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I'm one of these weird people because I enjoy formatting ebooks. There is something soothing in the process. Of course, this was formatting ebooks the easy way.
For Men of Foxwick, I wanted to format the hard way, i.e. create nice headings, a pretty title page, etc. I mainly used the instructions from the brilliant Susan Kaye Quinn as well as Sigil's guide/FAQ. Unfortunately, I got a little lost at some point with my html file. I think it had to do with the CSS style sheet for the ebook. But everything had messed up. *sighs*
Then, I figured out I could use an epub from an uploaded .doc to create the prettier epub. It worked much better and saved loads of time. I had a few things to tweak to make it look even better, but I'm pleased with the prettier epub and mobi files.
There is one thing I would still like to now how to do. How can you take a picture of a letter and use it as a drop down letter? Does anyone know?
Please check out the other Indie Life links:
And fellow Unrealmer Angela Brown has her newest release available. Check out her fabulous cover!
Caine Fordham knows the danger all too well.
As the Kill Circuit’s top lady-killer, business is good. Yet Caine knows the life of an assassin isn’t meant to last forever, just as love is impossible for him. Who could love a man with poison lacing his veins and a kiss that kills?
When Caine decides to take one last job, deal out one last kiss, he discovers there’s more to life than death, and more to love than pain.
Atone is the second in a series of Characters Revealed novellas/short stories for...
NEO – Network of Extraordinaires and Otherworldlies:
Those who answer the call from NEO play their part in maintaining balance in our ever-changing times. With power-hungry malcontents, jealous gods, and even those with misguided good intentions, the fate of our world has oft been held in the hands of unsung heroes such as those that are members of NEO.
But before NEO, these heroes and heroines had lives, loves, issues and interests that didn’t involve saving mankind.
25 comments:
Cool idea! Anything that makes life easier has to be a good thing.
I wished I could answer that. For the most part, I'm quite the moron when it comes to the techi stuff.
Hugs and chocolate,
Shelly
Sadly, I'm clueless about how to do drop-down letters or anything technical. (I can barely handle the remote for our receiver. No, seriously, it's got a lot of buttons on it!)
Good luck to Angela with her NEO entry. It sounds dramatic. :-)
I've only tried to do a drop cap once for an ebook, and it didn't look too great ... I haven't tried again since then, so at the moment I have no words of wisdom! Sorry!
I'm not sure I can even visualize the drop down letter thingy. Do you have an example so I can see what you are talking about?
Oh and just to add one more thing, I'm sure it is HTML programming. So if you know HTML, I bet it is easy peasy. I think all of kindle and most ebooks depend on HTML.
I'd be nervous about the instructions, even with Susan's awesome formatting instructions.
And a big congrats to Angela!
I can't wait to see the new prettified book! :) And I like that you're weird. Heh.
I often wish I knew programming, it would make the indie life a lot easier when it comes to formatting. You're leagues ahead of me.
I like to keep it simple when formatting. If I really want to get fancy, I'll probably hire someone with better know how. =)
I've formatted three ebooks and one published paperback so far, and I'm currently working on my second paperback. I love it too, because there is a real sense of accomplishment from it.
No idea as to the answer to your question though. Fancier fonts is something I'm looking into.
I am clueless about all that ebook formatting stuff. I only hope I can learn it, but I have serious doubts. It all goes way over my head. Good luck, though!
Geez, I wish I liked formatting. I just don't feel confident about it yet. Angela, what a great book cover!
I am not the person to ask-I haven't a clue. I hope to learn formatting in the future since I'm open to self publishing down the line.
From everything I've read, drop down letters just don't work on ebboks. You might get them looking perfect on one format, but as soon as someone opens the book on a different device, or changes their font size, they mess up. I decided to steer clear of them.
I quite like formatting too. I ended up using dreamweaver to format my book, and I'm pretty pleased with the result. I started out in .mobi, but have had a bit of a hassle with the transition to .epub, as it seems to be pickier on formatting than .mobi is.
Rinelle Grey
If enjoying ebook formatting is weird, then I say it's the good kind of weird, since I imagine it'd make the process less of a headache! One of these days I'm gonna have to teach myself to format ebooks, too...but today is not that day. XD
You're so good with all of this, I really admire how you've managed to learn so much about formatting, etc. I am light years behind LOL.
Excited to see Angela and Atone all around the blogs this week. :)
All I know about foratting is that it' very hard work.
I've done drop caps but only with purchased fonts, never a separate image.
It's good to know who I can ask for help when the day comes for me formatting a book. I am not very good getting along with software. Dragon Hugs!
I love Angela Brown's new cover! Nice post. And great to meet you!
When you figure out how to use the picture as a drop down letter (I probably made no sense but I knew what you meant) you shall have to post about it. I've been wondering how to do that myself. I tried it once and it was a disaster.
I've done enough exhausting reformatting of books I converted from obsolete file formats, which involves fixing misplaced text blocks, phantom floating text from files not even on the same disk, and gibberish. Formatting them in a certain way for e-publication sounds a little time-consuming too, but after what I've already done, it sounds simple in comparison!
Congrats to Angela.
I've heard formatting is a pain. You're becoming a pro at it.
My eBooks are far from fancy -- but I'm a guy, and I can get away with that. Right? =]
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