Barnes & Noble Smashwords EPUB Issue

[amybraunauthor]

Okay, I attached the scrambled epub and will try to conversion in calibre to see what happens. Thanks guys.

[JSWolf]

Once you fix the text going off to the right, you have no indents. The text will be hard to read. Then there are 18 different stylesheets.

This is a right mess and needs some hand crafted fixing.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by amybraunauthor

Okay, I attached the scrambled epub and will try to conversion in calibre to see what happens. Thanks guys.

Is that scrambled ePub based on the ePub you uploaded to Smashwords, or the ePub that Smashwords delivered to the retailer? I think Smashwords does some processing on the book and so what it sends to the retailer might be different to what you uploaded.

I have had the problem of text going off the right edge of the screen in some Smashwords books, it turned out to be a negative right margin set in the stylesheet. Here is an example of a paragraph style from a Smashwords book I purchased from Kobo:

<p class="western16">“There is no cause for alarm,” assured
company spokesman Chow leLee. “Rumors of a virus in the template
are overstated. We just want to tweak the security parameters a
bit, before offering a free update to consumers.”</p>

.western16 {
color: #000;
direction: ltr;
display: block;
font-family: "Cambria";
font-size: 1em;
margin-bottom: 0;
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: -0.5in;
margin-top: 0;
orphans: 0;
so-language: en-US;
text-indent: 0.3in;
widows: 0
}

Edit: Though that doesn't seem to be the problem with your scrambled book.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Is that scrambled ePub based on the ePub you uploaded to Smashwords, or the ePub that Smashwords delivered to the retailer? I think Smashwords does some processing on the book and so what it sends to the retailer might be different to what you uploaded.

I have had the problem of text going off the right edge of the screen in some Smashwords books, it turned out to be a negative right margin set in the stylesheet. Here is an example of a paragraph style from a Smashwords book I purchased from Kobo:

<p class="western16">“There is no cause for alarm,” assured
company spokesman Chow leLee. “Rumors of a virus in the template
are overstated. We just want to tweak the security parameters a
bit, before offering a free update to consumers.”</p>

.western16 {
color: #000;
direction: ltr;
display: block;
font-family: "Cambria";
font-size: 1em;
margin-bottom: 0;
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: -0.5in;
margin-top: 0;
orphans: 0;
so-language: en-US;
text-indent: 0.3in;
widows: 0
}

Edit: Though that doesn't seem to be the problem with your scrambled book.

The problem with the text going off the screen is due to

span.Apple-tab-span {white-space:pre}

because ADE does not wrap a pre.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The problem with the text going off the screen is due to

span.Apple-tab-span {white-space:pre}

because ADE does not wrap a pre.

The white-space:pre; is only applied to short spans within a paragraph and not to the whole paragraph though, and the scrambled book works fine in ADE and also in the Adobe RMSDK reader on Kobo.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

The white-space:pre; is only applied to short spans within a paragraph and not to the whole paragraph though, and the scrambled book works fine in ADE and also in the Adobe RMSDK reader on Kobo.

The right margin does disappear off the right side of the ADE window. Also, when the pre isremoved, there is no indent and no space after the paragraph. So what happens is it becomes hard to read.

This really needs to be fixed before it's sold as it's unreadable as is and just dropping the pre doesn't make it better enough.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The right margin does disappear off the right side of the ADE window. Also, when the pre isremoved, there is no indent and no space after the paragraph. So what happens is it becomes hard to read.

Is it a problem with a specific version of ADE? Here is what the second chapter of the unmodified scrambled book looks like in ADE 1.7.2 and on my Kobo Glo (Adobe RMSDK 10),I can't see any problem with the indents or the right margin.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Is it a problem with a specific version of ADE? Here is what the second chapter of the unmodified scrambled book looks like in ADE 1.7.2 and on my Kobo Glo (Adobe RMSDK 10),I can't see any problem with the indents or the right margin.

It's not doing it on my H2O. But it does do it with ADE 2.0.1 for Windows. That means apps/programs/Readers using an older version of ADE/RMDSK are going to show this.

[amybraunauthor]

I think Calibre fixed it, because the Smashwords man who emailed me said it's all fixed. Whew! Thank you again for all your help!

[Notjohn]

You can't know it's fixed unless you buy a copy (you'll get your royalty) and look at it in a dedicated e-reader (Nook, for example) or at least an app (Nook for PC, for example).

I think there are two lessons to be learned from your experience. The first is not to use Scrivener to create an e-book. I would output that Scrivener file to epub, then open the epub in Sigil and fix it there. Use Sigil's validator, called Flight Crew, which now must be added as a plug-in. That will keep you from making major mistakes as you go along. Then, before publishing, pass it through EpubCheck at http://validator.idpf.org/

The second lesson seems to be: don't use Smashwords to convert your book. I gave up on SW some years ago in favor of distributing directly to Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Kobo; now I use Draft2Digital as my aggregator.

There's a learning curve to everything. Just as you set out to learn to write, now set out to learn a bit about html and css and Sigil. Then your books won't come back to bite you. I have a fairly simple-minded book about all this, which you can find by plugging Notjohn into the search engine at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and just about everyone else except Apple, which objects to the many references to its competitors. I recommend the book (but then I would, wouldn't I?).