I won’t stultify you with the full details of what I’m learning about file-conversion for e-book, but shall we say, I am becoming the file-conversion-geek of CC, and I now know things I wish I’d known when I started.
Here’s the skinny on what I know. 1. I can fix the .txt quotation glitch. I cannot get txt or rtf to display a cover image: they can’t. I think my new conversion path will clean up some of the mess on other file formats, so you will not have the weird goings-on.
2. I am going to ‘correct’ the freebie downloads, and I will post a notice as to when you can get those. My priority has to be ‘fixing’ the for-pay downloads, which are few in number, and will cement the new ‘path’ in my reeling brain.
3. I have some concrete recommendations for e-book novices (I was one, a few weeks ago), and here they are. NOTE: once you have an appropriate reader installed on your device, you don’t have to do anything fancy. Just load an e-book file into your device, any old where, and click on it. The reader will come up and behave itself. You do not have to program it or futz with it. The most complicated controls are arrow buttons and “Aa” buttons which increase and decrease print size. Everything else is automatic.
A. Apple products, including I-Phones, etc. Go to the E-book download on CC and download Lexcycle Stanza. This should let you handle .prc, .epub, etc, which are very nice formats, and  handle the artwork.
B. Microsoft products including PCs and Tablet readers and such: Go to the E-book download on CC and download any or all of the following: Calibre (shareware: that means they’d like a small donation); MSReader (freeware: that means it’s free); MobiPocket Reader (shareware); and Adobe Reader, if your computer doesn’t already have that one. Load any .epub, .lit, or .prc file and the appropriate Reader will pop up (you may have to do an “open with” as you click on that type for the first time) and the e-book will ‘call’ the reader into action and behave itself. If you are sight-impaired, or just like to be read to, choose MSReader. [and to turn the pages in MSReader, you have to x-out of the Voice thingie, because you click on the pages to turn them, and the Voice-thingie box comes up right over the page number. Sigh.]
3. Dedicated readers: If you have a Kindle, .prc is good. It’s mobi without the copy protection. If you have a Sony, .epub is yours. And read your manual. Somewhere in there it’s going to tell you about file types. Anyone who’s getting really good display out of a particular device, please post what format you’re using on what, which will help a lot. AND if you didn’t get a manual, almost every manufacturer of anything has on-line manuals in PDF that you can read and/or download, and lately, expects you will, if you need it. You need it. Go up to the manufacturer website, armed with your model number (consult the little plaque on the back or underside) and find the manual.
I hope this helps: this is a brand new world, and it’s VHS vs Beta for a while, and don’t be at all embarrassed to ask questions. Some of us luck into the right format; others are having to figure it out. So everybody help everybody else, and we’ll create a knowledge base we can put up into the “Pages” list so we don’t have to wonder.
At the risk of lengthening the already-creaking Omni files, I am going to add the .htm files. This will give those of you with proprietary programs for your devices a hope of converting the file for yourselves.
PS: and if you have never done an off-the-internet download and install of a program for your device or computer, we will be glad to walk you through that, too. Your chances of screwing anything up by doing so are absolutely minimal. These programs do not conflict. I’ve got everything on my computer at the moment but Stanza.
One comment. I downloaded Jane Fancher’s Groundties. It seems like the rtf version has exchanged ” and ‘ with ?.
Last part of Section I:I:
Quote:
?I don?t believe this! Kyla, Don, Sharon, ?excuse me a moment. I?ve got to find a Secure Line. ?Please don?t wait for me. I?ve no idea how long this will take. No sense in all our dinners going cold.? And with a final, longing glance at the filet: ?So help me, if this is anything short of intergalactic war, Kurt Eckersley may not survive the night.?
End quote.
Any idea why?
Also, just about formatting (I’m sure you don’t mean for this file to be used for printing a hardcopy book), this file cannot be printed in any size as is. The rtf print size is 21,59 by 27,94 centimeters. That’s a mighty large book.
I don’t mean to put too much pressure on you about this but please do consider what the options for printing a hard copy will be and you will probably know what to do (there are help files available at most POD companies homepages).
Thanks.
The site looks good.
ericf
Nope, it’s said “Huh?” Don’t recognize that character. Along with several others. Our sincere apologies. We’re new at this.
We’re starting to fix that. We will provide a clean version as soon as we can get our current for-money books cleaned up on a priority—but it will get fixed, hopefully this week.
Yep–“why” is what the .txt format routinely does with quote marks except straight ones. We will run a fix to try to replace all marks with non-directional marks.
Re printing, .txt or .rtf have problems and are hard to reformat, IMHO. Consider .doc or .pdf. We’ll try to work with you on this, however, and we’ll be in touch.
We ARE putting out a revised version, so hold off on the print option: we’ll work a bit with those files.
Bear with us: we’re learning too. I just lost the Faery Moon main file. I’ve been 8 hours trying to recover it. Sob.
HTM? You are angels! Just want I wanted (and needed).
This might be of interest … publishers are resisting ebooks: http://gizmodo.com/5427387/wary-book-publishers-are-fighting-the-future
Oh, I heard about this. But you can’t just revise a contract one-sided to claim something that has clear provision in later contracts, but none before that. It’s sorta like—ok, I didn’t cede movie rights on my first contracts, I did on my later, and you’re going to claim you’ve got them on all of them?
Or—the rates on your car loan from any bank have now gone to 9.75? But you signed at 3.25—and they think they can raise them?
Sorry!
Ain’t gonna fly, Orville, or the legal canaworms it could open is vast, vast, vast.
I’m not sure why you’re having RTF file problems. COMLINK incoming.
I need help from Kindle users. I have downloaded the files into mobipocket reader and am trying to send them to my Kindle. The kindle is connected to the laptop and Mobi says I’ve successfully sent the files to the kindle, but they dont show up on the kindle. I am frustrated, and feel very ignorant and quite quite stoopid! anybody got a suggestion?
Try this: bring up Calibre. Hit: +Add Book. When book appears in tray, highlight it. Hit: “Send to Device”. At that point, if you get any garbling, go back to Calibre, highlight your book, and hit “Convert e-Book”. Set your SOURCE (upper left) to PRC and your OUTPUT FORMAT as “MOBI”. Also choose some folder on your computer disk to receive the file.
Once that is done, and you have your MOBI file, go through the +add Book routine again and also the “send to device” routine. HTH!
@kokipy: There’s no need for anything fancy.
1. Plug Kindle into USB port and remember what device it is.
2. Open documents folder on the kindle.
3. Copy the prc file that you downloaded directly to the kindle.
4. Close the kindle device.
5. Click on little icon to shutdown that device (usually found in bottom right-hand corner of screen if you’re using windows.
6. Unplug kindle from PC and go back to local kindle mode. It should be there.
PRC = MOBI.
Whoopee~ It worked~ all downloads now on Kindle. I am so excited. I had not converted them with Calibre first, only tried moving them with Mobi, and that didnt work because the file types weren’t recognized. I am sure you had given this instruction but I had omitted vital steps before. Thanks!!!
Finally got time to try this e-reading thing today. I followed the directions here and in the “How to e-read…” post but it’s not working! I am trying with the Writer’s Life download first, trying to use Calibre and blah! I am ready to throw up my hands and quit. I know the fault lies with me, which probably makes it more frustrating since I am fairly computer literate.
Let me see if I can get this down to a 1-2-3-4 operation.
TO USE CALIBRE:
1. Download file from the Closed Circle site. It is one big zipped file.
2. You must UNZIP it. If you have trouble unzipping the files, try jzip: it’s pretty good at unzipping and it’s freeware. Once unzipped, you should see numerous files, including a .prc and a .epub file. If you are only seeing one file it is not unzipped yet.
3. You have Calibre installed on your machine. Click on the .epub file. Calibre loads and shows the book title in its display window. Click on that name: it highlights blue.
4. While that blue highlight is showing, choose VIEW from the icons above. THAT should bring up the e-pub reader native to Calibre.
For MobiReader: With mobireader software installed on your machine:
1. Download file from the Closed Circle site. It is one big zipped file.
2. You must UNZIP it. If you have trouble unzipping the files, try jzip: it’s pretty good at unzipping and it’s freeware. Once unzipped, you should see numerous files, including a .prc and a .epub file. If you are only seeing one file it is not unzipped yet. The zipped file cannot load into a reader: it contains many files.
3. once the megafile is unzipped, click on the file with the .prc extension.
4. it loads the MobiReader, and you should immediately see your book as a book.
Bear with us! We will walk you through this until you actually see a file!
Thanks! Yes, got Calibre at the left of the blog pages
Got Writer’s Life from your post here, not actually in Closed Circle. Unzipped it and saw many versions with different extensions. Clicked on the epub one. Nothing happened at all. (Calibre is there, looking cool with buttons across the top that say things like Add Book, COnvert etc.) But that is as far as it goes. I think I should start all over.
Nope, you’re nearly there. click on the displayed book title. It should turn blue. If no title is displayed, choose ADD BOOK, and make it load your .epub file—THEN click on it in the display, and make it turn blue. Once it is blue…
Then choose VIEW from that row of buttons.
Calibre is an excellent software, but it does so many things, it’s a little more complicated than MobiReader…I recall being puzzled by this, too. Dunno how many times I pushed buttons without that file highlighted, and nothing would happen.
That is the problem though- there are not any titles displayed in Calibre. Nothing – although I unzipped them from the temp. internet files. When I click Add Book there are no titles and the search box offers “Destop” “Windows” etc. not where I want to go. I am going to download the file again, this time from your store on Closed Circle and try it again.
No, I couldn’t download it again. Yes it went to the computer (this time with a cute zipper on the folder icon) but when I clicked on it it said it was corrupt. Is that because I tried to download the same file again?
Shouldn’t have been.
Erase that ‘corrupt’ one.
Use Add Books if there is no title showing in the display:
Add Books will give you the “look in” screen (in Windows): just click on My Documents in the lefthand offering, and once that’s up, choose your ‘Downloads’, or wherever you put it, just as if you were hunting it down via any other window.
Once you’ve located it, tell it load the .epub file.
Do you know its actual location? Did it go to Downloads, or somewhere more exotic? Windows, in its wisdom, often tries to send ebooks to the “My Ebooks folder”, driving us all crazy.
You need to know where it landed, so you can use Calibre to look it up.
Erased the corrupt one and tried again. Same thing.
I think I will try again tomorrow. It’s almost time here to have dinner and get started on our mild New Year’s Eve celebration. I appreciate your help and walkthrough and I will try again tomorrow with a fresh perspective. I haven’t posted in a long while, but I’ve been reading daily and cheering you all on with the e-books. Once I figure out what to do, I hope to make a purchase or two. Happy New Year.
Happy New Year to you too. You remind me I ought to post a better tutorial about Calibre, which can pull some interesting tricks like locating your downloads in funny places! Let me work that out, and look for it tomorrow—prompt me if I forget!
Best of New Years to you!
A couple of thoughts/observations concerning the use of the Sony PRS-300 reader..
The Sony PC reader software (WinXp version) is Not user friendly. It does work, once you figure out how to validate/authorize/authenticate (I forget what they called it) the device. It even then has some annoying quirks, see below.
Adobe Digital Editions (free download)software works well, and beats the Sony program hands down. Much easier to use and even Asks you (take a lesson, Sony) to validate/auth/etc. the device, and the computer too. The Adobe software is simpler when handling DRM’d files, the Sony software makes it painful.
Be wary of the Sony software – it insists on “synching” the reader to it’s own (on the computer) library whenever connected via USB, and will create duplicate files of anything that Wasn’t copied onto the device using the Sony software to start with. BTW, if Anything has been copied onto or deleted from the device using anything Other than the Sony software the “synch” process “hangs” and never ends.
That said, ePub files (the preferred format) seem to work well. I do have a couple of files (not Your stuff, CJ) that have simple formatting “issues” – likely conversion problems or poor proofing of the original.
I also have a (purchased from Books On Board)copy of Fortress of Owls that is in a different Adobe format – wasn’t ePub. It shows up in windows as an “acrobat” file, but it was something else, Not .pdf. Anyhow, the reader displays it, but the page/text reformatting is stupid – blank pages, skipped lines, words hyphenated in the middle of lines, etc. (and I won’t talk about the truly bad proofing errors in the text of this copy.. apparently created by “Perfectbound”)
I would run it thru Calibre to attempt a cleanup, but it’s DRM’d, so That won’t work.
I guess I would sum up the e-reading experience so far as OK. I’ve learned how to handle DRM issues (use the Adobe software), and that’s really been the biggest headache. Looking forward to more and better – onward into the new year!
Thank you, Remer! I’m going to be investigating some of my old contracts to find out on which books the publishers even have the rights to do e-editions, and if they don’t, I’m going to be handling that—as in doing them myself. I’m shocked to know how sloppy what may be publisher-issued editions may be.
This particular copy of ‘Owls is pretty bad. It seems to be mostly an artifact of the file format vs. the reader, at least the page and line formatting issues, but that won’t explain all of the mispellings and other proofing errors. And there are many.
I have also purchased (also from BooksOnBoard.com) copies of the rest of the Fortress series, all in ePub (and all DRM’d) – the one I’ve looked at so far (Eagles, by “HarperCollins e-Books”) appears to be an improvement. No formatting issues there, and proofed much better as well.
This ‘Owls version, BTW claims to also be a HarperCollins product, but uses the “PerfectBound” trademark as well and calls itself an “Adobe Acrobat ebook reader”. The Adobe Digital Editions software on the laptop does a good job with the formatting of the thing, at least. If only the Sony reader was as capable (with this file format)!
Also – in my (non-exhaustive) searching online I’ve seen your entire Fortress series, the Hammerfall/Forge of Heaven set and Pretender, Deliverer and Destroyer. That’s all, the same list everywhere I’ve looked. Plus Faery, on your CC site, of course. I’m eagerly awaiting more 🙂