Backstory for those non-e-book types out there (hey, the non-Mormons get backstory when I post on Mormon stuff, so deal):<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
You must must MUST go buy this book. It\u2019s not Mormon-centric in the least (except for one poem, which made me cry, and a story that doesn\u2019t seem Mormon if you\u2019re not). The writing is exquisite and really digs into some of the Old Testament stories we all think we know but \u2026 maybe we don\u2019t, right? What might have Job\u2019s wife thought and done throughout Job\u2019s affliction? What might have prompted Jonah to go forth to preach at Nineveh? What the freak kind of email was Ezra getting??? At the very least, go download the sample<\/a>. And I didn\u2019t write any of it, so this isn\u2019t me plugging my schtick.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So moving along. I\u2019m trying to format the e-book abridged version of The Fob Bible<\/em>, Plain and Precious Parts. Everything\u2019s going along swimmingly. The illustrations are coming out, the poetry formatting is acceptable, if not perfect, but good within the limitations of the display software. Then comes time to run the HTML through BookGlutton\u2019s API, which had recently gone through an upgrade.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n
Panic set in because I hadn\u2019t figured out how to convert to EPUB other than BookGlutton.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where the journey starts, along with the rant.<\/p>\n
If you geek types want EPUB to be the MP3 of e-books, you better damn well figure out how to make it easy for people to create an EPUB format. I spent weeks with your nonsense gobbledygook about XML and XHTML\/CSS (hello! I do that!) and yet \u2026 not one conversion tool worth pissing on. I can have the best XHTML\/CSS in the world, but that still doesn\u2019t give me an EPUB file if I don\u2019t have a grinder to put it through that fucking WORKS<\/em>!<\/p>\n
(Deep breath.)<\/p>\n
With regard to The Fob Bible<\/em>, I knew I couldn\u2019t use Smashwords\u2019s meatgrinder (as I advocated<\/a>) because of the illustrations and the formatting of the poetry.<\/p>\n
You know what? I don\u2019t demand things for free, but if they\u2019re out there and they\u2019re free and they work right, I\u2019m all for it. But I\u2019m always willing to pay for something that does what I want it to do. I couldn\u2019t even find that<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I then used Calibre<\/a> (an otherwise excellent, excellent program, which had recently gone through an upgrade) and couldn\u2019t get the normal text to show up at all in Adobe Digital Editions (which had recently gone through an upgrade or six\u2014seeing a pattern here?) or the Sony Desktop Reader. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is when the simplest code gets thrown out or doesn\u2019t work or or or \u2026 something. I didn\u2019t know what was wrong.<\/p>\n
I hied myself on over to Twitter to weep and wail and gnash my teeth over this and one particular TwitterCrank e-book militant invested himself in my issue and we began to hash this out together<\/a>. (If you read Mike Cane\u2019s [@mikecane<\/a>] post, you can see where this is going.)<\/p>\n
We narrowed the problem to the EPUB reader, which in my case, is desktop Adobe Digital Editions and Sony Desktop Reader (and then, later, FBReader). It would honor
<h1><\/h1><\/code> tags, but it would NOT the most important one:<p><\/p><\/code>. I mean, if you can\u2019t get your p-tagged text to show up, there\u2019s something seriously wrong.<\/p>\nKirk Biglione<\/a> [@kirkbiglione]<\/span> (who spent quite a bit of time explaining this to me and talking me down out of the trees) verified my code, said it wasn\u2019t up to snuff (a wrong em-dash tag\u2014really? it\u2019s that touchy? fuck it), but then Mike Cane (who apparently has more disposable time than I) had run a MOBI format through Calibre to convert it to an EPUB and \u2026 voil\u00e0! again! It worked.<\/p>\n
That was simple. That was easy. I could do that, no problem.<\/p>\n
But still it nagged at me, the whole problem of EPUB creation and EPUB rendering (how it shows up on the various software intended to display it).<\/p>\n
Somewhere in this process (don\u2019t remember where), Mike Cane pointed me to a little program called eCub [dead link] and I tried it. It wasn\u2019t intuitive in the least and it didn\u2019t take HTML code without an error or outright refusal. I thought its recalcitrance was my fault and I determined to figure out this program as soon as I got The Fob Bible<\/em> done. So then I moved on to The Proviso<\/em> Vignette & Outtakes<\/span> Dirty Little Secrets<\/a>.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t get a handle on eCub. I played around with it enough to know that the best result would be to start with plain text and code it within the program itself (but oh, what a bitch!). I planned to do just this and write the manual for it (cuz there ain\u2019t one, I don\u2019t think), but then I thought, \u201cWhy should I?\u201d The programmer doesn\u2019t have a manual for it (that I\u2019ve been able to find) and I\u2019m not spending time I don\u2019t have in email back-and-forths to figure out what should be intuitive if there\u2019s no manual.<\/p>\n
Then it was suggested to me (I don\u2019t remember where, sorry) to download OpenOffice<\/a> and Azardi\u2019s eScape<\/a> plugin-type thing that would enable OpenOffice to \u2026 do something? comparable to \u201csave as PDF\u201d ? \u2026 and make an EPUB file. Frankly, I never got around to playing with it. Seemed like too much hassle after the tiring processes I\u2019d already been through.<\/p>\n
Thus, instead of trying yet another<\/em> method, I reverted to Mike Cane\u2019s K.I.S.S. advice to put a MOBI file (which I already had formatted) through Calibre, which worked adequately, even if not thoroughly satisfactorily.<\/p>\n
Anyway, I decided I didn\u2019t even want to think about it until I had to do it for Stay<\/em><\/a>. except it did occur to me that learning XML would be easier and possibly more effective anyway.<\/p>\n
Next up, a tweeter I met through Mike Cane [@alphabitch<\/a>] had purchased The Proviso<\/em> through Smashwords in EPUB for her iPhone. Now, disregard the fact that I kept her up two nights in a row for reading this thing on her iPhone, and disregard the fact that she thinks Mormons and Objectivists are crazy (\u201cKnox Hilliard: The crazy never lasts long enough<\/em>\u201d), concentrate on the portion that she stayed up two nights in a row to read it in spite of the fact that the formatting was awful<\/em>. Good gravy. I still don\u2019t know if they got that fixed.<\/p>\n
ngg_shortcode_0_placeholder<\/div>\nI sent her the file I made through BookGlutton, which she said was just fine.<\/p>\n
So my problem came back to me sooner than I expected. I needed to provide GOOD EPUB files and I had to have a creation tool to do it. Putting a MOBI file through EPUB would certainly solve a couple of problems, but I still wasn\u2019t happy with the whole situation. I felt like there just weren\u2019t any good options to make a \u201cstandard\u201d file everybody seems to want and the geek squad is pushing like they\u2019re the Tony Robbins of ebooks. Rah rah sisboombah blah blah blah. *yawn*<\/p>\n
Then last week happened.<\/p>\n
David Rothman [@davidrothman<\/a>] of Teleread<\/a> tweeted this post by Paul K. Biba: Atlantis Word Processor Can Create EPUB Books<\/a>. I had a smidgen of hope, you know, like when you\u2019re a freshman and you have a crush on the big man on campus and one day he says \u201chi\u201d to you? That kind of hope.<\/p>\n
I bookmarked the site, intending to go back and really dig into it.<\/p>\n
Heh. Not only did the big man on campus say hi, he took me out for dinner at a five-star restaurant, took me dancing, took me home and stayed the night (oh, so fabulously), then fixed me breakfast in the morning, presented me with a ring and declared his eternal love and devotion.<\/p>\n