Sigil -- what version of .epub?

[Valloric]

I responded to the issue report.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Kivgaen

I work for a book publisher and we are planning to make all of our ebooks available for sale on iTunes, but Apple requires us to have a specific version of .epub files: 1.0.5.

What do the different version numbers mean, and how can I make my .epub files version 1.0.5? What version does Sigil make?

Thanks in advance to anyone who knows what this means and who can point me to a direction where I can learn more about it.

Hi, Kivgaen:

I think everyone here has explained the "1.05" validation item better than I could! I do have a question for you, if I may:

When you say iTunes, is that what you meant, as opposed to iBooks and/or IPads? I too have clients that want to have their works available on Apple platforms, but are highly disgruntled about the idea of having to cough up 50-55% to "approved Apple affiliates" in order to publish on the iPad, and do not want to buy a Mac just to get up on their (Apple's) platform. I thought I'd seen an article, somewhere, about uploading to iTunes directly--is that your intent, or...?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts,

Hitch

[Hitch]

Gang:

While we're here--epubcheck for 1.05 standards hates the "align" attribute for any images (like author pics). Anyone have a clue how to get around this, as I don't want my author images or book cover thumbnails floating hither and yon?

Hitch

[capidamonte]

Try float in your CSS.

cap

[Hitch]

cap:

Yup, thanks, been sitting here doing that, bit by bit. Feel like a total dolt.

@Valloric: what does the

<br class="sgc-6" clear="all" />

do? The "clear," particularly? Epubcheck won't clear it with the "clear" in there, thought I should ask you.

Hitch

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by Hitch

The "clear," particularly? Epubcheck won't clear it with the "clear" in there, thought I should ask you.

From the horse's mouth. You should replace that with CSS.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Valloric

From the horse's mouth. You should replace that with CSS.

And from the horse's other end, I have to ask if I'm confused, because unless I'm having some type of total brain-seizure, these "clear="all"s" are being inserted by Sigil. I'm fersure not writin' em.

These seem to show up at the end of the body in each xhtml segment/document/chapter. I'm happy to replace them with {something-or-other}, but I thought I should ask you what it is you intended them to do in the styling (?) for the break?

Hitch

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Hitch

And from the horse's other end, I have to ask if I'm confused, because unless I'm having some type of total brain-seizure, these "clear="all"s" are being inserted by Sigil. I'm fersure not writin' em.

These seem to show up at the end of the body in each xhtml segment/document/chapter. I'm happy to replace them with {something-or-other}, but I thought I should ask you what it is you intended them to do in the styling (?) for the break?

Hitch

do you have a "float" in effect?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by theducks

do you have a "float" in effect?

Hello, Ducky:

I did not when I first tried to validate and received all the error messages about the <align> I'd used for the images. I removed the align attr and replaced them all with floats, however, that's only on 3 of some 30-odd pages; all the rest, which do have the clear=all code I posted, are nothing more than text with a level 2 header, no images, no float, nada. What I posted is what shows up, near the closing body tag; it seems to me that it somehow is related to the definition of the section break, as it uses the syntax

br class="sgc-6" clear="all"

At least, that's what I've seen so far in the one book I'm trying to get to validate, after which I'll get rolling on the other {sigh} 10 I need to get done, assuming I want to get them up on any of the iPlatforms.

Here's my point and question: This isn't happening around an image, gang. It's happening after a boatload of plain text paragraphs, near the bottom of an xhtml page, close to or immediately succeeded by the closing body tag. As it isn't happening in/on/around/near an image, I don't understand WHAT is being "aligned" (or floated) by Sigil, so for the life of me, I have no idea what CSS I should be replacing it with, because, again, I do not know what it is doing or why the hell Sigil put it there.

Am I supposed to--simply--set a break element in CSS, as in,

BR.end {clear:all}

And that's it? Replace all the breaks that are weird with a br class+end, or rewrite the sgc-6 css for this? I thought "all" was deprecated for the br tag? ARRGGGHHHH.....

UPDATE: For those of you poor suckers following the breadcrumbs here, what fixed it was: exactly what I posted--a break with a class of "end" set for clear:all, and changing (via S&R global) all the bizarro-world breaks with the correct class, and removing the html clear.

Also, if ANYONE else stumbles in the epub validation with a strange error message that you cannot figure out, and a blockquote is in the area, try wrapping whatever you have inside the bq with <p> tags or some equivalent.

SO: I no longer require assistance with this, I got it sorted and all four of my last author's books validated, hip-hip-hooray. ;-p

Hitch

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by Hitch

these "clear="all"s" are being inserted by Sigil.

Technically, QtWebKit is inserting them. Why? I have no idea. I probably has a good reason, or at least thinks it does.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Valloric

Technically, QtWebKit is inserting them. Why? I have no idea. I probably has a good reason, or at least thinks it does.

Of course. I wasn't dissing Sigil; I was trying to explain that it wasn't my pathetic html skills putting them there; that they were showing up via PFM. (Pure Fracking Magic).

Hitch

[Kivgaen]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Hi, Kivgaen:

I think everyone here has explained the "1.05" validation item better than I could! I do have a question for you, if I may:

When you say iTunes, is that what you meant, as opposed to iBooks and/or IPads? I too have clients that want to have their works available on Apple platforms, but are highly disgruntled about the idea of having to cough up 50-55% to "approved Apple affiliates" in order to publish on the iPad, and do not want to buy a Mac just to get up on their (Apple's) platform. I thought I'd seen an article, somewhere, about uploading to iTunes directly--is that your intent, or...?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts,

Hitch

Hitch,

You are correct, I mis-spoke. I meant iBooks. But to answer your question, we do not have a direct deal with iBooks, we will be dealing with "Lightning Source", who will in turn, theoretically, sell to Apple. We have a very good deal with them, but before we get started to set up an account, we need to have 35 books ready to go. We're not quite there yet (I think we have 1 epub file so far!)...

1 .epub file complete... 174 to go. Oy! This will take some time

[brad flora]

Hitch,

I am the community manager for the Small Publishers Association of North America's online community.

In regard to your questions about publishing directly to the iBookstore, we have written an http://www.spannet.org/page/apple-ibookstore-now-open"]article that deals with this issue.

It should be noted that one of the technical requirements for working direct with Apple IS an Intel based Mac. At this point, we have speculated that the Mac requirement is software based issue, and that this channel may eventually be opened up to Windows users.


Working direct with Apple cuts out the middleman, and Apple takes 30% of sales. However, Apple has regional payment thresholds that must be met before a check can be written. So, if you have strong local sales, but are not meeting the regional thresholds it might be a while before a check is cut if you go direct with Apple.

Here is the article:

http://www.spannet.org/page/apple-ibookstore-now-open

And here is an article we wrote about working the 3rd party Content Aggregators:

http://www.spannet.org/how_do_I_get_...iBookstore.htm



Hope this helps! And if you do have any more questions I would be happy to elaborate, as we are always working to stay on top of this and other issues that relate to independent publishers.

bradley flora
SPANnet.org

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by brad flora

Hitch,

I am the community manager for the Small Publishers Association of North America's online community.

In regard to your questions about publishing directly to the iBookstore, we have written an http://www.spannet.org/page/apple-ibookstore-now-open"]article that deals with this issue.

It should be noted that one of the technical requirements for working direct with Apple IS an Intel based Mac. At this point, we have speculated that the Mac requirement is software based issue, and that this channel may eventually be opened up to Windows users.


Working direct with Apple cuts out the middleman, and Apple takes 30% of sales. However, Apple has regional payment thresholds that must be met before a check can be written. So, if you have strong local sales, but are not meeting the regional thresholds it might be a while before a check is cut if you go direct with Apple.

Here is the article:

http://www.spannet.org/page/apple-ibookstore-now-open

And here is an article we wrote about working the 3rd party Content Aggregators:

http://www.spannet.org/how_do_I_get_...iBookstore.htm



Hope this helps! And if you do have any more questions I would be happy to elaborate, as we are always working to stay on top of this and other issues that relate to independent publishers.

bradley flora
SPANnet.org

Hi, Bradley:

I've reviewed all the third-party content aggregators, and a bigger bunch of scamming crapola is hard to imagine. Most of them don't list their "fee" for carrying your content (you have to email them with your publication list and they'll "custom quote" you), and LibreDigest won't even return emails or phone calls, even though I've called them several times and told them what authors--not unknowns, I might add--I'm trying to assist. (I have an Edgar-nominee in addition to a guy with a brand-new book--his 15th professionally published--coming out that has not one but TWO starred reviews from PW and Booklist).

The idea that it requires a Mac to "upload" content is so absurd it makes my head hurt. This is not directed at you; but let's face it, you don't need a Mac to FTP a file.

It's pathetic that some self-pubbing bozo with a Word file that has crappy formatting will be able to get it on iBooks via Smashwords, but my professional authors with 1.05-validating epubs, and their own ISBN's for their rights-reverted works, can't, because neither they nor I have Macs, and the so-called "content aggregators" are greedy little pigs. I don't mind people making their pound of flesh, I really don't--but this entire "let's hose the authors" iBook scenario is simply infuriating.

But, thank you for your post; it's helpful, particularly to those who haven't already had the pleasure of trying to figure out how to get their content (or client's content) on the iBook platform.

[Kivgaen]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Hi, Kivgaen:

I think everyone here has explained the "1.05" validation item better than I could! I do have a question for you, if I may:

When you say iTunes, is that what you meant, as opposed to iBooks and/or IPads? I too have clients that want to have their works available on Apple platforms, but are highly disgruntled about the idea of having to cough up 50-55% to "approved Apple affiliates" in order to publish on the iPad, and do not want to buy a Mac just to get up on their (Apple's) platform. I thought I'd seen an article, somewhere, about uploading to iTunes directly--is that your intent, or...?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts,

Hitch

We have a contract through Ingram and they are suppose to be publishing to Apple iBooks on our behalf. It took a month for them to get their act together, but I belive our first 20 books are actually online now. We get 70% royalties for books sold through Apple -- But there are restrictions on this royalty. The price of the book can't be more than 9.99 for "new" books (less than 1 year old). Our Solution: If we are not prepared to reduce the price to that 9.99 price point, we just wait until the book is a year old before we publish the book to Apple. All our books are trade publications and therefore have a long shelf-life so this restriction isn't really a big concern for us.

Sorry about the late response. I don't check these forums as frequently as I should If you need to reach me but I don't respond on these forums, feel free to email support@ebooksbridge.com and your email will reach me