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[roland1]

QUOTH: re; your advice about avoiding bullets in list, etc. and typing them in explicitly.

There are situations in my book where there are several lines of text included with each list item. Right now I'm using positioned background images, but they're not predictable, as I've seen. So...

If I use a list with "none" as my type and use text as the initial list icon or number:

How do I get the left margin to align for the overflow text after the initial indent?

ie.

X texttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttextte xttexttexttexttexttextt
exttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttext

I know it works automatically when using regular list structure. But if, as suggested, I use my own text icon and then add some space, now do I get a straight aligned left margin? Knowmsayin'?

I guess I could even cheat and use tables.

[Turtle91]

You can try:

padding-left: 2em;
text-indent: -2em; //adjust value to get better alignment *

But that is highly dependent on the font-style, size, renderer, device, etc. It won't appear perfectly aligned like the OL/LI does.

[roland1]

Thanks Turtle91.

Your last sentence is what makes me wonder which approach to take because I want to get a formula where it's predictable and becomes a kind of cookie-cutter template for my future work.

Originally Posted by Turtle91

You can try:

padding-left: 2em;
text-indent: -2em; //adjust value to get better alignment *

But that is highly dependent on the font-style, size, renderer, device, etc. It won't appear perfectly aligned like the OL/LI does.

[phillipgessert]

Originally Posted by roland1

QUOTH: re; your advice about avoiding bullets in list, etc. and typing them in explicitly.

There are situations in my book where there are several lines of text included with each list item. Right now I'm using positioned background images, but they're not predictable, as I've seen. So...

If I use a list with "none" as my type and use text as the initial list icon or number:

How do I get the left margin to align for the overflow text after the initial indent?

ie.

X texttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttextte xttexttexttexttexttextt
exttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttext

I know it works automatically when using regular list structure. But if, as suggested, I use my own text icon and then add some space, now do I get a straight aligned left margin? Knowmsayin'?

I guess I could even cheat and use tables.

You don’t, or at least not reliably. That’s what I meant earlier when I said the left side always gets thrown off with those approaches. You can’t control what the reader sees well enough for it not to. The only way to keep that line straight is to use the ordinary list symbols.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

You can try:

padding-left: 2em;
text-indent: -2em; //adjust value to get better alignment *

But that is highly dependent on the font-style, size, renderer, device, etc. It won't appear perfectly aligned like the OL/LI does.

Turtle:

Until he tries it and until he messes with fonts, he's not going to understand the reality of how the line-wrap won't work. We do this same work, sometimes, at my shop, when we have customers that can't move off of their customized bullets,etc. but invariably, the moment they play with it on a real device, they're unhappy with the hanging indent.

Hitch

[roland1]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Turtle:

Until he tries it and until he messes with fonts, he's not going to understand the reality of how the line-wrap won't work. [...]
Hitch

[Ahem] Hey, I'm still in the room. I can hear you talking about me.

[Sigh] However, I sense that I may have to give up this authorship thing altogether and maybe try to get a job in landscaping. I hear it's a field that's wide open with many new opportunities for growth.
(As you can see, I will not be leaving my puns behind.)

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by roland1

QUOTH: re; your advice about avoiding bullets in list, etc. and typing them in explicitly.

There are situations in my book where there are several lines of text included with each list item. Right now I'm using positioned background images, but they're not predictable, as I've seen. So...

If I use a list with "none" as my type and use text as the initial list icon or number:

How do I get the left margin to align for the overflow text after the initial indent?

I guess I could even cheat and use tables.

Using a list style with or without a built-in bullet doesn't affect the margins.

No, don't use tables to do lists!

[roland1]

I may not have thought that one through to the end.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by roland1

[Ahem] Hey, I'm still in the room. I can hear you talking about me.

Yes, I know, but I wasn't really talking to you. I was talking to Turtle, reminding him that envisioning what happens with those hanging-indent line wraps, and seeing it in the wild, are two different things. I mean, hell, kiddo, go ahead and give it a whirl, but remember--make SURE you put the result on a real Kindle or even Kindle Previewer and mess with the font sizes. Don't see it at font size 4 and think," Bingo!"

[Sigh] However, I sense that I may have to give up this authorship thing altogether and maybe try to get a job in landscaping. I hear it's a field that's wide open with many new opportunities for growth.
(As you can see, I will not be leaving my puns behind.)

Groan, and I thought I was bad. Remember, when you think about authoring, don't get down in the weeds. ;-)

The authorship thing is good for those who will work. For those who write a book, kerplunk it on KDP and then expect it to rocket to bestsellerdom, without any help or pushing by the self-publisher, well...those books are destined to die a lonely death on the trash heap, buried under those other Eight Million books on Amazon.

I have customers with 4-6 books who routinely sell $10K month, (and one that sells a crapton more than that), but that's not your typical author. If you're writing for money, you need to really get out and push. (I would say, "don't quit your day job," but I suspect that you've heard that before.) If you're writing because you love it, or because you simply can't NOT write, great, then get out and push just as much as will make you happy, in terms of resulting sales.

One pro tip: a best-selling single book is nearly unheard of. Those that succeed like that (The Martian, 50SOG) do so because their authors cultivated their readership and audience for 1-2 years before the book was released, on a blog or fansite respectively.

Most of my successful authors have written 3+ books. There really is power in 3, just like they taught us in BSchool. It's a very real thing and if you look on Amazon, for good-selling Indies, you'll almost always find that they've penned and published at least 3 books.

Hitch

[JSWolf]

And don't forget the cover is very important. It has to be a good cover. It won't matter how good the book is. It could the great but if the cover is lousy, it won't sell well. There are too many books and the cover is seen first most of the time unless you've cultivated a fan base (then you get word-of-mouth and).

If the cover to this book is the blue one in your signature, I do think it needs to be redone. It's too blue with not enough contrast.

[roland1]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And don't forget the cover is very important. It has to be a good cover. It won't matter how good the book is. It could the great but if the cover is lousy, it won't sell well. There are too many books and the cover is seen first most of the time unless you've cultivated a fan base (then you get word-of-mouth and).

If the cover to this book is the blue one in your signature, I do think it needs to be redone. It's too blue with not enough contrast.

Yup, it's the blue one. But that was after I turned down a whole slew of other options. Yes, it's very blue, but there are also books in my genre or close to it that look like a bouquet of flowers with dirt in it — bright, colorful and really generic. That's why I didn't think my cover was going to suffer. It actually looks very good when printed. However, I do sometimes expect to see a shark swim by in all that bluishness.

It's also in the social and spiritual psychology vein, so even for that market, it's probably too aggressive with it's butterflies and "stuff".

And then, there's my hope that it'll become like Strunk's book: people just buy it because they know what to expect inside. We can dream...

[roland1]

And thank you Hitch for those insights. It's always good to know where things are at with other authors. And yes, I think that letting others know about my book can't hurt.

I'm still at that stage where I'm trying to iron out the bugs. That's what brought me here when I took on SIGIL to do my ebook. I suspect I'll be a little wiser around this time next year. [Crosses fingers.]

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by roland1

Yup, it's the blue one. But that was after I turned down a whole slew of other options. Yes, it's very blue, but there are also books in my genre or close to it that look like a bouquet of flowers with dirt in it — bright, colorful and really generic. That's why I didn't think my cover was going to suffer. It actually looks very good when printed. However, I do sometimes expect to see a shark swim by in all that bluishness.

It's also in the social and spiritual psychology vein, so even for that market, it's probably too aggressive with it's butterflies and "stuff".

And then, there's my hope that it'll become like Strunk's book: people just buy it because they know what to expect inside. We can dream...

I had a look at your cover on my Kobo Libra 2 and it does look better in grayscale then it does in color.

[roland1]

So, we're going with the grey then?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by roland1

So, we're going with the grey then?

On most eInk screens, yes.