Frustrated with all the recent posts by Kindle-only authors

[DawnFalcon]

It's a matter of avaliable time and interest. Unless it's in a particular field I'm looking at, if a book catchs my eye and isn't avaliable in a format I can read (and I can read everything /but/ Kindle format, pretty much, even if I have to do some converting), well... generally, tough.

Look at Amazon, honestly. Why have they arranged the format like that?

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

And that PDF will screw up on an awful lot of readers, IME. If you're making PDF, and don't bother to make it properly, then it's going to put an awful lot more people off when the formatting goes badly wrong when their recently-updated reader shows one like per page, or whatever. (Let alone the devices, like my old, second-hand and now dead WinCE device which never handed non-Adobe PDF's well). I'll agree that this will lessen as a problem over time since PDF is now a fully open standard, but the effect remains for the moment since many devices and their readers were designed and produced before that.

And it says.. let's see, you're showing them as "PDF2". That's totally unclear, and you're relying on pop-up tags to explain what that actually means in the first place, given there is no "PDF2" format, and those pop-up tags won't display on many browsers (especially PDA ones!) in the first place. No wonder more people download the "untagged" one.

And your HTML is effectively unformatted... a common screwup, and I'm going to point at Baen doing the right thing here.

You're turning my simple suggestion that one ought to provide the most commonly desired formats into a rant on my specific execution. I don't doubt that someone could improve on the way I've done it. But there are also limits to what one wants to spend time doing.

I've received no complaints from anyone about trouble reading any of my PDFs, some of which were done with Adobe's online service, some of which were done in Open Office, some of which (most of the tagged ones) were done in Framemaker. I cannot say the same about some of the files that were created for specific ebook formats. It is true that not all the PDFs will reflow on all devices. And maybe not all browsers will show the mouse-over explanatory tags on my web page--but most will, and I needed a way to explain the differences without taking up a lot of room on the page. I'm sorry if you don't like the way it's shown. Most people seem to like it.

I believe that most downloaders who choose PDF are probably going to read it on their computers, not on small devices. If they have PDAs or readers, chances are they'll go for another format.

And that's at the heart of my original suggestion to other authors: many people who might try your books are not going to be ebook geeks. They'll probably just open a PDF on their computer because that's what they know how to do. Most ebook-lovers will pick other formats. But why limit your audience to them?

[JSWolf]

So the formats to offer would be...

ePub
LRF
Mobipocket
MS Reader
eReader
PDF

Have I left any out? I don't think so. So that means that for every eBook you'll need 6 different formats.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So the formats to offer would be...

ePub
LRF
Mobipocket
MS Reader
eReader
PDF

Have I left any out? I don't think so. So that means that for every eBook you'll need 6 different formats.

Why not offer ePub and a download of Calibre? That seems the most sensible to me, or am I being overly simplistic?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So the formats to offer would be...

ePub
LRF
Mobipocket
MS Reader
eReader
PDF

Have I left any out? I don't think so. So that means that for every eBook you'll need 6 different formats.

I'd agree that those are the major formats. There's also FB2 and IMP, and PalmDOC PDB would be nice (and is very easy to make).

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by starrigger

You're turning my simple suggestion that one ought to provide the most commonly desired formats into a rant on my specific execution. I don't doubt that someone could improve on the way I've done it. But there are also limits to what one wants to spend time doing.

Of course I am, since you're making certain catagorical statements about a format, that very few people are downloading your tagged PDF's. Well, afaik I don't believe you can say that because of the way your page is set up which hides the fact that the "PDF2"'s are tagged PDF's.

I'd split the ones for PC and the ones for handheld device reading onto seperate lines, it's clearer and gets you the space to put reflow-PDF or tagged-PDF in. You say there's a limited amount of work, and I'd agree, but having a website laid out to catch people's eye can drastically increase their interest and it's a mistake to go to the trouble of making a book and not take the last step of getting people to read it.

So many people throw together web pages without understanding the useability arguments. I have been, for reference, involved in game UI's and useability and the principles are the same.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Of course I am, since you're making certain catagorical statements about a format, that very few people are downloading your tagged PDF's. Well, afaik I don't believe you can say that because of the way your page is set up which hides the fact that the "PDF2"'s are tagged PDF's...

So many people throw together web pages without understanding the useability arguments. I have been, for reference, involved in game UI's and useability and the principles are the same.

I do understand the usability arguments. I just don't agree with your conclusions, for reasons I won't belabor, as they're completely off-topic.

I never said "very few people" are downloading the tagged PDFs; actually, quite a lot are, but many more are downloading the regular PDFs. (The tagged PDFs are larger files, for one thing.) The downloads are continuing quite nicely, thank you.

The only categorical statement I made was that people demonstrably like to download PDF files, so writers who want to draw attention to their books shouldn't ignore the PDF format. That was the only point I was making. Everything else was a response to your mystifying attack. Which if I'd been smart I would have let pass on the first round.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Jeffrey, I can't help but wonder if there is a significance to the fact that you sell e-books in PDF formats, whereas I made PDFs available but did not sell any at all. My PDFs were all tagged, whereas you say your untagged PDFs sold better than your tagged PDFs. Do you really think more people bought the PDFs due to the size difference only?

And what about compared to your other formats? My biggest-selling format has always been Mobipocket, with Sony LRF a not-so-close second once the reader came out. Now I may sell more ePub files than Sony LRF.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Jeffrey, I can't help but wonder if there is a significance to the fact that you sell e-books in PDF formats, whereas I made PDFs available but did not sell any at all. My PDFs were all tagged, whereas you say your untagged PDFs sold better than your tagged PDFs. Do you really think more people bought the PDFs due to the size difference only?

Actually, I think all Jeffery's ebooks on his website are free downloads.

BOb

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Jeffrey, I can't help but wonder if there is a significance to the fact that you sell e-books in PDF formats, whereas I made PDFs available but did not sell any at all. My PDFs were all tagged, whereas you say your untagged PDFs sold better than your tagged PDFs. Do you really think more people bought the PDFs due to the size difference only?

And what about compared to your other formats? My biggest-selling format has always been Mobipocket, with Sony LRF a not-so-close second once the reader came out. Now I may sell more ePub files than Sony LRF.

Hi Steve -- Bob is correct. The books I'm talking about are the free downloads. My for-sale ebooks are all through the regular sellers, and I have no idea how they do by format. Indeed, reporting is so slow, I have little idea how they're doing at all, other than that they got off to a good start after the May release.

The reason I offer two different PDFs is that, besides the fact that the tagged files are appreciably larger, the regular PDFs are formatted to look nicer on a big screen, or printed out. I suspect, actually, that most of the PDF people have no intention of copying the files to a device, and are simply planning to print or view on a monitor. My mouse-over tips suggest regular PDF for this purpose. I also suggest trying one of the other ebook formats.

In descending order of popularity, here's a rough breakdown from last month:

PDF
tagged PDF
html
PRC
RTF
EPUB
LRF
PDB
LIT

Edit: Epub is moving up. In the early months, it was at or close to the bottom.

[WFT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So the formats to offer would be...

ePub
LRF
Mobipocket
MS Reader
eReader
PDF

Have I left any out? I don't think so. So that means that for every eBook you'll need 6 different formats.

Those are the formats I'm going to produce for my novel, based on the discussion here.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I'd agree that those are the major formats. There's also FB2 and IMP, and PalmDOC PDB would be nice (and is very easy to make).

Isn't PDB another term for eReader? Also, please talk for a moment about FB2 and IMP. Why should we authors consider adding them to our list of formats?

Originally Posted by starrigger

In descending order of popularity, here's a rough breakdown from last month:

PDF
tagged PDF
html
PRC
RTF
EPUB
LRF
PDB
LIT

Edit: Epub is moving up. In the early months, it was at or close to the bottom.

Interesting... why do you think html is so high on the list? With all those formats there, does html as third choice mean that many people prefer to read on their laptop or desktop?

[krischik]

Originally Posted by starrigger

PDF
tagged PDF

Yesterday (before I read this forum) I would not have known what that means. May I suggest:

PDF (printing)
PDF (eBook)

not different formats but different names to describe them

Martin

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by starrigger

The only categorical statement I made was that people demonstrably like to download PDF files, so writers who want to draw attention to their books shouldn't ignore the PDF format. That was the only point I was making. Everything else was a response to your mystifying attack. Which if I'd been smart I would have let pass on the first round.

That was advice. Never mind, I certainly won't offer you any again.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by starrigger

Hi Steve -- Bob is correct. The books I'm talking about are the free downloads.

And now I know... I think...

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by WFT

Isn't PDB another term for eReader? Also, please talk for a moment about FB2 and IMP. Why should we authors consider adding them to our list of formats?

There are several different formats with the extension PDB (and several with PRC, but only Mobi has caught on), because the Palm OS can only deal with files with two extensions: PDB (Palm DataBase) and PRC (Palm Resource Collection).

Ebook formats in PDB include eReader, PalmDOC (the simplest, by far--the equivalent of a text file, but more compressed), Plucker, iSilo, TomeRaider, and several others. Memoware has a much longer list of PalmOS document formats (both PDB and PRC), but many of those are now mostly obsolete.

FB2: I don't know much about this format. I know there are ebook readers that take it, and some that prefer it; I think it's much more popular in Russian ebook comms than English-speaking ones.

IMP is the only filetype readable by the eBookwise. Fortunately, there's a free converter; most eBookwise owners get used to putting other documents through that. But if you're offering several formats, it's nice to take a few minutes and put this one up too--it says "I'm paying attention to the ebook community, and I want my book read by anyone who wants to read it."