I found a good article today which explains many of the issues. My main issue with the conclusions is that I cannot be productive with a laptop. If you are just writing, an iPad with Apple’s wireless keyboard will do the job for you very well. The article misses my most important category of software apps: the Creative Cloud. My two most used apps [outside of Mail and Safari], are InDesign and Photoshop. I can easily see that … Continue reading →
Today I want to talk about an area of ePUB and Kindle design which is never mentioned. The reason it is not mentioned is that only iBooks and Kindle Fire have the capability. There are a few peripheral apps that can: Bluefire on the iPad & Readium on Chrome, plus there may be more on Android, but I have no way to test that. There is a huge difference between the two options You can clearly … Continue reading →
This has been a day for it. All my sources are talking about nothing else. Here’s an excellent article about where indie and self-publishing may go There’s some good stuff here. The real problem is two-fold: The transitional future of the dedicated ereader Getting book discovery out of the hands of Amazon The ereader is going Some of this may be wishful thinking on my part. But the sales stats are proving my assumptions to be true. … Continue reading →
I’ve been saying this for a long time, but now stats are surfacing to show my point. Dead Tree Edition has a good article on it showing that only 25% of tablet users prefer digital magazines over print. That means three-quarters of tablet users prefer print. My point is that DPS is a dead-end for Adobe. It is one of those “you did a wonderful job of making something I really didn’t have any need for” type … Continue reading →
One of the new changes to InDesign CC is an innocuous checkbox at the bottom of the Table of Contents dialog box for: Make text anchor in source paragraph. What this does is make sure that any TOC has functional links in the exported ePUB. As Ron Bilodeau commented, “You can now have multiple ID-generated TOCs within your document(s) and they will all exist with correct links within your exported ePub file.” Now you can have custom … Continue reading →
As I have been experiencing, learning, teaching, and writing about on-demand self publishing over the past decade or two [I actually started self publishing ebooks in 1993 or 4], one area of book design has slid right past most of the new authors. This is quality. We won’t even discuss how quality dropped in the slide from letterpress to offset. That’s back in the dark ages, pre-digital. Silly person! That doesn’t matter any more. The one that … Continue reading →
Now I admit, I’m going on the words of others. I personally bailed on the Nook app and B&N a while ago. I am saddened by the troubles of the local B&N—it’s the only bookstore in town. I was hoping for viable competition to Amazon, but it is just not there. As they are stuck in a supposedly poor version of proprietary DRM, the smelly ears syndrome has got them in its clutches. I’m slightly hopeful that Riggio … Continue reading →
As I often do, I found out this morning that I have been recommending false information. I’ve alway hated Adobe Digital Editions, Adobe’s free ebook reader. It trashed the type and the images. I always recommended deleting it and not allowing it on your computer. This morning I discover that the 2.0 version is a great improvement. Of course, it’s been out since Sept 2012 & I never noticed I’m surprised that I haven’t heard of it. Has … Continue reading →
If you want your own copy on your hard drive, Buy the 2.5 edition ePUB direct, NOW! You can purchase directly an ePUB version of Edition 2.5 with embedded fonts for the normal price of $7.99. I’ll email it to you, and you can upload it into your iPad or Android tablet BlueFire app to see the embedded fonts. The embedded fonts will also be seen in in the Kindle Fire (but I can’t email a KF8 … Continue reading →
I just tried something and was surprised by the result. After learning this morning that I don’t actually buy books from Kindle, but lease them, I wanted to see what my options are if I actually buy an ePUB. More than that, as a font designer, I wanted to try an ePUB with embedded fonts. So, I simply exported an ePUB with embedded font from my KF8 version of the book and emailed it to myself. Then … Continue reading →