Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire

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Help needed with e-book formatting.

Hello, internet world!

I have a short story that I'm intending to offer as a free download early next year, to celebrate the release of Discount Armageddon. This means I need the story to be in e-pub format. Anybody got the technical skills to make this for to go? I'll be your best friend, or something (or send you a book, whatever).

It's a pretty short story, about 7,000 words, and will have a cover and an internal dingbat for dividing sections.

ETA: While I appreciate the suggestions, if I had the time to do this myself right now, I would. I do not have time, so I am asking for help. Please stop suggesting ways for me to do it for myself.
Tags: incryptid, shameless plea, short fiction
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Sure.
Yay!

Deleted comment

http://calibre-ebook.com/ I use this for e-book format conversions ^^ it's free and super nifty.
I really don't have time to do this myself right now, but thank you.

Deleted comment

cow

November 23 2011, 17:06:29 UTC 5 years ago Edited:  November 23 2011, 17:07:06 UTC

If you have access to a Mac (huh, looks like it's on Windows and Linux now too), you can use calibre; it will convert txt, doc, pdf, whatever to epub for you. (Or you can send it my way and I'll send it back.)
Thanks for the tip.
Yes.
VERONICA MARS I MISS YOU.

...ahem. I mean, I may be covered, but I will keep you posted.

sleary

5 years ago

You're already covered, but I could certainly give it a stab. Not so sure about the internal dingbats; all the stuff I've done with Calibre or "paste into Pages, save as/export as EPUB" is dingbat-free.

...Now I'm going to have to play with dingbats in Pages, you know... O:>
Have fun!
Looks like you're covered, but if the timing doesn't work out with everyone else who's already volunteered, I'd be happy to do it for you. (I'm super-excited about Discount Armageddon, I have to admit.)
Me, too!
if you want to publish through amazon, they will also do the conversion for you if you send them a html or text file. Looks like you already got help though.
I want to give this away for free, not tie it to a distribution service. Thanks for the tip, however.

adorna

5 years ago

archangelbeth

5 years ago

seanan_mcguire

5 years ago

archangelbeth

5 years ago

Wayne can as well if other avenues fail.
Excellent, thank you.
I don't do it regularly but happy to be a fallback plan as well...

Thank you.
Here's hoping that if someone can convert it to ePUB, they could also convert to MOBI - my kindle does not speak ePUB. :-(

This would, however, be an awesome reason for me to finally learn how to use Calibre's format conversion tool, if I needed to. So it is all good! :-)

(FYI - At last check, there were more requests for Discount Armageddon than my local library has on order! I'll be buying my own copy, thank you, but I love haunting the library statistics.)
(I have converted from ePUB to MOBI with Calibre, and it was extremely simple.)

ladymurmur

5 years ago

paksenarrion2

5 years ago

seanan_mcguire

5 years ago

ladymurmur

5 years ago

Yay for new story, can't wait!
Thanks!
Yes, if the above folks fail. One weekend turnaround. Send it to me on Monday, get it the next Monday. Send it on Friday, still get it the next Monday.

And since it will be done in Orlando, the text you receive will have warmer, better tanned electrons than some Yankee's work.
I appreciate your endorsement of your climate. :)
If you get this far and it hasn't panned out, well you're probably frustrated. Take a deep breath, and send me a note/email/whatever. I can take care of this and am currently unemployed - so it's not like I have a lot to do.

And it will be a mellow PNW version. No icky sun involved! :)
Awesome.
If you have any problems, given the timescale, offer it in pdf (you can embed pictures and I assume dingbats). You can easily create a pdf by writing in/copying to Open Office (free) and 'exporting' it as pdf - Open Office does the work for you. Then people with ebooks can use calibre (free) to do their own super-easy conversion to whatever format they need.
"Easily create" and my natural technical ineptitude are not words that go together. Hence my asking someone else to handle things.

moth2fic

5 years ago

Sounds like you have all the people offering to do the conversion for you, but if you need someone to test them on an iPad / iphone, I can do it.


EPUB = iPad/iPhone , B&N, Sony,
MOBI = Kindle (free format)

If you want to borrow instructions for people, Baen's Webscription site has instructions for loading them onto devices without using the stores.


As with anything, proofing the files is a... good idea. The little daemons in the computers like to get the best of us silly humans, and then daemon Murphy is particularly good at it.
Excellent.
On the subject of the ETA, Calibre actually takes about ten minutes to convert a short story to epub, max. Just so you know for future reference and all that. Also, AO3 is really damn useful for this - once you've uploaded a fic there you can save it as a draft and you can download it as epub even if you don't publish it - so you can have private stories like originals available to download and nobody else can see them unless you want them to.

That paragraph is probably really damn tangled, as I'm pretty stoned on meds and need to sleep now. I'll recheck it in the morning to see if it came out right.
I get what you're saying, but honestly, I have no interest in learning this process right now. That ten minutes is bookended by lots of other little time demands, especially when you're dealing with a perfectionist. Hence my asking for someone who already knows how.
Suggestion: get in touch with Tobias Bucknell. He's apparently made something of a specialty of late learning about the best way to do ebook conversions. He'd also know about interfaces to various publishers if you need to know that.

(Might as well tug on those Scalzi contacts where needed.)
I don't want to do it myself. I want someone to do it FOR me.

mkellis

5 years ago

seanan_mcguire

5 years ago

Looks like you're covered, but I'm chiming in as the third (fourth?) backup in case you need it. :) can do ePub, mobi, PDF, whatevs.

Also, yay new story!!!
Awesome, thank you!