Ask an e-book creator...(how do they do it)?

[VandaSue]

Finally, discovered where and how to get to the meta data. Whew. Who would ever guess that it was lurking inside of the epub as a hidden zip file? Have to rename the file as a zip, and then unzip it to get to the goodies. Now to try to do some editing. Right. That should be fun. Maybe I will get it. HOURS of reading, reading and reading and scouring the net, but heck, I have a bit more info under my belt now.

[VandaSue]

Yeah!!! Got my book on iTunes. Now to wait until iTunes does their thing. I am very pleased, and going to treat myself to a well earned dinner. Up all night watching videos, etc., and finally learned some of the code that I had forgotten. Need a huge refresher course.

Suggestions for a nice ebook that would do the trick, without a lot of fanfare? By that, I mean simple code, basic stuff, anything one would need for iTunes. Thanks.

[dwma]

I got stuck on this "missing required element "dc:language"" error too. I am posting my solution for anyone who may find this thread. I create epubs from InDesign on a Mac and got this error when uploading through iTunes Producer.

Here's what you do on a Mac:

1) Download Springy from springyarchiver.com. Open Springy, and go to File > Open.

2) Locate your epub file and click the Open button.

3) You will see a small file menu. Go to the OEBPS folder and you'll see the content.opf file. Double click it to open with TextEdit.

4) Add the code <dc:language>English</dc:language> within the list at the top. I don't think it matters where (but maybe it does). Close the file without saving.

5) Springy will then ask if you wish "Overwrite the item in archive." Click Yes.

6) Close Springy.

Congrats, you've just edited your metadata! Your epub should be all set for upload to iTunes Producer.

Derrick

[Jellby]

I'm not sure "English" is correct, you should use the ISO code "en" instead.

[raychard]

Hi, Newbie I am here. I formatted my WS Doc following the 1st video on the Carry On Books front page. And everything seemed to go well.
Then I downloaded Sigil and tried to open the HTML file I had just created. I received this message
"(name of book() line 2463: expected comment or CDATA section.
Try setting the Clean Source pref to Pretty Print or HTML Tidy and reloading the file."

This I did but still not able to load the file.

Hope you can help.
Thanks in advnce.

[alicepattinson]

I also heard some ebooks with Smashwords? have you heard of it as well?

[pynch]

Originally Posted by raychard

Hi, Newbie I am here. I formatted my WS Doc following the 1st video on the Carry On Books front page. And everything seemed to go well.
Then I downloaded Sigil and tried to open the HTML file I had just created. I received this message
"(name of book() line 2463: expected comment or CDATA section.
Try setting the Clean Source pref to Pretty Print or HTML Tidy and reloading the file."

This I did but still not able to load the file.

Hope you can help.
Thanks in advnce.

Welcome to MobileRead, raychard!

Don’t ask me why, but it usually works if you open the html file in a browser, save the page, and open the resulting file with Sigil.

[raychard]

"Don’t ask me why, but it usually works if you open the html file in a browser, save the page, and open the resulting file with Sigil."

Well pynch, Yes it worked. Wonderful solution. many many thanks.
Doesn't matter how it works as long as it works!

Allabest
Raychard"

[Pulpmeister]

I have been producing ebooks for some years now, around 600 so far, and I have steadily simplified the process. This is how I do it now.

Step 1 is to make a straightforward Word document, with no complications and no "styles". It's in 14 pt Calibri just because I like that screen font and use it all the time.

At the top is a jpg image of the cover, 550-600 pixels wide (nothing larger is needed for an e-reader). I do them in colour even though my kindle is monochrome. That's because I use Calibre as a data base, and that uses colour. So do MobileRead library uploads.

Then comes the title, in 26 pt bold caps, then author's name in 20 point lower case bold; then date of first publication in 14 pt.

Then contents. The side-by-side contents layout I use is intended to keep the contents on one kindle screen if possible, and I didn't invent it. I saw it some years ago, and copied it.

Then the book's text. Just straight text, double space at end of chapter; chapter number in 14 pt bold, and if there is a chapter title, its below in 14 pt italic, then another double space. Again, no "style"; just do it by hand.

It finishes up looking like this screen grab of the first two pages of a Word doc of a recent book: (click on the thumbnail below at the foot of the post. It will enlarge).

I save this file and keep it.

This is then converted to html using the "save as web page filtered" option. For some reason, Word promptly converts the jpeg to a smaller png in the process. (Not to mention all in-text images such as maps, frontispiece etc). I dislike png reproduction.

I then use a freeware basic html editor called KompoZer, and I take out the png images and replace them with the original jpgs. I also use KompoZer to manually make the chapter links. Again, no style sheet. I can't see the point of a style sheet for a novel or short stories, and style sheets sometimes conflict with ereader internal systems to produce odd results.

Once I'm happy with the html, I import it into Calibre, and convert it to epub, azw3 and mobi. Doing this adds the cover to the e-books, and also the blurb which I write into it in Calibre.

A few quirks:

This way you get 2 "covers"; the cover which I put at the top of the original file, and the cover generated by Calibre. I do this for a reason; I take it for granted that some people will want to improve on, or re-format, or whatever, anything I do, and appreciate being able to pull out the original html and have a reasonable jpeg of the cover right there. It also means that I have the jpeg of the cover right there with my original word file, not stashed away in a different folder full of book covers, although i have it there was well.

With short stories, I always put a centred underline between stories, just to mark the fact that the story has ended.

When uploading short story collections/anthologies I always put the contents (title/author) in the post itself, and a copy (yet another copy!) of the cover, which appears as a thumbnail but enlarges, so browsers can look at the cover, and the contents, before making a decision.

I mostly write the "blurbs" myself. When I can't find a decent first edition cover, or indeed any cover at all, I create one. I try to have my own cover more or less appropriate to the book's period or content.

So the final book is dragged through three software programmes (Word, KompoZer and Calibre) before being uploaded. Not a perfect system, but it works for me.

The "Past Masters" series of anthologies I have been producing pose their own difficulties. The source is mostly on-line automatic OCRs of newspaper pages, and the quality of the OCR varies from mediocre to atrocious. A lot of hand-correcting of the text is needed, and since I get bored easily when doing it, OCR bloopers will always slip through. Specially if the errors are words in their own right, eg "die" when "the" is required, etc. You do get inconsistencies, such as some stories using single quotes, some double quotes, and some curly quotes. I don't try to standardise them, as it would involve an enormous load of hand-work.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

I have been producing ebooks for some years now, around 600 so far, and I have steadily simplified the process. This is how I do it now.

I have some minor nitpicks:

1. All your books fail EPUBCheck because of the following invalid attributes.

<body link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-AU" class="calibre">

2. You might want to take a page from professional ebook designers and create separate HTML files for each chapter.

[Pulpmeister]

Thanks for the comments Doitsu.

I assume the red highlight is the error, which is obviously the links colours. So long as the epub actually works, it's OK by me. I don't have any professional ebook tools, as you can tell. I know nothing of Java, which seems to be a necessary skill for epubcheck, and I can only do limited correcting work in html code. I know Word produces ugly html, but it's the only method I have.

And on the second point, I personally prefer to work with a single html document, rather than twenty or thirty of them. Simplifies my life no end when creating the links. It takes me about 15-20 minutes to massage the single html file from the time it's created by Word, to the time I load it into Calibre.

I have tried, way back in the past, some dedicated ebook producing software, but I never mastered it and the results were always dubious and never seemed to do exactly what I wanted. On the other hand, I have been using word processing since around the late 70s, so have opted to stick with what I know best.

[Quoth]

I don't think any Java knowledge needed to run epubcheck?

@Pulpmeister, while I'd agree on the link attribute and chapter splits, those are minor and not generally a major issue. Easily avoided by doing nothing!

I import a single docx into Calibre and it seems to create an internal HTML file per chapter, at least in the epub2 conversion.

I used intermediate HTML years ago with Mobi Creator and Word 2002 /XP. No need with docx from Word2007 or later or Save As docx in LO Writer (but only open/edit the native odt, only save as docx for exports, as opening a docx does a conversion). Also an "anchor" on every line that's to be in the TOC and make those have a heading level. Any heading NOT in the TOC is then set to body text level, even if it looks like a heading. I auto create the Index by Insert Index (but page numbers deleted). I cut and past that to a text editor and paste back. Then give a Contents style and each line is then link #anchor.
On Calibre I check that the system epub TOC (NCX) generated then matches the manually built contents page that has links to anchors.

I test three kinds of Kindle with dual mobi (KF7/KF8) made from the epub2. The idiot DXG (only sees KF7), Kindle Keyboard / KK3 which can see the KF8 or KF7 and has more fonts as well as Publisher Font KF8 option and a PW3, which doesn't render KF8 quite the same.

I test the epub2 on Lithium, Kobo, Nook, Sony and Binatone if any style edit or new style, otherwise just on the Kobo Libra.

The key seems to be COMPATIBLE styles. If I make a new style or edit one I create a small document and load the docx into Calibre. I make an epub2 and view on Calibre viewer as the first check.

I'm lazy, so though I have 20+ years HTML and 15 years CSS experience and 40 years programming experience, the goal is to avoid editing CSS or HTML. Just the wordprocessor file.