Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
Lots of authors/readers have been asking Smashwords to allow direct ePub uploading only to fall on deaf ears.
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Allowing direct ePub uploading would be easy. Converting ePubs to mobi, pdf, rtf, LRF palmDOC pdb, plaintext, and its own screen reader would take writing a new batch of code--and more angry authors as they figure out that what looks good in Calibre for ePub doesn't translate to "looks good in .mobi." So it'd take not just coding, but a whole new styleguide. And that would need advice for, potentially, at least two programs (Calibre and Sigil), possibly inDesign, and maybe others. (Presumably, those who hand-build ePubs don't need a tutorial; a short list of supported/not-supported tags would be enough.)
They'd have to explain that it doesn't matter if your ePub has excellent tables; some of the other formats don't support them, and that means the formatting will be lost or scrambled when they convert. That some margin settings translate badly to mobi. And so on.
And it'd have to cope with the lousy epubs created by inDesign and random websites that convert to ePub.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be a great idea, just that I can see how much work would be involved and why they haven't gotten around to it yet. I'd rather they focused on getting the search engine to work better, or reformatted the library so it's not "every book you've bought or added, in alphabetical order." I'd love to be able to sort my library by author or genre.