She’s busy helping recover Faery, and I’m busy figuring out how to improve our files’ display qualities. I think I’ve solved a few problems.
Meanwhile I’m ending the poll—I think we’ve got our answer, so nothing changes. The new poll is going to ask: What device are you using?
Sob. The .epub file was bad, and it corrupted 5 other formats. We’re going to be a few more hours.
I’m using my iTouch, as soon as I look up how to put eBooks onto it!
Actually, Calibre might give you some help: they have a “save to device” icon, and I imagine you just ID your device, pick your file, and plug in via a USB cable.
Thanks! I’ll give that a try! 🙂
I clicked on other because I understand that my
laptop is NOT a PC. I use the Mobipocket e-book
that I downloaded from you and it is a delight!!!
Superbly easy to use with cover art and easy to read text. It has never messed up a download and
is (so far)always available at download sites.
Oh CJ,you have all worked so hard,it’s heart breaking to find that kind of glitch!(yellow circle with tears)
PC using MS Word as the reader, preferably from RTF.
That MSReader is kind of a nice critter with Word up to Vista, too: uses .lit format, and is the one that has a reader-voice. I have Word 2003, and it works like a charm.
I’m kind of wondering if Win 7 isn’t going to integrate it in, since it is adopting the Narrator.
I use Word for several reasons (and despite agreeing that Word handles HTML horribly, it is quite functional in other areas). One is I can edit fonts intelligently: I can change the font type without changing italics, size, etc. I can also change colors, as I find black on white too glaring for long term reading. Last, it has a full screen mode which removes everything but a little gray bar at the bottom (and I wish that disappeared like the OS taskbar.
I dislike proprietary e-reader formats because you just don’t know what you’re getting with them (did anyone know 1984 could be deleted from their readers remotely?) and they just may not last. A Microsoft format has a high probability of being translatable for decades. This isn’t even true of .txt which may be made obsolete by Unicode fairly soon. But even an MS format isn’t guaranteed to persist if it’s doesn’t prove successful. Ate MS Works files or Bob files still readable?
I use a PC and what ever’s available. So I don’t particular like .pdf due to no-reflow thing.
“A Microsoft format has a high probability of being translatable for decades. This isn’t even true of .txt which may be made obsolete by Unicode fairly soon.”
.txt and Unicode are two rather different parts of the same coin. .txt is the file format, unicode the character format used. So you can’t save a unicode file, but you can save a file which uses unicode. I have several .txts which do use Unicode, I have .txts which user other character formats. If the programme doesn’t know what is used, I get weird symbols in parts.
And there isn’t one Unicode, but several with the smaller ones part of the bigger ones and Unicode is compatible with ASCII. This blog uses Unicode, buts it’s not a Unicode file.
.txt as one of the most basic file formats won’t die out, but it might be used more of with Unicode as a character format.
I like Unicode, because it lets me use for characters much easier.
Cherryhの本が 素晴らしい ですね。
Other: eBookwise. rb or html converts fine, rtf next choice.
gotcha covered.
“Please tell us.” Besides the Sony, I use Calibre on my Mac and my linux netbook. But now I’m mostly using the Sony, and I suspect that’s permanent. I really like the form factor.
Other: Cybook Gen 3 from Bookeen.com (mobi), and Calibre on Macbook (thanks for Calibre link!)
24″ iMac with Stanza, but it’s not ideal for book reading. Thinking about a dedicated ebook reader.
Kinda waiting to see what the mythical Apple tablet will turn out to be…
Using Calibre on an iMac, but no box to tick for that! Maybe I should try Stanza.
Oops, I left that one out. Calibre Mac version is supposed to be pretty good, but I’ve heard a lot of enthusiasm from Stanza users.
Note: I’ve gussied up the download paths over there <------------- to be specific about operating systems. We're still trying to puzzle out using Vista with MSReader. I'm strongly suspecting they want your computer to have Word before they'll let you install it. TO our puzzlement, the RTF file we're producing really does have images, but they don't show if you're reading RTF. Go figure. I have figured out how to: 1. get rid of the ubiquitous ?s in some formats like .txt. 2. get images into a .pdf. 3. get images and text to cooperate in .html 4. get a sane conversion path going in Calibre, one to the next. 5. get Calibre conversion to play nicely with Word .htm (used the 'filtered' version) 6. get an interior illo to size properly inside the body. 7. and I've learned that Calibre conversion really doesn't like regular .htm; and it doesn't like Word's .htm half as well as it says it does; it deals a lot better with .prc as a source file. And no matter that Calibre says it converts .pdf, you're a lot better doing it out of your word processor.
Would it be possible to see the results of the previous poll? I see the “Polls Archive” page hasn’t been setup yet. (No rush, when you get a chance.:)) Thanks.
Sure. Let me try to figure it out!
Edit: Ow! I can’t FIND it. I may have accidentally blown it away, when I was trying to archive it. But off the top of my head, it ran this way: I think PDF actually ‘won’, although PDF and .PRC (Mobi) were continually jockeying in the lead. Every other format was 1-3 votes, except down at the bottom of the list (rb, rtf, txt) where it was 1-0.
Meaning most people are using their computers’ ‘native’ pdf reader (which is great for the computer screen and pretty futz-free). It’s locked to the style the author set up, rather like looking at photographs of the pages.
Nearly tied is MobiPocket Reader, which works on Kindles and PC which is my own favorite (I use a PC): it also displays ‘open-book’ style, with a dual screen, but has the ability to change the font, etc.
‘Third’ in popularity is the Calibre, which works on Sony readers, and many others. The Calibre Reader for the PC or Mac is scalable font, book-size display (single page), on your computer (or full screen, if you want that {my brain prefers a book-sized width for reading}. Its best format is .e-Pub. Also, in downloading this one—be sure not to confuse Calibre itself with its companion the Calibre E-book Manager, which is a kind of e-book Librarian. Their icons look a lot alike, and I think Calibre should fix that. Getting at the reader is also not that intuitive at the start (‘call’ a book via its ‘add books’ icon, then highlight that book in the display (you can call a dozen or so up at once) and push the ‘view’ icon. THEN you get the Reader.)
A reader which is inscrutably complex got fewer votes: the Microsoft Reader, which uses the .lit format, and reads to you aloud, as well as on pages. Beautiful display, dual page. Nice reading voice. But…getting the thing to display once you’ve loaded it is tricky: I call it the ‘fishing method’ of device finding. Use ‘search’ to find a .lit file. Click on it. Bingo: the MSR pops up and grabs the bait. THEN you tag that fish (put its icon on your desktop) so you can call it without so much production. And not even page-turning is intuitive. To turn the first page, click on the Author’s Name, and to turn pages after that, get rid of the ‘voice’ display box at the bottom, and click on the page numbers. It’s from Microsoft, and while its PC display is one of the prettiest and clearest, it does NOT win the Design award.
Other votes were for formats largely used in phones and such devices.
With Vista you have to use CJ’s link then install MS Reader go back to link & go to activate, then activate for Vista, then get your Window Live ID (with a strong password) then from that the activate link comes up automatically and you get your nice reader and I agree with Walt on its properties. I prefer it for reading, nice book feel.
Will eventually get the latest toy from Bookeen probably.
We downloaded the Windows version of Stanza: does it display graphics at all, or what?
I am using Stanza on a shiny new MacBookPro. It shows the cover of Faery Moon nicely in the prc format, but if there are other illustrations included, as the title-page verso (can’t leave those book terms behind) I have not seen them. I can’t get Calibre to work; I get the spinning beach-ball of doom. The calibre help pages has a note about some corrections in consol that might help, but apparently others have the same problem. I will continue research, Closed Circle and Calibre are the reasons I made the big jump to a new laptop and OS. I am being forced into becoming more of a techie than I ever thought I would, but it’s all worth it. I am reading Faery Moon.
Anybody who can help with the spinning beach ball, please chime in! It loaded well for me. Are you sure you downloaded the MAC version of the software? I have now differentiated the download packages on the sidebar… should have, before now. <------------
Palm Centro with Mobipocket (and Plucker)
Linux Laptop with FBReader
Mac with Adobe reader. As I said I’ve downloaded Calibre but have not had time to really look at it. (Two people out at work very looooong twenty hour weeks!) Loving Faery Moon…..need it ALL! 😉
PC with eReader. Free version downloaded from Fictionwise.com.
This is out of place, ot, but there has been a fair amount of press in the NYT lately on publishers fighting back on ebooks – they are worried about the Kindle and so on undercutting their hard copy prices, and are apparently getting aggressive about the back lists. This article is representative : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/technology/companies/15amazon.html?_r=1&sq=kindle&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=20&adxnnlx=1261051797-s+FqJ7eCOyQ+uzJaEpt41A
They don’t talk about direct publishing like CC to any extent. I suppose that is because without marketing you don’t pose a serious threat to them. That indicates that marketing needs to be the next step for CC.
Oh, the publishers and the Author’s Guild are squaring off for a big court fight. In essence–publishers are going to try to claim that their contracts are for rights that existed at the time of signing (e-rights) but that weren’t claimed by any clause in the contract. This will be a hard sell in the courts, imho. If you say you can change a contract’s interpretation because you want more rights than you specified, that opens a can of worms of monumental size—a decision in their favor could alter contract law in unguessable ways. THe principle has always been that the author markets not the book, but the right to print the book IN CERTAIN FORMS for a certain number of years, or until the book is out of print, and the IN CERTAIN FORMS part is what’s in contention. You can sell first printing rights in North America, but printing in English elsewhere on the planet, or in some instances in Canada, is another clause. Movie/film is another clause. Audio is a clause. E-books are a clause that has begun to enter contracts, but is not in all contracts, and is in no contract prior to say, 1980. So, yeah, there’s quite a furor shaping up. But those of you who deal with contracts in any way, watch this one closely: the principle is simply that you don’t get to insert a new clause of your choice into a done deal just because your business is hurting.
hmm. It offers the choice of “Other – please tell us” but doesn’t say where to tell you, so I guess that means here.
I use Mac w/ Preview to read .pdfs. Preview is the default pdf-reader that comes with OS X, and I’ve never had to install Adobe’s Reader.
I also tried Calibre on my Mac – I didn’t like it, but I didn’t try it for long.
Are you considering hosting other authors on Closed Circle? A friend of mine’s publisher’s imprint went out of business AFTER they had printed the book but BEFORE it could hit the stores. It would be a prime candidate for a solution such as this.
That’s here. And welcome!
Mmm. .pdfs isn’t one I’ve met yet. I think Stanza (freeware) will work with OS X…I have downloaded it to try to work with it, but haven’t gotten it to display pix yet.
Re other authors on Closed Circle—we’re doing all we can just to keep up with us, BUT—if your friend will write to us, we will happily tell him what we know, right down to what software we’re using (mostly freeware or shareware): the point being—he can do exactly what we’re doing. My advice would be to get several other writers in the same boat with that company and organize a little effort just like ours. The work load for 3 writers trying to set up and put out a quality product is just all 3 writers can handle. Less, as the thing begins to function. I would also advise him this: limit it to 3, because the symmetry prevents divisions of opinion and provides teams of 2 with various specialties. Include a writer who does art, and as many who know computers as possible: the ability to speak to web-servers matters. And beyond that—tell him good luck. This is happening to a lot of writers.
Oops, sorry that was supposed to be .pdf’s (as in the plural of .pdf) – not proposing a new format here!