Book Creation Tutorials

[NatCh]

Personally, I tend to want to leave the chapter headings/names/whatever the way the author wrote them ... or at least the way they made it through the publisher, whichever.

Even though I don't personally have much interest in a TOC that lists the chapters, I figure that it's only respectful to not change such things without a strong reason.

[HarryT]

I generally go for an intermediate solution and change the chapter headings from:

Chapter 1
Harry Writes a Book

to:

1. Harry Writes a Book

for the purely practical reason that the Reader's "TOC" page only displays a very limited length of text, and it seems a little pointless to "waste" that space by having the word "Chapter" there. I do want to see the chapter numbers, though - personally I consider those to be essential!

[pitolee]

I've found that I automatically migrated to Harry's solution - to give the most meaningful chapter divisions without taking up so much screen real estate...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The "deal" with PG is that you either:

1. Remove all mention of PG from the book.

or:

2. Include the full licence agreement.

I personally choose option 1. I freely acknowledge that PG are a wonderful resource (and I do a fair amount of proofreading for them myself), but I just don't like the 20 pages of legal "stuff" in the books that I create.

I do leave the full license. But I make it easy enough to just go to the ToC and go right past it all.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm afraid that I don't like that at all .

What you're saying, if I understand you correctly, is that you prefer to remove "Chapter 1" and replace it with "Harry Writes a Book" (or whatever the "real" chapter title, as you put it, is).

That might work for "pulp" fiction that nobody really cares about, but I certainly wouldn't do it for a "classic". Suppose I read a book in which I see "In chapter 53 of Les Miserables, Hugo says....". How do I find out what chapter 53 is in your version of the book which lacks chapter numbers?

We obviously all prepare books the way that we think best, but personally I feel that preserving chapter and book number for "serious" literature is absolutely essential.

What do other people think?

One option is—using the chapter 1 example—[b]1. Harry Writes a Book[b] so that way you get the title and the chapter number to know what chapter itreally is supposed to be.

[RWood]

We have achieved a great deal of uniformity in the naming of posts containing LRF books and ZIP/RAR files containing LRF books. I feel we need more uniformity in the naming of the books themselves.

This is not directed at any one person, I have been as guilty as anyone. Once we download the file (and perhaps extract it from the compressed carrier) we have no reference to the original post title.

One recent book file was entitled "Collected Works.lrf" OK, who wrote it? Another started with "Sony Reader" before getting to what the content of the file was. My problem has always been that I title the file the same as the book title (the BookDesigner default) and the only way you know who wrote it is either if you open the file or you have a great knowledge of works published in the English language. The Harvard Classics are identified only by the HC name and the volume number. (Then again this is the way they would be if they were on the shelf and is in keeping with series omnibus offerings at MobileRead; but, still not that descriptive.

Therefore I am suggesting that we start naming individual book files like we name the posts -- author (L, F M) followed by a dash and then the book title. If it is a version other than 1 this should be appended or any other descriptive information that is needed such as "text only" or "illustrated."

Omnibus or collections should also follow a like course. I am open to suggestions on how to better name (if possible) the Harvard Classics series. I do plan on publishing an index at the end of the series, should this be published sooner?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by RWood

Therefore I am suggesting that we start naming individual book files like we name the posts -- author (L, F M) followed by a dash and then the book title. If it is a version other than 1 this should be appended or any other descriptive information that is needed such as "text only" or "illustrated."

The way that I arrange my books on my hard disk makes this unnecessary. I use a hierarchical file structure, first of author names, then within that of book titles. Makes it easy to find books, even with 10,000+ PG books on the disk.

Eg, I store my books as:

Piper, H. Beam <--- folder
    Paratime Omnibus <--- folder
        All the files associated with the book
    Terro-Human Future History   <--- folder
        All the files associated with the book

etc.

This works well because I'll often have a book in a number of different formats (eg, a PG original and a "Reader" version) plus, for books I've created myself, all the BD working files for it.

[RWood]

I am not talking about how we arrange files on our own disks as I use a an arrangement like yours Harry, I am talking about files we post for others that may grab a few at a time and then have to wonder what files they did download. Many will take them when they find them rather than note them and download them only when they are ready to read them. It is foir these people that I am suggesting this.

[HarryT]

I take your point - a title like "Collected Stories" isn't too helpful if you come across it 6 months later. This isn't something I'd like to impose on uploaders, but it's certainly a good idea to request that people use meaningful file names in cases where there may be ambiguity.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I take your point - a title like "Collected Stories" isn't too helpful if you come across it 6 months later. This isn't something I'd like to impose on uploaders, but it's certainly a good idea to request that people use meaningful file names in cases where there may be ambiguity.

I was the one who uploaded Collected Stories. I've removed the other two versions and renamed it to be something you'll understand long after you've downloaded it. I've even put the version number in the filename since it is not 1.0. Version 1.0 doesn't need to be added to the filename (IMO). Let me know if the new name is ok. If it is, then I think we should standardize that way.

Jon

[HarryT]

Thanks Jon - I appreciate you taking the trouble to do that. Very good of you.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks Jon - I appreciate you taking the trouble to do that. Very good of you.

I honestly didn't know the way I had the filename might someday be an issue. But changing it was a simple matter. I even renamed the source file as well so if I do find more typos to fix and upload newer versions, I won't forget.

Jon

[HarryT]

In all honesty it hadn't occured to me either, but the point that Wood makes is, I think, a very valid one.

[JSWolf]

If anyone of of us is not guilty of bad filename(s), let him or her please keep on top of Sony to fix the POS Connect web site while the rest of us fix our filename(s).

[JSWolf]

This may be a silly question...

Why is it we (I've done it too) post a new version of a book we've converted for one reason or another and leave the original still there when the new one is to add something or fix something and thus the original no longer needs to be there?