174 replies to this topic

[Ano]

Ebook formats are (effectively) HTML, and Amazon's documentation talks about using HTML or ePub exports with their KindleGen utility so I'm guessing the same approach that makes Word-to-HTML less painful will work for eBook publishing, assuming you're using Word as your editor.

Firstly though: it might be worth investigating some of the "writerly" apps that are available. They're generally not so expensive (up to maybe $60) and are likely to support both word doc input (to help with existing docs) and eBook output. I've never used one (I'm not a writer) but I know of a few professional content creators who eschew Word whenever possible in favour of more focused tools; I think that's more to do with UI and organisation (as they all have designers/publishers) but it might be worth checking out a couple.

Anyway, with word, the most important thing: USE STYLES!

(re)define styles for everything you need to do from a format/structure perspective. Chapter heads, heading levels, quotes, itals, emphasis, smallcaps if you use them -- everything. Your goal is to have no local formatting -- no manual adjustments to paragraphs, no quick font size adjustments or manual bold/italics. You can use find/replace to fix a lot of these in an existing doc, by the way.

Then, try saving your document as "Web page (filtered)" -- that's what it's called in Word 2010, the version I have on my games PC. This saves an HTML version but strips the office-specific styling which causes havoc and bloats your HTML.

NB: Make sure you've saved a Word version first!

If you open the resulting html file in a text editor, you should see a <style> block near the top with a bunch of styles defined, and then the body of the text should be fairly clean, with <h1>, <h2> etc for titles and various tags with classes (you'll probably see <p class="msoNormal"> a lot unless you renamed the base text style.

You might (I don't know) be best removing the <style>...<style> block at this point so that your book picks up native styling from the devices; it depends on whether you have any complex layout and whether you used standard styles which translated to native HTML tags. But something like Calibre, or Amazon's prep-and-test tools, will give you a better idea at this point.

A plea as a potential reader: Do as little "custom formatting" as you're able. Don't specify fixed fonts, even if you really like Garamond. Don't specify fixed-unit font sizes either. One of the joys of a well-crafted eBook is the ability for me (as a reader) to have it displayed in the typeface that I find most readable, at sizes that suit my environment (e.g.: normal-sized for regular reading; a little larger when it's late and my eyes are tired; larger again if I'm reading in the shower with my iPad propped up on the medicine cabinet).

[Mister Blastman]

Ano, on 27 May 2016 - 08:54 PM, said:

Ebook formats are (effectively) HTML, and Amazon's documentation talks about using HTML or ePub exports with their KindleGen utility so I'm guessing the same approach that makes Word-to-HTML less painful will work for eBook publishing, assuming you're using Word as your editor.

Firstly though: it might be worth investigating some of the "writerly" apps that are available. They're generally not so expensive (up to maybe $60) and are likely to support both word doc input (to help with existing docs) and eBook output. I've never used one (I'm not a writer) but I know of a few professional content creators who eschew Word whenever possible in favour of more focused tools; I think that's more to do with UI and organisation (as they all have designers/publishers) but it might be worth checking out a couple.

Anyway, with word, the most important thing: USE STYLES!

(re)define styles for everything you need to do from a format/structure perspective. Chapter heads, heading levels, quotes, itals, emphasis, smallcaps if you use them -- everything. Your goal is to have no local formatting -- no manual adjustments to paragraphs, no quick font size adjustments or manual bold/italics. You can use find/replace to fix a lot of these in an existing doc, by the way.

Then, try saving your document as "Web page (filtered)" -- that's what it's called in Word 2010, the version I have on my games PC. This saves an HTML version but strips the office-specific styling which causes havoc and bloats your HTML.

NB: Make sure you've saved a Word version first!

If you open the resulting html file in a text editor, you should see a <style> block near the top with a bunch of styles defined, and then the body of the text should be fairly clean, with <h1>, <h2> etc for titles and various tags with classes (you'll probably see <p class="msoNormal"> a lot unless you renamed the base text style.

You might (I don't know) be best removing the <style>...<style> block at this point so that your book picks up native styling from the devices; it depends on whether you have any complex layout and whether you used standard styles which translated to native HTML tags. But something like Calibre, or Amazon's prep-and-test tools, will give you a better idea at this point.

A plea as a potential reader: Do as little "custom formatting" as you're able. Don't specify fixed fonts, even if you really like Garamond. Don't specify fixed-unit font sizes either. One of the joys of a well-crafted eBook is the ability for me (as a reader) to have it displayed in the typeface that I find most readable, at sizes that suit my environment (e.g.: normal-sized for regular reading; a little larger when it's late and my eyes are tired; larger again if I'm reading in the shower with my iPad propped up on the medicine cabinet).

I read about the HTML thing. You're going to laugh but I write with Word 2001--I HATE how they changed the interface of newer versions. I'm not alone, either. I've read of many different writers using older software to create their works.

As for styles, I've heard of that, too--but damn, if I don't know how to set any of that up. It's all Greek to me. I guess I'd probably be fine with a typewriter. I hit tab to indent paragraphs and lines of verse and I sometimes isolate individual lines of text on their own line, plus I use quotes or blurbs at the top of chapters which aren't indented at all.

The style thing... is a mystery. To me it is nonsense I can't press the tab key to start a new paragraph. It's just what... we do as a writer (or hit space five times). But what I've gathered is that ebooks are allergic to tab? That seems insane. Were they designed by aliens or something?

As for custom formatting--I'm with you on that. My beta readers had to contend with PDFs and well, that's because I had little time to reformat every release--and PDFs aren't friendly with e-readers--hence on my draft four release I tried to do epub/mobi and that turned out to be a nightmare.

Styles must have something to do with it because I converted my old word file to open office and then saved that as a newer version and still had issues. Argh. In the end I want my readers to have a super easy time with it, but I'd also like publishers to take care of all the nasty administrative stuff.

Thanks for the tips.

[Mister Blastman]

Aw hell, I quit writing code twelve years ago. I was quite good at it--but it is so left-brained and well, I live in my right brain. I just want to fill empty pages with pretty prose.

There's got to be an easier way. 170k words is not something easy to monkey with--and I'm all ready about 14k words into my next novel.

[Mister Blastman]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 28 May 2016 - 07:05 AM, said:

Good God almighty. You are so fast. I am sitting here stumped on like 3500 words in Part 2. I hate starting sections... it is so hard to get things rolling lol.

I am really close to just moving to some other project so I can have a new perspective when I come back to Part 2.

Well fast is relative. My first novel took me six years--four for the rough draft, one for the second, and this last year I did two gigantic draft revisions--the first a style pass and the second a character development/plot thread enrichment plus solidified my style. These last ten months have been nothing short of transformative.

Last December prior to starting the fourth draft I wrote the outline for this novel I'm writing now--if you can call it that--an outline synopsis of the plot development and major events with some key characters. It was a loose outline as the real nitty-gritty isn't discovered until you water the seed...

The last two days I've been stuck--not because of what to write--I know where I want to go, but couldn't because the low tech setting and the technologies needed to be conveyed in a spacecraft. Thankfully the main character isn't a genius--just an average bloke with a wife and kids. Last night I spent three hours calculating fuel/travel time/accelerative rates/departure/arrival envelopes... now I just need to work out a couple more details and I'm ready to start writing again.

Want to know something funny?

I'm writing this tie-in as the sequel solidifies in my head to my last novel--which is every single way is way more complicated than this story I'm writing now--which happens to be quite character driven. Getting the emotional impact I want to achieve is going to take a little work as I'm going for (in no particular order) feelings of sadness, pain, suffering, joy, love, triumph and tears.

When I'm really stuck I love to just sit in a quiet room--say on the couch... with no distractions and let my mind wander--start logically deducting the sequence of plot--or look out my front door window. Then I'll outline some more. I keep saying outline... if I had done it for my first novel it wouldn't have taken as long... but... six years ago I didn't have a damn clue how to write.

Try the outline method, you can stack sections together and at least if you have a general idea, you can follow the seeds.

[Mister Blastman]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 28 May 2016 - 10:56 AM, said:

I have a complete 30 page outline for my novel detailing everything. The problem is that I can never seem to get a good start. Part 1 was a ***** to start (I rewrote the first chapter well over 10 times) and Part 2 is no different. I have probably deleted 10k words in restarting it. I outline like a madman.

So after I finished my last novel, I ended up with a total of 418,670 words--I threw out 249k of them. And that's not counting separate notes and stuff I just trash binned entirely. Who knows how much total, but it was a lot--probably a fair bit more than that.

That's a huge outline. The one for my current novel is about eleven pages at twelve point font--notes, etc., plus I've made a spreadsheet already to help with behind the scenes calculations to figure out spacecraft dynamics to help me figure out how to frame some scenes and add intensity to the story.

I really should start making character sheets--helps a ton with making them unique.

[Atlai]

So my mail came today and in it was the official approval of my copyright claim for my book, I am now the proud (copyrighted) owner of my little story.

Just felt like sharing, I love how passionate this thread is and it really is nice to stop by and read it from time to time. Especially I've found on days where my motivation is waning that reading the posts of other authors really is a good pick-me-up. So thank you all for that.

On that note I'm actually quite interested in your series Marack. I've read a lot of your posts throughout the years and I can really tell how much you love both realism and sci-fi, so I know you'll do your homework on any theories or facts used in your writings. You will have to let me know when it becomes available

[Atlai]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 31 May 2016 - 05:24 PM, said:

Thanks! You can actually read the first draft of Part 1 of my book on Figment right now. I am also open to Beta readers right now (one of mine has taken a raincheck cause they are going back to University for their masters degree).

Also I am likewise. Reading stuff from other authors really helps me a lot, and also writing videos on Youtube have helped motivate me a bit too (definitely suggest Travis Mcbee's vids if you haven't heard of him).

And Congratulations! A very easy way to copyright your work as actually to print off a manuscript and then mail it to yourself (because then you basically have a registered manuscript) and keep it sealed.

Hmm I haven't heard of that youtuber, I'll probably have some time to check him out tonight when I get home work.

Figment? I'm not familiar with that either lol.

I have done that too, but I talked with quite a few lawyers (who work in copyright claim law) and they all told me while that's not a bad thing to do its not a legal way to copyright, so its not always a good idea to only do that instead of going through the library of congress. So for my own peace of mind I paid the 60 bucks and opened an official claim lol.

[Atlai]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 31 May 2016 - 06:47 PM, said:

hmm that is interesting. I was told by my lawyer that basically the minute I publish my product with my name, it is automatically my copyrighted property. Very interesting. I guess research will have to occur on my end haha.

And yeah definitely check out Figment.com. It is a really awesome place with a lot of great people and aspiring writers. I have my stuff up there so as to get feedback from other writers and opinions on the story and stuff. Definitely suggest it.

This is my page for reference on what it kind of looks like and stuff:
http://figment.com/u...pher-M-E-Hansen

Definitely suggest Travis' videos. You may really enjoy them (he has a whole series on writing tips and they are usually nice, and he is also a published author).

I was told that too for quite a long time, but I guess in the U.S. legal system's eyes its more of a grey area. Like it definitely will be your property, but say if someone takes out an official copyright claim for like the name of your series and that gets approved then they have the ability to sue you for having the same name or something similar. Apparently it works in some sort of way like that, but I'm no lawyer so I can't say for certain. All I know is that 60 bucks for an absolute was enough of a reason for me, but idk I have crazy paranoia

Wow that's actually a pretty sweet site, I'll have to make an account there when I get the chance, finals are almost over so I should have time soon... hell maybe I'll actually get back into actually playing this game instead of only reading the forums.

And ok I'll definitely check him out later this evening, I like to watch youtube before I go to bed and this is probably more productive than what I usually watch on that stupid site...

[Atlai]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 31 May 2016 - 07:09 PM, said:

I may be copyrighting my work officially then lol.

And lol I haven't played a video game in ages. I forgot what they are like basically hahaha. But yeah that site is definitely worth your time. I am currently in contact with someone who was a Best Seller. So yeah definitely worth it. You will find some really great people and I have found some great little sci-fi works that omg, are amazing. Luckily my finals are done with so that is nice. I am now working as an English tutor at my school (yeah I know it doesn't show given my lack of grammar on this website haha).

I also have the curse of watching buzzfeed videos and then 3 hours later... I am still watching them haha.

Hehe like I said peace of mind =3

Oh man that's great, what a great concept for a website. And yeah I played a few matches of MWO earlier this month but I have two jobs and go to school, so when I'm not doing those I'm prepping my book for launch (publish or whatever).

Dude my grammar sucks hard on this site, and I've taken quite a few English classes and I've always received good grades... Maybe its just this site...

Although in my defense I work at my school as the Japanese tutor, so my English is getting progressively worse and worse...

That's me with youtube: "Oh look Sky Williams has a new video, time to watch every single thing he's ever uploaded again".

[Mister Blastman]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 31 May 2016 - 05:24 PM, said:

And Congratulations! A very easy way to copyright your work as actually to print off a manuscript and then mail it to yourself (because then you basically have a registered manuscript) and keep it sealed.

From what I've read from several agents the mail yourself a copy trick is just a myth. Most of them say if you simply write it, then it is copyrighted then and there, provided you keep revisions and versions, etc. of it as you go.

[Mister Blastman]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 31 May 2016 - 07:32 PM, said:

Interesting. Well paranoia chip in my brain is activated.

Hahahahahaha.

I'm **** retentive with revisions but I guess that comes from my programming background.

[Atlai]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 31 May 2016 - 07:26 PM, said:

Yeah well I am also just as paranoid (to the point that I refuse to publish with an actual publishing company so that all the rights to my book are 100% mine).

And yeah I was looking for a website like it for a long time and was on stuff like Wattpad and things like that for ages before finding Figment. Great place.

And lol the minute I took German classes I started having serious trouble with my English (to the point where I can't count in English anymore haha).

oh lol, yeah Buzzfeed is like... a tunnel without an end haha.

Edit- Damn. This thread has gotten quite large. Really awesome!!

I agree, I totally refuse to publish with a company. I tried that route for a few months but I couldn't stand all the "Also btw you lose all rights" thing that they had going on.

Yeah my English takes a major dip whenever I hangout with my Japanese friends, since we mostly just speak in Japanese I tend to come home still speaking it... and subsequently not speaking English properly.

Youtube is hell for time... or heaven...

And yeah its grown quite a bit now, most educated people have a love for words after all so its only natural.

[Mister Blastman]

Mason West, on 31 May 2016 - 08:01 PM, said:

I agree, I totally refuse to publish with a company. I tried that route for a few months but I couldn't stand all the "Also btw you lose all rights" thing that they had going on.

Umm... what kind of publisher did you go to? That sounds pretty ghetto to me--did you have an agent?

[Atlai]

Mister Blastman, on 31 May 2016 - 08:59 PM, said:

Umm... what kind of publisher did you go to? That sounds pretty ghetto to me--did you have an agent?

It was definitely sketchy, hence me not doing it. I don't have an agent...

I ended up deciding to self publish with both an E-Book and a print on demand thing that Amazon and another company do.

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 31 May 2016 - 09:41 PM, said:

Yeah doesn't sound like any publisher I know of. But even then all publishers I have heard of have some little things written down about rights and such. At least that is what I have heard.

Well that was the worst publisher I went to, the others were lighter but they all had some thing to do with losing some rights, so I wasn't overly happy about that.

[Atlai]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 31 May 2016 - 10:19 PM, said:

That is what I will be doing.

Yeah publishers suck kinda when it comes to rights imo.

Yeah they do.

But cool man! I really think it's the way to go. After a little over a year trying to publish and just not liking the results, I did a lot of research and it all points in this direction, so I'm going for it.

[Atlai]

Will do!

Just out of general curiosity (and because I am in love with languages) are you studying German as your major or just out of a love of the language/culture?

[Atlai]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 01 June 2016 - 11:26 AM, said:

Not as my major but as my second minor. I am an English Creative Writing Major and getting two minors, one in Computer Science and one in German language.

Haha I should have guessed. I actually considered a Creative Writing major myself for a time.

I'm a Language Major in Japanese, I already have all the requirements for an AA but I'm missing some GEs. I'm gonna end up taking it all the way to a full degree because I'm in love with the language... and I'm also a nerd :/

But still that's cool, German is a very unique sounding language.

Plus its nice that if you ever plan on traveling you don't have to be the 'typical American scum'.

[Atlai]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 01 June 2016 - 05:10 PM, said:

German is okay. The grammar makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It is basically just me guessing half the time (apparently my guesses are good as I got an A- in the last class lol).

I took creative writing so that I could ensure my future of becoming a homeless person lol.

I understand... I took four years of French and I just could never wrap my head around it... and from what I can tell from my friends it seems German is equally (if not worse) as confusing. I commend thee.

Eh as long as you're happy I don't see why it matters :'D

[Karl Streiger]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 01 June 2016 - 05:10 PM, said:

German is okay. The grammar makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It is basically just me guessing half the time (apparently my guesses are good as I got an A- in the last class lol).

funny wanted to say the same about English, but for my part, I do the same in German either - guessing for the most part - and for the other use a programme to deal with it.

---

Back to my questions about invasion:

Given your suggestions, I may have a plot.

• * first it is about people
  
  • 
    the flotilla commander of the "invading" force was promoted and given a backwater job at the same time
    
  • 
    same could be said about the general for the expedition force planetary forces
    
  • 
    the mission is not supposed to be a military mission at first, it was supposed to be a "show of force" and "training" run
    
  • 
    they may accept any evidence to justify an invasion to boost their rank
• about the Union -
  
  • it is purely human, with a bigoted attitude towards nonhumans
    
  • on the planet, there are bigger nonhuman settlements
    
    • (liberate the humans)
      
    • (destroy possible terrorist threads)
• about the business
  
  • mines and stations may need supplies
    
  • it is cheaper to fly them in from a planet rather than create them in a greenhouse habitat
    
  • holiday trips on a real surface rather than in a thread mill
    
  • cheap workers can be recruited fro the surface
• about security
  
  • an inhabited planet is a great place to hide - anti-orbital missiles
    
  • its cheaper and simpler to have garrison forces rather than to blockade the planet with war ships

Ok do you think there are enough reasons to justify a all out invasion - even without "valuable" things on the planet.

[Mister Blastman]

Karl Streiger, on 01 June 2016 - 11:08 PM, said:

funny wanted to say the same about English, but for my part, I do the same in German either - guessing for the most part - and for the other use a programme to deal with it.

---

Back to my questions about invasion:

Given your suggestions, I may have a plot.

• * first it is about people
  
  • 
    
    
    the flotilla commander of the "invading" force was promoted and given a backwater job at the same time
    
  • 
    
    
    same could be said about the general for the expedition force planetary forces
    
  • 
    
    
    the mission is not supposed to be a military mission at first, it was supposed to be a "show of force" and "training" run
    
  • 
    
    
    they may accept any evidence to justify an invasion to boost their rank
• about the Union -
  
  • it is purely human, with a bigoted attitude towards nonhumans
    
  • on the planet, there are bigger nonhuman settlements
    
    • (liberate the humans)
      
    • (destroy possible terrorist threads)
• about the business
  
  • mines and stations may need supplies
    
  • it is cheaper to fly them in from a planet rather than create them in a greenhouse habitat
    
  • holiday trips on a real surface rather than in a thread mill
    
  • cheap workers can be recruited fro the surface
• about security
  
  • an inhabited planet is a great place to hide - anti-orbital missiles
    
  • its cheaper and simpler to have garrison forces rather than to blockade the planet with war ships

Ok do you think there are enough reasons to justify a all out invasion - even without "valuable" things on the planet.

Good start!

Questions:

So he's invading... then what? What's the big idea buried in there to compel the story further?

What I see is human bigots who hate aliens--not sure if the invading force has some aliens in it?

Is this going to turn into a constant shifting struggle of power between factions or is there something mysterious to discover or some sort of sinister underplot woven around everyone?

Edited by Mister Blastman, 02 June 2016 - 07:49 AM.