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INFOCAST--2011-09-20

Submitted by Paul Elard Cooley on Tue, 09/20/2011 - 19:43

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A short explanation of how recent events have affected some book plans...

Fiends--Momma Epub

Submitted by Paul Elard Cooley on Tue, 08/11/2009 - 20:30
Here it is. A DRM free e-book version of Momma. You can read this using Stanza or Calibre. Fiends--Momma.epub

epub Format Conversion: Step 3--IT WORKS!

Submitted by Paul Elard Cooley on Fri, 06/19/2009 - 16:44

So here's the deal. I'm going to post the code for this when I get it cleaned up (because right now it looks like a first-year programmer with dyslexia and brain damage coded it). But for now, I need some testers for the epub file. It works fine on calibre (on linux) but I need to know whether or not this is working on other readers.

My wife's iPhone is having problems with it (using stanza) so I need confirmation there's another issue.

Please email me strange behavior or add comments.

Cheers.

File is located here.

UPDATE:

I spent a little time working the format. The epub now works properly in stanza, although for some reason it works better on the iphone than on the desktop. Still works in Calibre without a problem. Please please please give this a try and let me know if you see any other problems with it.

epub Format Conversion: Step 2--Calibre and Styling

Submitted by Paul Elard Cooley on Sun, 06/14/2009 - 21:28

After reading idiotprogrammer's post, I went ahead and attempted to use calibre on an OpenOffice formatted document versus the same story in my .txt format. The OpenOffice conversion yielded inconsistent tab stops as well as some rather strange spacing in places. Needless to say, I was not impressed.

What it did do, however, was rasterize the quadrat font I use. That was rather helpful, all things considered. In handling the font problem for me, it keeps me from actually creating the title of the story into an image. In addition, it auto-filled quite a few of the metadata tags for the epub format.

Now, onto the text conversion. Calibre flawlessly converted the .txt version of the file, adding the correct tab stops. What it didn't do? Well, so much. The title of the story was not included in the document although it showed up in the metadata. This conversion was quite well done and would be sufficient except for the fact that I now have to manually edit the data to get the title into the document.

So what to do? Even if I were to use Calibre for the grunt work of converting the text into epub format, I'd still need a script to unzip the format, and insert the appropriate metadata. This seems like a huge waste of time. Instead, I still think it makes more sense to actually construct the document from the text. By writing my own converter, I can easily use a simple ruby class to hold the base meta-information that will be used across all my writing, and then insert arguments via the command line to properly fill out the rest of the meta-tags.

Styling of the document (inserting the Shadow Publications logo for instance and the rasterized Title of the story) can then also be generated. This is where things can get very complex. The problem with trying to create a single style for all my epub books is trying to think of all the possible ways I may want it to look. That can be a major problem.

So again, start simple. I'm going to try and finish the converter this week and at least get my original short fiction properly done. And then after that, I can worry about making it more complex and useful. Of course, until I add some kind of UI to help a normal user fill out the metadata, such a utility will only be useful to me.

C'est la vie.

Cheers.

epub Format Conversion: Step 1--Reasoning

Submitted by Paul Elard Cooley on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 11:04

First off, I've been podcasting my fiction since September 08. I was very very green in the gills when I first recorded "The Hunt". I think it turned out okay, but I'm definitely going to re-record it before DragonCon.

That said, I have received numerous requests (including many people I know who do not like podiobooks as a rule) to create "text" editions of my work. In the past, I have just given them a .pdf of the document and been done with it. But, it's not that simple.

The way I write, I tend to put all the files for a single story in a directory. The files are numbered (so I know what order they go into) and then I use a *nix command called "cat" to take all the files (in order) and put them into a single text document. The resulting text document is then placed into OpenOffice, formatted to make it pretty, and then exported to a .pdf.

As you might imagine, this is a SIGNIFICANT pain in the ass. It requires me to engage in a multi-step process that is error-prone and difficult to reproduce smoothly. As a software developer, this is a great anathema to me.

For DragonCon, I'm going to produce CDs that have all my fiction podcasts (up to August) as well as the textual versions of those stories. But .pdfs suck. I don't want to use them. .pdf is a great format if you want a document that can be easily printed and shared. But, as far as viewing them on devices, they are total shite.

iPhones, Crackberrys, Kindle, etc are capable of reading formats like amazon's proprietary kindle format, or .epub books. The .epub is obviously more ubiquitous since it is supported by both free and non-free software. I will support the kindle format too, but the most immediate need is to get .epub working first.

Now, before some of you start throwing furniture at me, asking why the hell I'm inventing something that's already out there, let me say this: no, it's not out there. To create .epub books, the tools out there assume you're using the great hated satan (m$ Word) or openoffice writer, or .rtf or some other format I don't want to use.

Why don't I just change my writing style? Um, right. Why don't you change how you say certain words? Or better yet, switch your handedness. What it comes down to is this: for longer works (novellettes, novellas, novels), it's much easier for me to break things up into their constituent pieces. So every chapter/subchapter gets its own file. The great thing about this is that I can re-order the files anyway I want without all that copy/paste bullshit.

I HATE THE MOUSE! I want to do things that are predictive, reproducible, and reusable. So, I need a converter.

So that's all the rationale I currently need in order to justify myself. I'm going to keep some blog topics on this and keep going until I succeed in making the entire process work. It'll bore the shit out of some people. But for us authors who hate using clicky-buttony thingies that get in the way of us being productive, I think it's a very useful conversation.

Cheers.

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