As I have detailed in other threads,
HERE and
HERE, I am in the process of putting together an eBook library of fiction from author submitted manuscripts.
As things stand I have three of them submitted as MS Word docs, formated and online on ISSUU as pdf's and Scribd (as private docs) and now I need to start converting them into eBooks.
My first decision is: What formats should I choose to make the fiction available to the widest possible audience for the minimum amount of effort?
I took the data from the two matrices, for eInk and LCD, in the MobileRead wiki and sorted them by the formats that they supported. A pdf generated from the spreasheet is on Scribd
HERE
My conclusion - and stop me if you disagree - is that Mobipocket and ePub seem to have the widest coverage of dedicated eBook readers. Why ePub? It only adds one more reader, albeit the Sony seems to be very popular, and LRF would achieve the same thing. For no other reason that I would like to support an open source platform.
By my calculations it should work like this ...
iRex iLiad PRC/MOBI & EPUB
iRex Digital Reader PRC/MOBI
Amazon Kindle D00111 PRC/MOBI
Bookeen Cybook Gen3 PRC/MOBI
Sony Portable Reader EPUB
... It should be pointed out that all of these also accept text files and all except the Kindle accept html and pdf. Including one of these would mean that we could include the Dr Yi Reader but text, although an easy option to convert doesn't give any of the options that make an eBook special. Html might be an option but, although we will have pdf files available, they will be formatted for the standard sized paperback and from what I've heard you need to format your pdf files for the hardware that is targetting since each has a different sized screen.
I'm working on the idea of converting each book in Mobipocket and ePub so what would be the most efficient way of doing that?
DOC - HTML - BookDesigner - Mobipocket?
DOC - HTML - Calibre - Mobipocket & ePub?
[DOC?] - Feedbooks - Mobipocket & ePub? (Thanks
Zelda!)
If I make the right decisions at this point it could save me days further down the line! ... and my deadline is looming!
Cheers
Kirok of L'Stok