First, I created a new project in its own designated folder.\u00a0 Then, I added the corrected html file to the “publication files” page.\u00a0 Where it asked for a cover image, I uploaded the 600×900 jpeg (I do all my editting in The Gimp, in a much larger .xcf file).\u00a0 Then, I filled in the metadata, such as book description, suggested cover price, etc.<\/p>\n
When I was finished, I hit “build,” and voila!\u00a0 A slick looking .prc ebook file that looked EXACTLY how I wanted it to.<\/p>\n
I uploaded it to Amazon, and it looked great in the preview.\u00a0 I’m not sure what it’ll look like in the finished product\u00a0 yet, since it takes 24 hours to upload, but I fixed “Decision LZ1527” as well.\u00a0 Once I knew what I was doing, it took maybe five minutes to create the ebook on Mobipocket Creator.<\/p>\n
So here’s what I’m going to do from now on.\u00a0 I’m going to bypass the whole .doc thing altogether (since I use Open Office, not MS Word) and go straight from .odt to .html using a WYSIWYG html editor.\u00a0 For the cover, I’ll use The Gimp, with the project files as .xcf and the finished images as 600×900 .jpegs.\u00a0 I’ll combine it all in Mobipocket Creator, and upload the .prc ebook file to Amazon \/ Pubit \/ Smashwords \/ wherever.<\/p>\n
Sound daunting? (Charlie, I’m talking to you, hehe)\u00a0 It’s actually a TON of fun, once you get the hang of it.\u00a0 And let me tell you, when I saw the finished product, it was awesome<\/em>.\u00a0 Totally worth it.<\/p>\n Trouble is, I haven’t had any time to work on my novel, which is frustrating, because I’m working an 8 to 5 job now.\u00a0 It’s temporary, which is nice for a full time artist\/creator like me, but man, I’m going to miss all the free time I used to have.\u00a0 I want to finish ITND before the end of the month, but I’ve still got a long ways to go.<\/p>\n In the meantime, let me give you a sneak peek on my next ebook.\u00a0 It’s a short story based on an excerpt from Genesis Earth<\/em>, which won first place in the 2009 Mayhew short story contest at BYU.\u00a0 Of the stuff I’ve posted up to Amazon so far, I think this one is far and away the best.<\/p>\n Here’s the cover:<\/p>\n Pretty cool, eh?\u00a0 I ripped the font from Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri.\u00a0 The image is from NASA, taken by the Hubble space telescope.<\/p>\n So anyways, that’s what’s going on with my ebook venture.\u00a0 I’m kind of glad I haven’t done much to publicize the other stories, because they need a lot of work.\u00a0 If you bought one already, don’t worry; the stories haven’t changed at all, just the formatting.\u00a0 I’m not sure if you can re-download those once you’ve bought them, but if you want one of the new ones, let me know and I’ll figure it out.<\/p>\n And if I’m missing something in terms of html or ebook formatting, please let me know.\u00a0 I’m not quite hopeless, but I’m still horribly ignorant when it comes to this kind of stuff.\u00a0 Any suggestions (especially for a good WYSIWYG editor) would me much appreciated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So it turns out that ebook formatting is a lot harder than I’d thought. I was hoping to finish chapter 13 in ITND tonight, but I’ve spent the whole #$@! time just trying to get “From the Ice Incarnate” up on Amazon. Fortunately, I think I have a much better idea of what I’m doing… Continue reading A word about ebook formatting<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32,460,170],"tags":[399,547,515,42,529,268],"class_list":["post-4761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ge","category-hn","category-short-stories","tag-computers","tag-ebook-formatting","tag-ebooks","tag-frustrations","tag-indie-publishing","tag-time-management","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-1eN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4761"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4771,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761\/revisions\/4771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/cover-From-the-Ice-Incarnate.jpeg\" "\\"cover")
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