future-proof Fictionwise multiformat choice ?

[Jack Tingle]

Without triggering religious wars, for archival use, I prefer .rtf, or .prc (non-DRM). Both are ubiquitous, fairly neutral, and widely dispersed. That's your best bet for being able to read them years from now. Third choice is probably MS Reader, and strip the DRM so you wind up with a OEB file-set. After that, any other strippable format.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Is professional typesetting something that the average reader cares about?

Shaggy, the answer is no -- until it is no longer available. Currently, the average reader is oblivious to professional typesetting except in "artsy" books. But I know from experience (I do typesetting among other editorial tasks) that whn the typesetting is really poor or virtually nonexistent, readers do complain.

Readers are much less likely to complain in the case of a novel, but they are much more (albeit subconsciously) aware of it -- or the lack of it -- in nonfiction books, particularly in the sciences and history genres.

Don't forget that part of typesetting is choice of font and font size as well as leading, all of which can make reading either painful or pleaseurable. I know that there are some people who love, for example Comic Sans as a font, but would you want to read a 1,000-page book all in 10-point Comic Sans with 10-point leading?

[bkilian]

Originally Posted by ahi

You're as funny as ever, Jon.

A format that is incapable of professionally typesetting (a process that includes layout work, since professional typesetting is a bit of a dirty phrase around here) all (or at least the vast majority of) books is not a viable alternative to paper books.

Even reflow-enthusiasts rarely argue that reflow is viable for typographically complex books, and such books do make up a considerable percentage (if not downright the majority) of existent books.

eBooks today, with ePub and similar formats at least, are primarily novel readers... worse yet, primarily amateur fiction and romance novel readers.

Not everyone is willing to lay out hundreds of dollars for a computer whose associated commercial offerings cannot even match, never mind exceed, the quality of raggy $2.00 used paperbacks from the local used book store.

New functionality like variable font sizes, in-book links to facilitate sensible jumping about, et cetera are great... but they do not make the product viable if it fails to meet the bare minimum quality standards set by paper books for the last several centuries.

- Ahi

Buh?

Ok, of the new york times best sellers, what is the percentage of "typographically complex" books? In terms of dollar values spent on books, what is the proportion of the sales of those "complex" books you speak of?

And now, to the real question, given that ePub is a HTML renderer, where did you get the idea that it could not be used for complex layouts?

One of the things you have to give up by moving to a reflowable, resizable system is point level control of where everything on your page goes. Of the books in my book shelves, the only ones hurt by this are the D&D manuals, and I believe I could redesign even those to look good.

The _advantages_ of a reflowable, resizable format though, are marked. For instance, how useful is the most beautifully typeset book in the world if the text is too small for you to read easily? At that point, it ceases being a "book" and is instead just an "artwork". It evokes emotions in you, like frustration, because some idiot thought they knew better than you what your needs were.

Anyway, I'll go back to reading my amateur fiction and romance novels now. I'm sure Dean Koontz, David Weber, Dan Brown and Terry Pratchett would love to know they've been labelled "amateur".

[BillSmithBooks]

Epub vs PDF typesetting smackdown--in a steel cage!!! (Because the first 30-page long thread wasn't enough.)

Personally, still prefer HTML

[DawnFalcon]

Given how little difference there is between ePuB and HTML...

[khalleron]

Yawn. Ahi hijacks another thread.

I suggest you get over yourself.

[ficbot]

I have been downloading them in LRF because it looks best on my Sony. I figured I could always go back later and redownload the epub if need be, but now Calibre convert from LRF so it's not a big deal.

[Jellby]

ePUB can be easily converted to almost any other format (including PDF, even "professionaly typset" PDF) and, more importantly, if it's DRM-free (as multiformat books should be) it can be easily edited and modified.

Now, don't expect ePUBs from Fictionwise (or anywhere else) to be nicely and carefully formatted, they'll often be automatic conversions from some other format.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Is professional typesetting something that the average reader cares about?

No. Not any more the average driver cares about their car having an aerodynamic shape or multipoint fuel injection.

Surely though, that apathy is no reason to discourage car manufacturers from spending money and resources on either of those things, given that the benefits are real and scientifically identifiable--just as with proper typography, which, despite the unending insinuations otherwise, is not that hard or expensive to get reasonably correct.

- Ahi

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Jellby

ePUB can be easily converted to almost any other format (including PDF, even "professionaly typset" PDF) and, more importantly, if it's DRM-free (as multiformat books should be) it can be easily edited and modified.

Yes. That is why I get ePub or .mobipocket when I do...

... but it would be nice if one of these days I started having a difficult time turning out a more professional product than the multimillion dollar corporations that are selling me the eBooks.

- Ahi

[bill_mchale]

I find this all amusing. In general, I think it is safe to say that 90% of the interest in ebooks revolves around novels. There are other types of ebooks of course, but by and large they are not the sorts of books we read on our kindles/sony's/cybooks.

I will say this, the rise of ebooks means that typsetting as it is currently understood will cease to be. Even in technical manuals and text books (where formatting probably does mean a great deal more than it does for fiction) the flexibility of being able to view the book on different screen sizes is just too important to pass up.

To answer the original poster's question...

I actually have to say, that .lit has a nice advantage in that at least for baen's .lit books, the body of the novel was in a single file... so it could be converted into a single html file realively easily (using lit2html). My limited experience with epub so far suggests that it usually has many more files to deal with. Not an insurmountable obstacle to be sure.. but still something to consider.

--
Bill

[ahi]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

I find this all amusing. In general, I think it is safe to say that 90% of the interest in ebooks revolves around novels. There are other types of ebooks of course, but by and large they are not the sorts of books we read on our kindles/sony's/cybooks.

I will say this, the rise of ebooks means that typsetting as it is currently understood will cease to be. Even in technical manuals and text books (where formatting probably does mean a great deal more than it does for fiction) the flexibility of being able to view the book on different screen sizes is just too important to pass up.

Perhaps. And if that comes to pass, eBooks will never replace paper books, being clear and irredeemable failures at serving the same set of utterly basic needs that paper books can easily satisfy.

- Ahi

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by ahi

Perhaps. And if that comes to pass, eBooks will never replace paper books, being clear and irredeemable failures at serving the same set of utterly basic needs that paper books can easily satisfy.

Great, they won't, it's over. You can leave now.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Superlucky

I'm betting that epub will win the format wars.

Agreed!

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by ahi

Despite ePub being the best of all the bad choices, the day it "wins the format wars" is the day eBooks lose any chance of ever replacing paper books.

- Ahi

Disagree. Instead it makes the ebook ubiquitous. And paper books will likely always exist for those of that persuasion in any case.