Brother, Can You Spare A Domain?

By:  Kimberly Hitchens is the founder and owner of Booknook.biz, an ebook production company that has produced more than 2,000 books for over 1000 authors and imprints.

I've titled this week's blog post as I did simply because I couldn't think of a better title, for a blog with several topics.  Once more, into the breach...I apologize in advance for the length, but, hey, I couldn't let our Besties with LCC nominations go unmentioned!

Left Coast Crime Nominations

First, for anyone reading this who is attending LCC, and isn't his- or herself nominated, I'd like to put in a good word for two of our clients who are nominated; client Nancy G. West, for a Lefty, (best humorous mystery novel) for her novel, "Fit To Be Dead," books produced by (wait for it), the Oompa-Loompas at Booknook.biz; and in the Watson category, (best sidekick) Booknook.biz client Chris Grabenstein, for one of his always fabulous Ceepak Mysteries, "Fun House," which was published by Putnam.  I was momentarily torn, with Chris' nomination for sidekick Danny Boyle, because I'm a diehard Robert Crais fan (the Cole and Pike series), and he's up for a Watson (best sidekick) also, but at the end, customer loyalty won out, and if I were going, I'd be casting my vote for Chris.  (If you've never read the Ceepak mysteries, you've missed out!).  I mean, after all, he was discovered by no one less than James Patterson, himself, so...give it a whirl. Those of us at Booknook.biz weren't surprised by Nancy's nomination, and you can bet we're thrilled for her.

Domain Buying and Selling

This is simply a rant, but I can't take it out now, because...well, hell, the post is already titled. Whatever happened to the idea of coming up with a domain name, and simply buying it?  I am one of the biggest supporters of laissez-faire capitalism in the world, but enough is enough.  Trying to come up with, and buy, a new domain name is like sitting down at the damn poker table. So many Internet hosting companies and "Inter-preneurs" have bought and parked so many domains that those with a name you can actually pronounce are literally as scant on the ground as hen's teeth.

Recently, I received an email from some yahoo (no pun intended) who wanted  to sell me "Booknook.net" for --wait for it--slightly under $6,000.00. Yes, Six Thousand US Dollars. Are they high?  They must have me confused with our best-selling client Jackie Collins, if they think I can pop Six Thou for a domain name.  I have no idea what the ".com" version would go for, but that's ridiculous.  And it's not like they're selling a business--it's simply a NAME.  The whole internet domain name scam is simply nauseating.  The worst part are the "Inter-preneuers" who used little programs to come up with every word combination possible, and bought domain names in bulk...so perfectly usable, suitable domains sit idle, doing absolutely nothing, to be redundant, while entrepreneurs sit around scratching their heads and their nethers, trying to think of made-up words that "sound cool."  It's a ridiculous situation. 

The 20lb. Problem, or Why 16" Tall Books Are Not Suited for Ebookery

I suspect that this is "part 1" of a longer post, but you may recall I wrote about children's books, some months back, and mentioned that the physical size of the original book (or layout) might dictate whether or not the book could be done in what's called "fixed format," the type of book you can see samples of, on this page:  http://www.booknook.biz/bk_services/gallery/kids_books.  I mentioned, I think, that when a page is too large, no matter what you do, it's not possible to "cram" that content into a screen that will fit on a small e-reader.  However, it occurred to me that most people don't realize that this is true for any type of book; a "coffee table" book, an illustrated how-to book, DIY books, health books, stock-trading books, etc.  There seems to be a general misunderstanding that all e-readers have pan and scan, and that everything can somehow, magically fit into the container that is an e-reader screen, like a big-ass genie in a teeny-weeny lamp. Sadly, just like a genie, that magic does not exist.  (Sorry, Drew:  I hated to be the one to tell you, but, no:  There is No Jeannie in that Bottle.)

Internally, we call this the "20lb. Problem," which is essentially, trying to stuff 20lbs. of material into a 5lb. sack.  Just today, I had an email from a prospective client with a book that I suspect he made in Mac iAuthor, which has a mind-numbingly bloated drag-and-drop interface for making ebooks that will solely (of course) work on the iBooks platform.  The iBooks book had hundreds of images, nearly 50 videos, audio, and so on, that he wanted "converted" into a Kindle book--and the book was 1.5 gigabytes.  Yes:  gigabytes.  I explained some of the basics--you can't include video, or audio, and if the content, sans video and audio, was more than 50MB, ( Amazon's limit), there would be nothing we could do, without making substantial inroads into the image sizes, compression, and the like.  This case is a bit unusual, but, read on. 

Now, the usual inquiry we get for unsuitable books are for those created with charts, graphs, tables, etc., that just won't be readable when reduced to the size of a Kindle screen.  I have no doubt that there are plenty of conversion houses out there that will just take someone's money and give them back a book that will provide a lousy user experience, but we try to explain the "whys" and hope that the client doesn't get rooked by someone less scrupulous.  But here's the gist, and use it when you look at your book, to think about conversion:

A Kindle screen is precisely 3½"x4¾" in size, with a ¼" margin all-round.  A book that is laid out and created at 8½" x 11", has 93.5 square inches of space.  A Kindle/Nook screen, by comparison, has a mere 16.62 square inches.  This means that an e-reader screen has only 17.78% of the space of the typical PDF or default Word page layout.

Thus, should you decide to create a "how-to" book, a book with graphics, a book with charts, tables, images with text atop them, or any type of graphic explanatory element, keep this in mind.  To see what your "element" will really look like on a Kindle, output your Word file to PDF; then shrink that PDF down to 33% of the original (8½" x 11") size.  What you see is what that "page" and that element will really look like on a Kindle e-reader. 

That was today's tip!  Remember: eBooks aren't magic lamps, and you can't fit a big-ass genie in there.  When you think about your content, consider alternative ways of creating and displaying chart or tabular data.  You and your reader will be happier for it.

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eBookery 101: Part 2

By:  Kimberly Hitchens is the founder and owner of Booknook.biz, an ebook production company that has produced books for over 750 authors and imprints.

On my last post, "Ebookery 101: The Handbook," which you can see by clicking HERE, I talked about the very fundamentals of ebooks--what are the basic formats,  what are ebook limits, and explained a bit about how readers can change how your book looks.  This week, I'm going to show you how text reflows--wraps--and talk about footnotes and indices.

Text Reflows--or Wraps

When we say that text “reflows,” we mean that when a user changes the font size, or the font, the text adjusts. If the font is bigger, there will be fewer words per line, and fewer per page. From beginning to end, the text changes to suit what the user has asked it to do. You can see examples above, in Figures 1 and 2, of how a book looks just by changing the font size. The screen will display fewer words, which means that the next paragraph will have moved to the next page.

In this page/screen from "The Prince and The Pauper," at a smaller size font, you can see how many lines are viewable in the reading pane (the white "page" area).

In this shot, we've kept the reading pane exactly the same size, but our reader has enlarged the font, so it's easier for him to read.  You can see how many fewer words there are per line, and how many fewer lines are now visible in the same space.  The other lines have now "reflowed" to the next screen.

This is what we mean when we say that text "reflows" and that it is very difficult to try to control what a user sees at any given time. Ebooks are not like PDFs or print, and it will be very helpful for you to understand this early in the process so you can learn not to worry about things that cannot be controlled.

What about my Footnotes?  My Index?

Ebooks work like old-fashioned webpages.  What goes on behind the scenes is just one big long scrolling webpage. This means that "pages," as we think of them, are an illusion.  There are no pages in ebooks.

Experienced ebook formatters know how to use coding to provide the appearance of page breaks before Chapters, and white space to show scenebreaks. This helps create the illusion of pages. 

Footnotes can't be put at the bottom of a "page," like we do in print, because there are no pages.  Therefore there is no "bottom of a page."  But you can put your footnotes as endnotes to your chapter or to the book, whichever you prefer.  Sometimes, if there are only a very few notes in the whole book, you might like to just use a bracketed number right there in the sentence. [1]Like this, to cite the footnote. A good formatter, like Booknook.biz, can do whatever you like best.

For an Index, Use Search

As we discussed above, instead of linked indices, it is often better to use the built-in search function that is available on most devices.  By the time of this writing, it might be available on every device.
 
When you use linked indexes, the only thing that the page numbers can link to is the page where the text used to be in your Word file.  In the ebook, when a user clicks that, it might be several "screens" away from where the word is actually used.  (This is due to how Word sets the index links when you generate them automatically).  You can see how this could frustrate your reader.  This is why we recommend not using linked indexes.  If you want them, we (or any other formatter) are happy to provide them, but please give the matter some thought.  Remember that you want your reader to have the best possible experience.  Not only that, but not using linked indices is a huge cost-savings for  you!

A user on an iPad simply highlights a word and hits search, and...

The results pop up!  Your readers can search for index items, from within a typed index, exactly the same way.

Are we having fun yet?  By the way, the book presented on the iPad screenshots, for demonstrating the "search" functions, is by some practically unknown author named L.J. Sellers.  (ha!) Thanks, L.J.!  This is from her wonderful book, "The Baby Thief," which is a "don't miss." 

Next time, well, you're getting a rerun, as my next blog is due on Christmas Day.  Given the slew of books that have hit our doorstep here at ye olden Booknook.biz, that are expected out before Christmas, I fully expect to be unconscious on Christmas Day. I intend to rerun Cover Design Calypso, Part 1, which originally appeared on my own website in April of 2010--and is truer today than it was then.  Covers matter! 

Happy Holidays to all, and I'll see you in 2013. 

--- Hitch

eBookery 101: A Handbook

By:  Kimberly Hitchens is the founder and owner of Booknook.biz, an ebook production company that has produced books for over 750 authors and imprints.

For the next few weeks, during our busy season, I'll be reproducing bits and pieces of our free "eBookery:101" handbook that we give away to all clients and prospective clients.  If you want a complete copy for yourself, you can download it for free from our Knowledgebase, at:  http://j.mp/VzC7dq .  Please note:  this is not a "how-to make your own ebook" manual, but, rather a simple basic explanation of ebook fundamentals and things a beginning epublisher should know.  It's not all-inclusive, and it's not a beginner's guide to self-publishing, either, although we do have some marketing tips in there as well.  Thanks!

What are the basic ebook formats?

There are really only two remaining ebook formats, of the numerous types that were floating around some years ago.

• The first and foremost, in terms of commercial sales, are the Kindle format(s), those being mobi, prc (old) and azw. Colloquially, these are called "mobi" by most people in the business.
• The second, used by Apple, Adobe Digital Editions, Nook, Google Editions, Diesel, Kobo, etc., is epub. Epub allows greater design flexibility than mobi, because it uses a more advanced level of htm.  

 What are the limits of ebooks?

To start with, there are some basics:

• No backgrounds or background images can be used on any ebook that will be converted into Kindle (Mobi) format for the e-ink devices. The newer devices, and the Kindle Fire tablet, do support this capability.
• Text boxes or pull-quotes will have to be formatted differently than in print.
• Images in Kindle e-ink volumes can't be wrapped inside paragraphs, but can have this in ePUB format and in the newer Kindle devices and Fire Tablet.
• You can’t put text over an image in an Amazon Mobi book that will display on the legacy e-ink devices.
• You can only use tables that are about 3 columns wide, and very few rows.

For most things, you can only have a single column of text. No “newspaper-like" columns. (See Figure 1 - Sample of Kindle e-ink device text, Font Size 1.) Some small areas with two column items can sometimes be made to look right by using tables, but it needs to be used sparingly.

Many graphic elements, like characters from foreign languages, can’t be used. Generally, we recommend that most indices be omitted, or simply entered without page numbers. Almost every ebook reader out there has a great search function. This makes it better for your readers and less expensive for you!

Is it true that readers can change how my book looks?

In almost all reading devices, users can change the font size. In the Kindle, the font can be changed from the default size of 3 down to the smallest size of 1 and the largest size of 8. You may see two samples, below, of the same page of “The Prince and the Pauper,” shown at two vastly different reader-selected font sizes. (Click to enlarge images)

Figure 1 - Sample of Kindle e-ink device text, Font Size 1 (From the Prince and the Pauper, formatted by Ignacio Fernández Galván and used with his kind permission)

Figure 2 - a sample page of the same Kindle e-ink text at Font Size 1.  Same book--nothing different except, the human reader wanted a larger font size!

In many ereading devices, the human reader can even change the font style. This will also affect how the book looks, not only in the font. This will change the spacing between letters and words, changing your book yet again.

Next time:  Text reflows, or wraps, and, what about those footnotes?

Thanks, guys!  Remember, if you want the entire 80-page PDF, replete with images and a linked Table of Contents, bookmarks, etc., go here:  http://j.mp/VzC7dq