Kindle Editions with Audio/Video.

KF8 features are not currently supported in Kindle Edition with Audio/Video content. The file delivered to Amazon should be a Mobi 7 EPUB with self-contained audio and video or a Mobi 7 .prc file with self-contained audio and video. (If delivering a .prc, make sure the file was created using the latest version of KindleGen available from www.amazon.com/kindleformat).

Please see section 6 in the Kindle Publishing Guideline for more details on how to do so."

Well, that will be most interesting to see.

ETA: And they know you're uploading it via the KDP interface? (Actually, the .prc part is really fascinating to me, generally speaking, because that's the format that the Amazon-contracted ebook company always delivers, which means K7, not K8, format. mmmph).


Hitch

[ApK]

Originally Posted by John Amy

ApK. Of course you can put links to anything.

I thought I recalled something about not allowing links to certain things, like content on non-Amazon store sites.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ApK

I thought I recalled something about not allowing links to certain things, like content on non-Amazon store sites.

Actually, that's a big Apple no-no, even down to certain words, never mind links. Here's a true story:

A few days ago, I received an email from a very big client. (Very). Apple was balking at ingestion because--get this--s/he had a flyer for another author's book in his/her book. Something like "So-and-so recommends..." On that flyer "page" was a link to the other author's website, right? No direct sale links, nothing like that. But, once you clicked through to that other author's website had sale links TO Amazon, in the usual way "Buy such-and-such now," and the link went TO Amazon. Apple was having little hissies about THAT.

And in over 2,000 books on Amazon, I've never had AMZ come back and ask me to take this or that out for that type of internal-PC policing. ONLY Apple. Another true story: For a few months, they did not want to intake any books we'd made because I have a bookcredit line on all our copyright pages: "blahblahblah produced by Booknook.biz," right? Because the word NOOK was in my company name, they wanted me to take it out. I went ballistic over that one and told them to bugger off. They finally relented, but it didn't sweeten my already-tenuous relationship with them.

They had already made me remove parts of my original book credit line, which read something like "ebooks (Nook, Kindle and Apple) produced by..." (or maybe it was "Amazon, B&N and Apple,") which, when I started out in 2008 or 9 or whatever, I used because even that recently, people were still calling PDF's "ebooks," so I used it to distinguish, thinking most folks didn't know Mobi from their elbow. They did insist that that had to be removed, because it mentioned--mentioned--Nook and Amazon. I did have a book that failed ingestion because it had the WORD "kindle" in it. As in, kindled a fire. (No...really, not making this up).

I've never had that happen with Amazon. Not once, and they certainly have a boatload of old mobis that had those credit lines in them. {shrug}.

FWIW.

Hitch

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by John Amy

This is what they say:

"I'm sorry about the previous misunderstanding.

Currently, Kindle Edition with Audio/Video content is supported and available on Kindle Fire (2nd generation), Kindle Fire HD, iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Kindle e Ink devices do not support Kindle Editions with Audio/Video.

KF8 features are not currently supported in Kindle Edition with Audio/Video content. The file delivered to Amazon should be a Mobi 7 EPUB with self-contained audio and video or a Mobi 7 .prc file with self-contained audio and video. (If delivering a .prc, make sure the file was created using the latest version of KindleGen available from www.amazon.com/kindleformat).

Please see section 6 in the Kindle Publishing Guideline for more details on how to do so."

Hi, John:

Listen, I don't mean to be a downer, but I checked again, today, with Amazon. The Manager of Digital Operations. Audio/Video is not supported via KDP upload. If you have a publisher's contract, like a Big6 publisher, you can indeed upload the content as described. But you cannot if you are a regular KDP publisher.

Hitch