To Smash or not to Smash

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Lots of authors/readers have been asking Smashwords to allow direct ePub uploading only to fall on deaf ears.

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.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by teh603

And then there's also the possibility of people uploading crafted epubs designed to exploit weaknesses in specific readers and cause crashes or worse. Imagine downloading an epub which had been made to crash Nooks, but not Kindles?

I have never seen an ePub crash a reader that passes ePubCheck or FlightCrew. Also, Kindles don't handle ePub so that's not going to fly. So there won't be malicious ePub if the authors ever get to upload ePub directly. That is just silly.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

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.

Smashwords is using Calibre. So all they have to do is tell the authors to take their ePub and run it through Calibre to convert it to the other formats to see how it looks. Simple really. Another thing that could be done is to allow two ePub. One for distribution and one for conversion so you can have the features that may not convert well and one that's dumbed down for Mobi.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Text with HTML or other tagged markup. I write with sections marked for <em>italics</em> or <b>bold</b> or
<center><b>centered bold text</b></center>
Because most of what I write is going on either Dreamwidth or AO3, and the WYSIWYG editors drive me buggy.

Ah. No, I don't do that, but it should work if you saved it as a .html instead of a .txt. I can't think of a good reason for it to *not* work.

[MCoorlim]

I haven't had the success with Smashwords affiliates that others seem to. I've sold a total of 3 copies there since I started using the site in January. I do opt out of Amazon and Barnes n Nobles and upload there directly, though.

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by MCoorlim

I haven't had the success with Smashwords affiliates that others seem to. I've sold a total of 3 copies there since I started using the site in January. I do opt out of Amazon and Barnes n Nobles and upload there directly, though.

B&N and Amazon together are probably a 90% market share right now. Maybe 95%. Amazon is the clear leader though.