Joel Friedlander

Open-source .epub vs. Adobe .pdf

February 16, 2010 By Mark 10 Comments

Over the past few days I’ve been reading up on e-book file formats. I have a collection of short stories I want to publish, and I have a working understanding of the technology that readers will use to embrace that content, but until recently I haven’t worried too much about delivering content to that technology. (The main reason for my delay is simply the pace of change. Time spent trying to understand or master e-content technology six months ago would have put me at buggy-whip risk.)

As luck would have it, Mark Coker just released data about the file formats most in use on Smashwords, his e-publishing site. At the same time, Joel Friedlander pointed me to a useful video tutorial about formatting content using Adobe’s InDesign software, which seems to be the tool of choice for many people. From these two sources of information I was able to understand and easily navigate the first fork in the road on my own publishing journey. [ Read more ]

Site Seeing: The Book Designer

February 11, 2010 By Mark 2 Comments

For the past six months or so I’ve been trying to learn everything I can about the publishing industry. A lot of that knowledge is political: it’s about business decisions that people are making in order to protect their interests, and how they’re leveraging others to achieve those goals.

There’s another kind of knowledge to the book business, however, and that’s the practical knowledge of how things are made. On the traditional side there’s book binding and printing; on the electronic cutting-edge there are document formats and presentation issues to confront. Because I know nothing about any of that, and because I need to know at least a minimal amount in order to make my work presentable in the literal sense, I’ve kept my eye out for useful sources of information.

Joel Friedlander’s The Book Designer is one such site. Not only does Joel know a lot about how books are made, he makes that information available in language that anyone can understand. Straddling the transitional divide between print and online document preparation, Joel’s blog posts and site documents have already filled in a lot of blanks. And as I get ready to put together a collection of short stories for online publication and distribution, I find myself going to his site, and following his links, more and more.

— Mark Barrett

Self-Publishing Linkfest

September 24, 2009 By Mark Leave a Comment

I’ve run across a blur of information about self-publishing in the past 24 hours or so, all of it deserving attention.

From the New York Times, a nice piece on Pondering the Format of E-books before you self-publish.

The proliferation of formats has come about, in part, because most companies entering the e-book market have created a proprietary version.

This rugged individualism started falling out of favor several years ago, and today many companies have adopted the ePub format developed by the International Digital Publishing Forum, an industry consortium. Sony announced in August that it was switching to ePub as well.

Repeat after me: proprietary is bad. Independent authors do not want a third party to own the means of distribution in any way. If Sony or Amazon wants to sell hardware (e-readers), more power to them. But I’m not interesting in anyone who’s selling hardware that requires me to use (pay for) their software. I understand why people can own fonts, but I’m not down with someone owning the alphabet.
Five Good Reasons to Self-Publish Your Book. The subtitle here is: Because No Publisher Will Take You No Matter How Good Your Writing Is.
Finally, e-Fiction Book Club chimes in with Why You Should Self-Publish…, including more links on the subject.

When you self-publish, as I have said before, your book comes with no guarantee of quality or even readability. Readers have to take a punt on your work, and unless you have a great word-of-mouth campaign going on, you’ve got very little chance of being noticed and selling significant copies. Not that I’m disparaging all self-published authors; I’m just pointing out the facts. You are shoulder to shoulder with some of the worst examples of writing ever produced, and you will be lumped accordingly.

Sad but true.

An interesting side-effect of reading all these posts is that I’m getting a renewed appreciation for the skills of the craftspeople who work inside the staggering publishing industry. Clearly there is a lot of really useful institutional knowledge and business experience there that is applicable to all of the decisions individual authors are now making for themselves, and I have respect for that experience.

— Mark Barrett