Thread: Kindle only
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Old 08-21-2011, 05:13 AM   #139
JSWolf
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Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
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Quote:
Originally Posted by starrigger View Post
Jon, why do you think it's the author's job to make a book customizable to that extent by the reader (very few of whom would want to do this kind of thing)?



You're saying that all indie authors should learn to do the coding in all of these formats, and code according to your standards. Not going to happen. Most authors are doing well if they get a document into satisfactory shape for an auto-conversion, whether it's by SW, Calibre, KDP, Pubit, or Apple.

How do you think most writers get their epub formatted books? They feed it through Calibre, or through the Pubit or Apple version of Meatgrinder (or KDP for the mobi format). Most of them are not going to hand-code their books.

For most writers, if they get an ebook file that looks good in tests in the major reader formats, that's good enough. Get back to the writing.
You publish your book in ePub via Smashwords someone with a Kobo Touch or nook STR buys your book. This person then tries to use the configuration override options to make changes to how it looks. If this fails, that person may not buy from you again. If that person buys other eBooks from Smashwords and enough of them fail to be customized, that person may just stop buying from Smashwords. This comes from the way the meatgrinder there works in conjunction with Word.

Now maybe using something like Atlantis Word Processor or Open Office with one of the various ePub output plugins would work to solve these problems that plague ePub via Smashwords due to using Word as the source. I cannot say, but there are simple alternatives that might work if Smashwords allowed direct format uploading.
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