Neptune Crossing - Jeffrey A. Carver

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by starrigger

Well, I'll be bejoogered! All those hours I spent...

I just tried it and it works like magic. That's amazing. Thanks.

There is a really really good chance there are errors there. And unless you do a compare of the result to the PDF to find them, they'll remain. You can get split sentences, split paragraphs, & run on paragraphs. Oh and then there are the fi & fl errors that cause you to lose fi and fl depending on what software is used with the resulting file. It's a lot more work to make sure the PDF conversion is correct then just running it through Mobipocket Creator.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There is a really really good chance there are errors there. And unless you do a compare of the result to the PDF to find them, they'll remain. You can get split sentences, split paragraphs, & run on paragraphs. Oh and then there are the fi & fl errors that cause you to lose fi and fl depending on what software is used with the resulting file. It's a lot more work to make sure the PDF conversion is correct then just running it through Mobipocket Creator.

Those errors you described sound to me more like the kind of thing you'd get in the original OCR of scanned page to PDF. If the PDF is text-based, I wouldn't think you'd get so much of that.

I've only made a cursory scan through the Seas of Ernathe file, but as far as I can tell without comparing to book pages, it looks like a clean conversion. (And a good job on someone's part of scanning and doing the OCR.)

A more detailed look will have to wait while I do more pressing things.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by starrigger

Those errors you described sound to me more like the kind of thing you'd get in the original OCR of scanned page to PDF. If the PDF is text-based, I wouldn't think you'd get so much of that.

I've only made a cursory scan through the Seas of Ernathe file, but as far as I can tell without comparing to book pages, it looks like a clean conversion. (And a good job on someone's part of scanning and doing the OCR.)

A more detailed look will have to wait while I do more pressing things.

I've tried converting text based PDF using Adobe Acrobat and it's had errors of the type I mentioned.

[starrigger]

Okay, folks! I've gone live with Chaos Chronicles, Book 2: Strange Attractors! It's up on my downloads page in the following formats: html, Mobipocket, RTF, PDF (2 versions), and LIT. LRF and eReader will be along shortly. Oh, also epub.

And I have an epub version of Neptune Crossing that just needs a few tweaks, and then it'll go up, too.

Happy reading, and many thanks to the ever-growing conversion crew!

Jeff

[daffy4u]

I downloaded Neptune's Crossing the day this thread was started. This is the first time I've visited the thread since then and I am blown away by all the openness and cooperation I'm seeing on Jeffrey Carver's and MobileRead's part. Good job everyone.

I have sent in a tip on behalf of my Kindle and my iPod Touch. They thank you and so do I.

[Joerg_Mosthaf]

Got it, Tip on the way, Thanks
Yay - more to read.
Now to finish "From a Changeling Star" and "Down the Stream of Stars"
Yeah - I couldn't wait and got them at Fictionwise
Call me addicted ...

[koland]

Originally Posted by starrigger

Well, I'll be bejoogered! All those hours I spent...

I just tried it and it works like magic. That's amazing. Thanks.

You're welcome. I find it works very well on most things I've tried (for reading on the Kindle) and since I do the conversion, I can "fix" anything weird in the html itself (rather than relying on Amazon's service, which probably uses the same software, since they own mobipocket).

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by Joerg_Mosthaf

Now to finish "From a Changeling Star" and "Down the Stream of Stars" :bookworm:
Yeah - I couldn't wait and got them at Fictionwise ;)
Call me addicted ...:book2:

Aha! You'll be the best prepared for Sunborn, then! And the first to see how the Starstream books and the Chaos books are interconnected. (The first hint of this comes at the very end of The Infinite Sea.) I will say no more.

:)

[starrigger]

I posted it on my blog, so I guess I can say it here, too -- some things have changed, and Sunborn will now be released as a Tor ebook. I have been assured that this will happen near to the release date of the hardcover (end of October), and that it will be available as a DRM-free file.

I still have the option of releasing it for free, too, and I'm weighing that. As a promotional device for the hardcover, it'll probably be more effective as a free download. (And to be honest, judging by the generous tipping around here, I'm not sure I wouldn't make more money that way!) In terms of career outlook, getting those hardcovers sales up is probably the most important thing right now.

[nekokami]

I don't think you'll lose anything by offering a free download. You might only offer one format free, however, and let folks who want a different format either convert it themselves or buy it from Baen.

It would be interesting to compare number of free downloads to number of sales at Baen, however....

[zelda_pinwheel]

if you do decide to make only one format available as a free download, might i suggest you make it epub ? this can read natively by some devices (more and more) and also can be easily converted to other formats like mobipocket. it would be brilliant to see more authors supporting the new standard format.

it will mean less work for you, and once the standard becomes more widespread less work for all publishers offering ebooks, which is a good thing, and also more compatible ebooks and no worries about conversion, which is a good thing for readers of all flavors. i am quite certain that there are plenty of willing volunteers around here to help you with that, if you've never tried it before, and there are tools available like the feedbooks.com interface (soon (or possibly now ?) with a wysiwyg interface !!).

[Robotech_Master]

Originally Posted by thianliongpatpoh

The v.2 of the neptune crossing.pdb is with cover, and the formatting is much better than v.1.

As the guy responsible for that improved formatting, I appreciate the kind words. I don't mind saying the book was a little trickier than the average book to reformat, what with all the funky speech-emoticons and centering and things. So I'm quite proud of how it looks.

[Robotech_Master]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

if you do decide to make only one format available as a free download, might i suggest you make it epub?

I'd suggest making it two and including eReader in that. At present, Tor won't be able to sell the book in eReader, due to contract terms that date back to the old Peanut Press days that haven't yet been updated. But an eReader giveaway will be fine.

[Yoda47]

Originally Posted by starrigger

Quick question for those of you who use iPhones: Do you know anything about the ebook software called Stanza that runs on the iphone? My wife came across it, and I read a bit about it. Looks like it can be used with a variety of formats. The article said it could read Kindle books, so I assume that means it can read mobipocket files. Should this be on my radar?

(She was looking into whether my expressed desire for a Kindle (maybe for Christmas) was really a desire for an iPhone. The answer to that is probably no, in view of the monthly fees, but I still feel I should know about these things.)

Stanza also works on the iPod Touch. It does best with the ePub format, but will read others (with some formatting hiccups).

ePub files look great on it.

[Gibbo]

Originally Posted by Gibbo

The html version is on it's way Jeff

Regards

Jeff did you manage to have a look at the file I send you?

Regards