The Adventures of an Independent Author

Kindle Fixed Layout Tutorial - Part 7

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 15:42:49 PST

We now come to the portion of the metadata that is common to all ebook formats, so this will apply to any ebook that you make, whether fixed layout or reflowable. This section can be just a few short lines giving only the bare essentials of title, language, and identifier (the only three that are required), or add a host of other information that can be useful for identifying and indexing your title. In this, more is always better, as individual systems can ignore non-relevant portions, but cannot make them up if they are not provided. Furthermore, much of this information is searchable in online catalogs, such as Amazon's search engine and the Google Play bookstore, helping potential readers find your work.

There are 15 elements, known as "properties," in the standard Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES). These are (in alphabetical order):

Contributor
Coverage
Creator
Date
Description
Format
Identifier
Language
Publisher
Relation
Rights
Source
Subject
Title
Type

Not all of these are relevant to all ebooks, nor were they created specifically for ebooks, but rather for electronic publications in general. The purpose of using a standard reference set such as Dublin Core is so that everyone who might reference or add to the data pool will be using a common vocabulary.

To see the official documentation, visit the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. For the IDPF's ePub 2.0 specification set, see Section 2.2: Publication Metadata.

I will describe each property - grouped into a more or less logical order - along with their modifiers and options, but you can also find a complete table of all fifteen in Appendix C of the ebook tutorial, along with concise descriptors and reference links (included at the end of this post).

<title>

The <dc:title> attribute is one of three required elements in any ePub-based ebook, Kindle included. This is the title that will appear on the Home screen or Kindle Bookshelf in list view. You can add more than one, using separate entries, either for subtitles or series/volume titles. But the primary title by which you want your ebook to be listed must be given first. Simply insert the title of your ebook between the angle brackets, like so:

<dc:title>YOUR TITLE HERE</dc:title>

There is no opf modifier to designate a given title entry as the series title or a subtitle, so the order in which they are listed is critical. You can enter it all as a single title, or as separate entities, but whatever is in the first entry will be how the book is listed anywhere that it appears.

You will also be allowed to enter additional title information during the upload process to KDP, including Series titles and/or Volume numbers. But be sure to include it in the metadata section, so that no matter where the ebook goes, the information will go with it. For example, it may be sold to libraries or academic institutions, or find its way to secondary resellers if used ebooks become a legitimate market in the future. And, of course, you want it to appear correctly in the reader's own device library.

As a side note, you should be aware that ebooks will only appear on the Books tab of the Kindle device after they are downloaded from Amazon. Otherwise, they are considered personal documents and will appears on the Docs tab, even when you put them in the Books folder on your device. This is unfortunate for those who wish to sell ebooks directly to their readers, but you cannot change it, so don't try. A metadata entry called "CDE Type" with the content value EBOK (or EBSP for samples) will be created during the KDP upload process, but it is ignored if added manually. Incidentally, Calibre will add the EBOK entry during its conversion of reflowable ebooks, but unfortunately it cannot yet convert fixed layout files correctly.

<creator> <contributor>

You are required to include a title, for obvious reasons, but not an author or other creator, as works can be anonymous. There can, of course, also be multiple creators of a work, and each of these should be entered as a separate entity. The OPF spec adds two optional attributes to the <dc:creator> element that greatly aid with this and extend its value as a data attribute. The first of these is file-as, which allows you to specify the last-name, first-name sorting order for creator names, as in:

<dc:creator opf:file-as="Last, First">First Last</dc:creator>

If you leave this out your ebook will be listed under your first name in many catalogs and databases, such as the Calibre library.

The second opf modifier is the role attribute, which has a wide range of values to specify the exact function of each creator or contributor to the work, including author, illustrator, editor, and many others. In addition, there can be multiple entries of each.

These are entered using a three-character code, such as "aut" for author or "ill" for illustrator, as seen in the template metadata. For a complete list of the 223 role values and their 3-character codes, along with a description of each role's function, see the MARC Code List for Relators.

<dc:creator opf:role="aut">Your Name</dc:creator>

In the unlikely event this extensive list does not contain a value for a particular function utilized in the production of your work (the required skills for creating ebooks are expanding rapidly, after all), you can add generic contributor elements using the "oth" value for any others whose roles remain unspecified.

All role values can be used for both the creator and contributor elements, each of which are entered in the same way. The distinction between these is that creators are the primary producers of the work, such as the author or an artist of a heavily illustrated children's book or comic, while translators or designers who contribute to the work should be listed using the <dc:contributor> element. In many instances this might be a purely arbitrary distinction, but in general those who produce the work are creators, and those who help to shape the work are contributors. But there is no hard and fast rule for usage, so use your best judgment.

<publisher>

The publisher of a work is defined as the entity responsible for making the publication available in its present form. This is somewhat less obvious than one might think for self-published books, for the simple reason that the legal "publisher of record" is the entity to whom the assigned ISBN is registered, and not necessarily the person or organization on whose book it ends up.

For example, if you publish your ebook through Smashwords, they will provide you with a free ISBN. However, contrary to popular belief, you will not be a "self-published" author, since the publisher will be listed as Smashwords at every retail vendor who carries your ebook. This is a technicality for all intents and purposes, since you will have "self-published" your own work. But you are not the publisher, Smashwords is.

Conversely, if you do not provide an ISBN when uploading your ebook to Amazon (or Barnes & Noble or Google Play, who do not require one), they will assign their own "unique identifier" to your work (an ASIN in the case of Amazon), but you will still be listed as the publisher.

This might seem a fine idea from a financial standpoint, since ISBNs do not come cheap (at least in the United States: in Canada they're free). However, this makes cross-referencing your works vastly more difficult for archivists and collectors, not to mention librarians who might want to buy your ebook. With an ISBN assigned to the ebook edition of your book (it cannot be the same one used for a print edition, if there is one), your title can easily be found anywhere that it is listed. In addition, all sales for that title will be aggregated in bestseller lists, whereas this is not always the case for titles with a different number assigned at every vendor.

The sole reason I point this out here is that simply entering your personal or business name into the publisher metadata entity does not make you the publisher of record - legally, at least, which may become an issue down the line if you decide to sell your Smashwords published ebook to another publisher. It is always best to have an ISBN assigned to your work, and for legal reasons it is always best to have it registered to you.

<date>

The opf spec adds the event attribute to the <dc:date> element, allowing you to specify the nature of a given point in time, such as the date of creation, publication, modification or revision, of which you can include one, all, or none. There is no defined set of date values, so you can enter any that you feel might be useful, such as an entire revision history, or just the date that it was finished. Only the first one will be recognized by Kindlegen during conversion, but the rest will be retained in the internal metadata.

<dc:date opf:event="publication">2013</dc:date>

The date element is optional (though recommended by Amazon), and if used you can enter just the four-digit year as shown and call it good for most books. However, if you're working on a periodical or other timely content (or simply like to be precise), you may want to include the month and day as well. If so, you must use the year-month-day format of YYYY-MM-DD in order to conform to ePub standards.

<rights>

A statement of your rights within the metadata is recommended, though not required. This can be anything from a simple "All Rights Reserved" (or creative commons, public domain, or whatnot), to a full assertion of your Intellectual Property Rights in different territories and/or under various conditions (as, for example if you're doing translations into different languages, or have retained the ebook rights but not the print edition rights). In most cases, if you're getting this involved you'll want to consult a literary agent or legal representative who knows publishing law.

A reference to the system of protection should be included along with any assertion of rights, such as "Copyright" or "Trademark" for print and graphic elements. Thus, a standard concise statement of universal rights might be:

<dc:rights>© Copyright YYYY - All Rights Reserved</dc:rights>

Within the XML code framework of the OPF file you should include the full word "Copyright," and/or use a universally recognized string to stand in for the © symbol, as it may not be recognized by reading systems throughout the world. Three standard, code-based alternatives are given here:

Character	Decimal	Hexadecimal	Named Entity
©	©	©	©

<language>

The second required element is at least one entity that identifies the primary language of the content. This should employ the standard RFC 3066 Unicode language identifiers, using a base two-letter code, either alone or with a secondary string, or "subtag" for a language variant. So, for example, English can be either plain EN, or EN-US for United States dialects, or EN-GB for British idioms, or any of a host of others. Values are not case-sensitive, so en, En, and EN are all valid entries.

<dc:language>En-US</dc:language>

Generally it is best to avoid using subtags unless it is clearly relevant to the work, as it inherently alienates speakers of related languages for which the work is equally accessible. On the other hand, readers might be interested to know that they are in for British slang when diving into Harry Potter for the first time.

You can also include more than one language identifier if more than one language is used in the work, as are found in dual-language translations, or where large portions are given in another tongue, such as Latin passages in a history text. It is not necessary to include a language identifier for single foreign terms scattered throughout a book, unless it is required to know the language for comprehension of the content, or where are a large number of foreign terms have been inserted.

<identifiers>

The third and final element you are required to include is at least one unique identifier. As mentioned in the introduction to the OPF file earlier, there must be one identifier with an id value that matches the value of the unique-identifier element in the header declaration, and this is where it goes.

An identifier is a reference to the publication from a given system of documentation, the most common of which is the International Standard Book Number (ISBN). However, it can be any string of data that is specific to this particular incarnation of your work, though preferably one drawn from a formal identification system, such as a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID), Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), or Digital Object Identifier (DOI). No particular identifier schema is required, nor has any been endorsed by either Dublin Core or the IDPF, although, of course, an ISBN is universally recognized as the standard for publications.

Multiple identifiers can be used instead of, or in addition to, an ISBN, but as mentioned, one must be the globally unique identifier. This is specified by an XML id tag that matches the unique-identifier value in the header. The value itself can be any descriptive term or key phrase, such as the common "BookId" or "book-id" employed both by Amazon and Apple in their samples. The value is case sensitive only in that its two entries must match exactly. Otherwise the id value is essentially arbitrary, functioning merely as a label for the data string, although, of course, you will want it to make sense and clearly describe the contents of this particular identifier.

In addition to the id value, the OPF spec adds an optional scheme attribute that allows you to name the specific system of authority that generated or assigned the data used as the identifier. Here is where you would enter "ISBN" or "DOI", or whatever the source of the data string may be. Here again, the OPF spec does not endorse or restrict you to any given identifier scheme.

In the templates I have included three identifiers, each with a particular function. The first of these is labeled "BookId" and is used to identify the Version number of the ebook, since there is no other means of doing so within the metadata, aside from a "revision" event in a date element. It is good practice to include a version or edition number on the copyright page within the ebook itself for the reader's reference, but in order for electronic databases to recognize a revised edition, you will need to include it in the metadata.

The second line in the template is given only as an example of how to enter an ISBN, since the template itself does not have one, being free. You would simply enter your ISBN number between the angle brackets, where it now says NONE. The id that I've entered for it here is just an arbitrary label, and has no actual value. But I could make this the unique identifier simply by changing either the id value here or in the header so that they match.

The final entry is the one I have used as the template's globally unique identifier, and as you can see it matches the unique-identifier value in the header declaration.

Here I've used a standard 32-character data string known as a UUID, or Universally Unique Identifier, which contains an encoded timestamp based on the moment and node location where it was created. These can be generated at no cost on many websites, including UUIDGEN, where one is automatically created the moment to land on the page. The string itself is the portion after the prefixed urn:uuid: tag. The "urn" element stands for Uniform Resource Name, which is a predecessor of the URI and URL.

The dtb:uid value of the id will be found in the metadata section of the NCX file as well, where it should match this data string as well (if used), although it is not strictly necessary. I'll discuss that further when we get there.

The UUID is particularly useful in that it can be decoded to discover the exactly moment and location of creation, but looks like utter gibberish otherwise. Each time you update the ebook's content, however trivial, you should alter this data string, as well as the version number if used, in order to allow users (or yourself) to identify the particular version they are holding.

<type> <subject>

By using the type element you can add category data such as whether the work is Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry, etc., and/or a specific genre or classification, such as Science Fiction or Art History. You can also include functional descriptors for such works as Almanacs and Working Papers. The values here are limitless, but should use commonly recognized terminology.

The subject element, on the other hand, is used to define the topic or subject matter of the content itself. This is where you would add Library of Congress classification codes, BISAC Subject Headings, or others such as those used by Amazon to categorize their entries (many of which will be drawn from these metadata entries). One reason you're adding all this extra information is precisely so that retailers can add it to their product pages. Adding it here facilitates the quick and accurate transfer of metadata concerning your work, and this is your chance to make sure it's right.

The template provides half a dozen examples of subject headings that might be appropriate for such a work, drawn from the BISAC listing. You can add as many as you like, and as always, more is generally better than too few.

<description>

This is where you place the back jacket blurb or other descriptive content that tells the reader what the book is about, with the intention of enticing them to read it. Anything you might desire a potential customer to know could go here, including reviews, extracts, or a table of contents to let them know exactly what's included.

Aside from the content of the book itself, this is the most important piece of writing you will do with regard to your published work. Give it some serious thought and apply your finest craftsmanship, as it will show up all over the Internet, on every ebook retailer and social reading site, as well as book review blogs and library lending catalogs, and once it's there it's there for good.

<format>

One other tag you might include is format (Kindle in this case, but ePub or iBooks or whatever is appropriate otherwise). This might seem redundant since you've got the ebook right there in front of you, but not everyone reading this data will, and it's one more way this specific iteration of your work can be identified. For example, a library may be looking at a metadata listing in search of a particular format to include in their catalog, and other general ebook retailers will want to identify the format for their customers before selling it to them via whatever systems are put in place down the line as ebooks become more common.

There are a handful of other elements that you can add in order to expand upon or define further aspects of your work, such as its sources or relation to other works. Following is the Appendix C table containing the complete list and their definitions.

Before moving on to the next section of the OPF, be sure to close the metadata section by using the backslash </metadata> tag. It's also a good idea to check through your list of entries to be sure that they're all closed as well.

DUBLIN CORE METADATA ATTRIBUTES

Property	Description
contributor	Used for persons making contributions to the publication in a manner that is secondary to the role of creator, such as editors, translators, or designers. The significance of the role is arbitrary, as, for example, an illustrator may be a primary creator or a secondary contributor. The semantics and attributes are the same as those used for creator.
coverage	Identifies the spatial or temporal topic of the publication, such as the geographic applicability of a resource or jurisdiction under which it is relevant. Spatial coverage refers to a physical region, using place names or coordinates, while temporal coverage specifies a time period covered by the content, such as Neolithic or Elizabethan. See the DC Coverage Element for further descriptive commentary.
creator	The primary authors or creators of the publication, whether person, service, or organization. A separate element should be used for each name, and these should be given in the order to be presented to the reader. The OPF 2.0 spec adds the optional attributes role and file-as. See MARC Code List for Relators for complete list of the 223 role values and their 3-character codes, along with a description of each role's function.
date	Any relevant date(s) for the publication, such as creation, publication, and/or revision. The OPF spec adds the optional event attribute to define these temporal points, using standard defined Date & Time Formats (i.e. YYYY-MM-DD), of which the 4-digit year is required (this is not required by Amazon, although it is recommended). A full set of event values has not been defined.
description	The description(s) of the publication content. This may include, but is not limited to, an abstract, table of contents, graphical representation, or free-form account of the content. It is often used to provide the sales copy for online retailers, as well as book reviewers and bloggers.
format	The media-type or physical dimensions of the publication. This might also include such factors as duration, software version, or operating system, along with hardware required to use the resource. The recommendation is to use a MIME type.
identifier	Required. One or more unique references to the publication within a given context, such as ISBN, DOI, URN or URI. The OPF spec provides an optional scheme attribute that names the system or authority that generated the identifier, although no specific schema are endorsed or defined as required. One element must be defined as the unique-identifier, with an id value specified.
language	Required. One or more language identifiers, with optional region subtag, such as en-us for English as spoken in the United States, or fr-ca for Canadian French. Avoid using subtags unless necessary. The OPF spec requires that these conform to RFC 3066 or its successor.
publisher	The publisher(s) of the resource, defined as the entity responsible for making the publication available in its present form, such as a publishing house, university department, or a corporate entity. This is generally the entity to whom the ISBN is registered (the "publisher of record").
relation	Identifies related resources and their relationship to the current publication. Used to express linkages between entities, such as soundtracks to a movie, or reference works dependent on support materials. There is no standard schema adopted.
rights	An assertion of the rights held by the publisher/creator with respect to the publication and its content. A statement of Copyright notice should appear, including Intellectual and other Property Rights, as well as links and/or references to the rights protection system or service employed.
source	Identification of primary or secondary resource documents or publications from which the current publication is derived, either in whole or in part, including necessary discovery metadata.
subject	The topic or subject matter of the content. This can be anything from one or more keywords, classification codes such as those provided by the Library of Congress or BISAC's Subject Headings, or any descriptive phrase. There is no schema standardization provided.
title	Required. There must be at least one title for the publication, although multiple titles and/or subtitles are allowed, such as for series or volumes. The first one listed should be the primary title.
type	The nature or genre of the publication. Includes terms for general categories (such as Fiction or Non-Fiction, etc.), genres (such as Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance), as well as those describing functions (such as Technical Report or Dictionary). To describe the physical medium or coding mechanism of the resource, use the format element.

Kindle Fixed Layout Tutorial - Part 6

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 11:15:26 PST

The first group of attributes in the metadata section are those that pertain specifically to Kindle fixed layout ebooks (see end of post for a complete list), and the first of these is the one that makes the layout fixed:

This tells the Kindle reading system to display the content exactly as defined in the html and css files. This radically alters some basic functions of a Kindle reader, foremost of which is the disabling of the Settings menu (Aa), where Font size and style, margins, and background color options are contained. That means, of course, that none of these can be changed by the reader, so it's up to you to make the content legible. In many cases, that's where Region Magnification comes in. But good typography will go a long way to presenting your work in the best light.

The only real option here for the content value, of course, is "true", since if you're entering "false" then you are not making a fixed layout ebook, and nothing else that follows in this tutorial will apply. Hence, this is a required attribute for Kindle fixed layout ebooks, and the required value is "true".

Note that the actual data in the Kindle section is given in quotes as a content value, rather than between angle brackets, as in the standard metadata section.

The ordering of metadata elements in the OPF, by the way, is entirely up to you, as long as they are all entered within the <metadata> </metadata> tags. I prefer to put the Kindle ones first, since they are unique to this format, while the rest belong to the standard ePub structure that is found in virtually every modern ebook file.

Next up is the orientation function:

This is the attribute that determines if the orientation is fixed as well as the content, or if the pages are allowed to reorient as the device is rotated to either a horizontal or vertical position. Options here are "portrait", "landscape", or "none", which is the one that allows auto-reorientation. Another way of selecting "none", of course, is just to leave the "orientation-lock" attribute out altogether.

A new features in KF8 called PageID allows for two-page spreads in landscape orientation (which will be discussed in detail shortly), but at present it is not universally supported across all Kindles, so that in many cases only a single page can be viewed in landscape rather of two. This will likely change in future updates, but it's something to take into consideration at the moment when planning your layout.

Additionally, the widescreen aspect ratio of the Kindle Fire line makes auto-rotation less ideal than the 4:3 ratio of the iPad, which retains a larger page size in landscape than the Fire. Only the Fire HD 8.9" has a display size large enough to make two-page spreads effective, but designing ebooks for a single model ignores too many potential readers to be a serious consideration. I am in hopes that Amazon will eventually transition to 4:3 ratio displays, but for now we have to work with what we've got. That said, it's probably best to plan for single page displays, whether portrait or landscape in dimension. Enter your chosen orientation as the content value here.

Note that the Kindle Publishing Guidelines list this attribute as being required for children's ebooks, but optional for comics. However, it does not state that any given value is required, and therefore, "none" is technically an acceptable option (even though this is the same as not adding the attribute at all). That said, the idea is clearly to provide as consistent and simple a reading experience as possible for children, without the pages skewing around and confusing them. For that reason a fixed orientation is in most instances the best choice for children's ebooks.

Region Magnification is a set of features in KF8 that allow sections of text, or segments of images, to be zoomed to a pre-determined size by double-tapping, thus allowing portions of art or text too small to easily read to be enlarged for greater visibility. At best this is a compromise for dealing with smaller display sizes, where content can become truly cramped, as, for example, on a 4" smartphone screen, where fixed layout text can be completely illegible.

And while it may seem inconceivable that anyone might attempt to read a comic book or graphic novel on such a device, believe me it will be done. The good news is that it can, in fact, be a very pleasant, and even beautiful, reading experience. The relatively high resolution of the average 4" smartphone screen produces a vividly gorgeous image, and with some forethought on your part - and some well designed mag regions - you can make it quite enjoyable for your readers. A great deal of this tutorial is devoted to doing just that.

Options here again are "true" or "false". However, since the feature will only work if "true" is entered, there's no real reason to ever enter "false", since there is no conceivable situation in which you would go to all the effort of creating magnification regions only to turn them off; and of course, if you don't create them, then there's nothing to turn on!

This is an optional attribute, with the default value being "false". That is, without the attribute added and the "true" value entered, the Region Magnification features will not work.

This is the only other attribute that is required in all Kindle fixed layout ebooks. The "original-resolution" value sets the default page dimensions (in pixels) for your ebook. This is not necessarily the size at which the page will be viewed, but the display resolution and aspect ratio for which the pages were designed. The Kindle will scale the page content up or down to fit the display on which it is actually being viewed, keeping the aspect ratio and content placement relative to the overall size.

Nor is the "original-resolution" necessarily the size of the images that you will include in a given page, since an image of any size can be made to display at whatever dimensions you choose, by defining that size in the relevant CSS. An example of this is the thumbnail cover image of this ebook tutorial that is found on the promo page of the Advanced Template (page 2, or the first page after the title page), where the image is displayed as a small thumbnail, but is actually 1200x1920 - larger than the "original-resolution" setting - so that it can be double-tapped and zoomed to fill the entire screen without "pixelating" (that is, going all fuzzy), even on the HD8.9" Kindle. Nearly every background image in the template is this size (with a few exceptions that will be explained in due time), so that readers using higher resolution devices won't be treated to a less than pristine viewing experience.

To facilitate accurate scaling, it is recommended that you use percentage values rather than pixels for all placement and sizing of elements on a page. So, for example, the cover thumbnail just mentioned is displayed at 38%, with a top margin of 18%, rather than specifying an exact size and placement in pixels. This way, regardless of how large the page is displayed, the image will always be 38% of the full page size, and 18% from the top. Had we used pixels, the image would appear to shrink in size and move closer to the top as the display dimensions (or resolution) grew larger: 18% of the 1280 pixel high Kindle HD7 is 230 pixels from the top, but 230 pixels is only 12% from the top of the 1920 pixel high HD8.9" Kindle.

I will discuss display resolution and aspect ratio in more detail in the section on creating images, and further when we start to place our content on the pages.

My recommendation at present is to design your pages at 800x1280 pixels (or 1280x800 for landscape pages), since the 7" Kindle is by far more widely used than the more expensive HD8.9.

A particularly unusual element with unique characteristics, "book-type" is an optional attribute with the allowed values of "children" or "comic", but once again "none" is a viable option (and in most cases the best one).

Unlike the previous metadata attributes, which each have a clearly defined function with logical value options, the "book-type" element has been a mystery from its inception. Even Amazon appears to be confused about its purpose, since the first versions of the Kindle Publishing Guidelines in which it appeared [Versions 2012.1-4] unequivocally stated that it "Provides additional reader functionality specific to the classification of the book," while never explaining anywhere just what this additional functionality might be. Version 2012.5 of the Guidelines, however, altered this so that this attribute now "removes reader functionality (e.g. share) which may not be relevant for certain books such as children's."

Ironically, the "share" feature - the one and only function mentioned in the Guidelines as being "removed" by the book-type attribute, is actually disabled in all Kindle fixed layout ebooks, regardless of the book-type. Moreover, several features are activated by entering either the "comic" or "children" value.

No other functionality is mentioned specifically as being altered by the "book-type" setting (with the one exception of image file size, which we'll get to in a moment), but I have been testing this since early March of 2012, and have determined not only which functions are effected, but also on which devices and apps, since there are now multiple iterations of the Kindle operating system in use.

In short, what I have discovered is that the "book-type" attribute actually alters at least nine different functions, including the disabling of all "live" text features (i.e. text search, dictionaries, highlights, and annotations), as well as bookmarks, hyperlinks, menu functions, while enabling several new features such as Virtual Panels and Page Spread on a handful of e-readers.

Appendix A at the end of the ebook provides a table containing a complete breakdown and analysis of feature support across Kindle apps and devices, and how they are effected by the "book-type" value, so be sure to study that for a thorough understanding of this attribute. This information is also included in the Kindle Fixed Layout Functionality post on this blog, where the table is updated in a more timely manner as changes are made to the KF8 code (the ebook will be updated as well, it just takes a little longer). So be sure to check the blog for the latest status before finalizing your "book-type" metadata choices.

My recommendation overall is just to leave the "book-type" out, as it eliminates many features that are part of what make ebooks great. However, you may desire some of the features that this attribute activates, such as two page spreads and Virtual Panels on the Kindle Fire HD7, which are otherwise inactive. Unfortunately, at present you will have to sacrifice bookmarks, live text, active hyperlinks, and the Table of Contents menu link to get them.

Conversely, you may not need or want any of these features, depending on your particular project, so this is a choice you will have to make for yourself. For example, in an image-only graphic novel there is no need for live text functions, but the two-page spread might be essential.

Finally, just to complicate matters further, there is one more aspect of the "book-type" that must be considered, and that is image file size. From the very beginning Amazon has restricted the file size of images in Kindle ebooks, initially to no larger than 127kb in size, but most recently to 256kb for all fixed layout ebooks except for those with the "comic" book-type value, which are allowed to include images up to 800kb. Furthermore, during conversion both Kindlegen and KDP compress the files slightly less in comics than in other ebooks, presumably to provide a better visual experience in graphic heavy ebooks intended for more discerning adult readers. So if you happen to be publishing a comic or graphic novel, this is something you will have to weigh along with all the rest.

THE "BOOK-TYPE" VALUE IN SUMMARY:

(some of these will make sense only if you've read the commentary in Appendix A: Kindle Fixed Layout Functionality, or other relevant sections of this tutorial)

Reasons For Using A Book-Type Value:

· New additional functionality, including Virtual Panels and 2-page spreads on some devices and apps (not yet widely supported, but likely will be)

· Larger image file size allowed (800kb versus 256kb), and lower file compression upon upload to KDP if "comic" value is used

· Black background on HD Kindles versus white on all other devices (cool, but not crucial)

Reasons Against Using A Book-Type Value:

· Live text possible in fixed-layouts, including full search, hyperlinks, bookmarks, dictionaries, highlights and annotations

· Background image pinch-and-zoom using double-tap outside of mag regions (functional only if the <img src= > insertion method is used)

· Unnecessary for Region Magnification features to function (as implied in Kindle Guidelines), including Panel View and Text Zoom.

These aspects will be discussed in detail when we get to the sections pertaining to text and images.

Before moving on to the next section, there are a two additional metadata entries that must be addressed here as well, plus one special instance.

This is a new feature recently added to allow for proper rendering of languages with any variation of directional reading, such as left-to-right page ordering in Arabic idioms and the vertical orientation of Asian languages. This setting changes the basic functionality of the page flow and navigation, as well as the sequence in which Virtual Panels and Magnification Regions progress when swiped. This will therefore be discussed in more detail in the sections pertaining to those features.

Options are variations of horizontal/vertical plus either lr or rl. That is:

horizontal-lr
horizontal-rl
vertical-lr
vertical-rl

This is an optional attribute, with the default value being "horizontal-lr".

These attributes are discussed nowhere in any of Amazon's documentation, and none of my testing can discern any difference in the true/false value setting. I have removed every reference to margin and gutter settings in the CSS of a fixed layout test file, and varied these two metadata values in combination with every other Kindle-functionality attribute to no effect. There simply is no margin or gutter in a fixed layout file unless you add one in the layout itself.

Both margins and gutter for each page in a fixed layout Kindle ebook are set in the relevant CSS, and these two metadata values do not alter them in any way. Likewise, the default page margins found in Kindle reflowable ebooks are eliminated when the value of the "fixed-layout" attribute is set to "true", and it is accordingly no longer reflowable.

I only include these metadata entries here (and in the templates) for the sake of being thorough, but you can leave them out or in as you see fit.

And although it seems to make no difference, I should mention that these are only found in Amazon's fixed layout comic sample, and not in the children's ebook sample. But again, there is no explanation given anywhere for their inclusion. Therefore, I can see no reason to do so.

The final element in the Kindle section of the metadata is the entry for your cover image. This is a required attribute, and it must be given exactly as specified above, with the single exception that the content value can be (as suggested) whatever you would like to call it. The name value, however, must be "cover" in order for bookshelf thumbnails and the cover menu link to work. The content value will be mentioned again later.

There is one further metadata element in the following chart from the Kindle Publishing Guidelines, which is the "page-id" attribute. However, this is not handled in the Metadata section, but rather in the Spine portion of the OPF file, so we will deal with it when we get there.

Table of Kindle-Specific Metadata Attributes

Kindle Fixed Layout Tutorial - Part 5

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 20:39:45 PST

THE OPF FILE

This is the primary control center for your ebook, where the features that effect the entire book are set, a detailed description is given, and all its content is listed. Thus, it is often named content.opf, although as mentioned it can be called anything, such as package.opf, which is fairly common, or the title of the book, such as Amazon's own Guide.opf. I find it easiest just to keep the name consistent from project to project as content.opf so that I don't have to remember what it's called when I go looking for it. You will be accessing this file many times and often throughout the creation process.

OPF stands for open packaging format, which refers to the specification that defines the structure and semantics of the package, but essentially it contains a descriptive listing of the ebook's physical contents; that is, the actual component parts included in the archive, not its literary or artistic content. It also provides some crucial information specifying how the Kindle will display your pages.

This is the first of many files where we will need to explain some things to the computer so it understands what we're saying and what to do with the information that we give it.

The OPF consists of four essential sections, given in this order:

Preceding these at the top of the page you'll see a few lines that are standard coding declarations, stating what language we're speaking (XML) and giving a namespace reference (xmlns), which is a specific set of operating rules for the reading system to follow. In Kindle ebooks currently the code is based on ePub 2.0, the standard laid out by the IDPF (the International Digital Publishing Forum), which is what this declaration specifies. You will find similar instances in the NCX and at the top of every HTML file.

The only part you need to be aware of here is the very last element, which is a "unique-identifier" that will be referenced in the metadata section below, where it will be discussed further.

1. Metadata

The first section of the OPF is where all the metadata for your ebook lives. Metadata is "data about data," and in ebooks it provides all the information about the book itself - its title, author, publication date, etc. - which is used by libraries, retailers, search engines and other users to determine what the book is and how to catalogue it. What you enter here will show up in databases as diverse as your local independent bookstore or the Library of Congress (or Copenhagen, or wherever it may wander in this worldwide market), as well as Amazon and every other online ebook retailer you choose to distribute to. The more metadata that you enter, the easier your ebook will be found, and moreover, found by the readers who would most want to read it.

In addition to the standard metadata, Amazon has added its own set of data attributes that determine several overarching functions of the ebook that make the Kindle fixed layout format unique. These function for the most part as on/off switches for various features, although a few have unique values that will be explained in detail as we come to them.

Before we get to the metadata proper, however, we must declare our data reference systems, of which we'll be using two. These you will find on the first line of the metadata section:

The first of these, Dublin Core (dc), has provided the primary set of fifteen metadata elements in use in ebooks for some time; but the second, slightly newer Open Packaging Format (opf) set, from the IDPF's own ePub spec, adds some specifics to these that are useful for fine-tuning our statements, so we declare both here.

The general practice is to state the dc element followed by an opf extension (if desired), such as this example for an ISBN:

<dc:identifier
opf:scheme="ISBN">ISBN#</dc:identifier>

where the generic Dublin Core identifier is defined by the opf:scheme modifier as an ISBN. The actual data is entered between the angle brackets: here as ISBN#, which you would, of course replace with your own information, as will be the case for each metadata entry in the general metadata section (Amazon's Kindle-specific system is slightly different).

Technically, no opf modifiers are required, but their use provides considerably more information, as you can see. And while not all ebooks will include both, I have included them here for your reference, so that you can use them if you choose.

Any text you see entered between angle brackets and dashes with an exclamation point in front - such as those around the header above this paragraph - is comment text, and is disregarded by the operating system. It can consequently be deleted or altered at your discretion. It is used to pass along useful notes or help to organize the content. Here I have used it to create sections and sub-sections, and to point out important elements. In css files forward slashes and asterisks are used instead, like so:

/* comment */

There the text also turns green, which is even more helpful. But here in the opf everything is black and white.

Kindle Fixed Layout Tutorial - Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 22:57:14 PST

THE FILE STRUCTURE

Before we can proceed to build our ebook file we need to know exactly what it's made of. Like nearly all ebooks today, Kindle fixed layout files are based closely on ePub, with some additional code for Kindle-specific features, as previously mentioned. Thus, we need to understand how ePub files are built, and just what Amazon has added (or in some cases removed). As we progress I'll point out which is which, and what parts you can alter.

Apple's fixed layout format for iBooks is also based on ePub (with their own proprietary code included), so that much of what you learn here can be used to make those as well (the 7-part tutorial on this blog shows you how). With some minor modifications, the same file can be re-configured to meet ePub and iBooks specs, making it readable on virtually any device. If you have already read my iBooks tutorial then you will recognize much of what is included in a Kindle ebook file, and you may also notice that a few items are missing. I will point out which features are Kindle-specific and cannot be used in other ePub editions of your ebook, and which ones are common to all. In many cases, you can simply leave the Kindle code intact and add the iBooks code in too! Here, however, we are focusing entirely on Kindle fixed layout ebooks, which can only be read by Kindle apps and tablets.

Opening the File

If you haven't downloaded one (or both) of the free templates yet, then do so now, as I'll be using them to describe the contents of a standard Kindle fixed layout file. Be sure to download the .epub version of the template so that you can open it. We'll begin with the simple template and progress to the more advanced version later.

As I mentioned earlier, an epub file is just a zip archive with its extension changed. Consequently, you can open an epub the same way you open any zip file, by either changing the .epub extension back to .zip and extracting the contents, or by context-clicking on it (right-click or control-click, depending on your system, hereafter referred to simply as a context-click without distinction) and then selecting the options to open it with your zip tool of choice.

Most zip programs will add some options for creating and opening archives to your context menu, or offer you the option to do so. If yours are missing, you will want to (re)install a zip program with these options selected. As mentioned previously, 7-zip allows you to open an .epub as an archive without changing the extension to .zip, which will save you a great many steps along the way.

NOTE: Do not double-click the .epub file to "open" it, as this will open the ebook in your system's default ePub reader (or ask you to choose one), rather than as a collection of files contained within a zipped archive. The .epub file will open as an ebook, by the way, but it will not display correctly, since it is a Kindle file that has not yet been converted to Kindle format. Kindle apps and devices cannot read ePubs, and so this will not be one of your choices for opening the file as an ebook.

Inside the Template

When you look inside the template (or at the contents that have been extracted) what you'll see is two files and a number of folders (three in the simple template and four in the advanced version), which look like this:

content.opf

toc.ncx

/css/

/fonts/ [advanced template only]

/html/

/images/

This is the basic file structure which makes up the basis of any Kindle file, although there are endless variations, with either more or less content, and it's not always organized neatly into folders. Sometimes there are few (or no) folders at all and everything is just lumped together in one big mess (this is what you'll find if you look inside Amazon's own sample files, for example). But I like to keep things tidy for ease of reference, and I recommend that you do, too.

Here there is a separate folder for each type of file, plus two essential "controller" files that contain the "brains" of the operation, telling the e-reader what to do with the contents of the folders. If you look into each folder you will see that each contains a number of files of the relevant type to the folder's name. We will look at each of these in turn.

One thing you will notice in the /html/ folder is that there is a separate file for each and every page in the template. This is required for all fixed-layout ebooks, regardless of the format, since by its very nature the content of each page must be fixed, just as if you were designing it on paper or in a graphics program. Even if your ebook consists of nothing but full-page size images, each one much be contained in a separate html file with precisely defined dimensions.

In many ways, Kindle files are easier to make than iBooks or other fixed layout ePubs. If you have studied my iBooks tutorial, for example, you will see that there are no mimetype or container.xml files, and no /META-INF/ folder included here, such as are required by other ePubs, including iBooks. While these must be manually created for other fixed layout formats, the Kindle conversion process creates them for you automatically. So there are two pieces already that you don't even need to know!

A Note On File Names: With one exception, the names of the files can be anything you like, such as mybook.opf or illustration1.jpg, The exception is the cover.jpg file, found in the images folder, which is required by Amazon in order to create the thumbnails that appear on Kindle bookshelves. You cannot name your cover image anything but "cover" - not the title of your book, not "my_book_cover" or anything else.

Other than this, you're free to name your files however you like. So you might have, for example, yourbooktitle.ncx or mystyles.css instead of what is in the template. And, of course, there will very likely be a whole boatload of additional files in each folder before you're done, depending on the length of your book. So I highly recommend naming your files either sequentially or with some clearly descriptive titles that will make them readily recognizable.

If you look at the advanced template you'll see that there are several files inside each folder, including nearly a dozen CSS files and over twenty images, as well as three different fonts and an HTML file for each its eighteen pages, the latter of which are all numbered sequentially. The CSS files are each given numbers as well according to the page they are associated with, aside from one general stylesheet that covers the first eight pages.

We will take a look at each of these files in due time. But first we need to dive into the two operational files so that we can understand how a Kindle ebook works and make a few informed decisions as we start our project.

Kindle Fixed Layout Tutorial - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 20:17:10 PST

TOOLS

A NOTE ON THE TEMPLATES:

The companion templates are provided both in their final Kindle format as well as in epub format, the current standard on which all ebooks are based (with many proprietary modifications by Amazon, Apple, and Barnes & Noble), and which will form the basis of the file you will build before converting it to the final compiled mobi format for upload to Amazon or your own device. Kindle files cannot be built directly, but must be converted from a "source" file; nor can they be opened for editing directly, but must first be extracted and converted back to epub. In addition, while Amazon accepts Word docs and HTML files into its Kindle Digital Publishing (KDP) ingestion system, epub is the only source that supports fixed layout content, and thus, the only one that concerns us here.

The epub version of the templates will allow you to view the source code referenced in this tutorial, and to replace the template's contents with your own. This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to do just that.

In addition to the template, a number of additional resources will either be required, or come in handy as you set to work creating your masterpiece.

I. CONTENT EDITING

1. Text Editor

Even if your book consists entirely of images, you will still need a good text editor capable of creating clean, plain text files (i.e. not rich text) for inserting formatting data into a handful of required support files. Preferably it should have numbered lines, as this will aid in editing more complex files. I prefer Notepad++ on the PC, while TextWrangler for the Mac is a highly popular free text editor. If you use the default PC or Mac text editor be sure to turn off Rich Text and save your files as plain text. A good web building program such as Dreamweaver is almost overkill for building ebooks, but will certainly do the job. For reasons to be mentioned shortly, I prefer a program that opens quickly, unlike the slower loading Adobe software.

A Note on InDesign: Adobe's premiere layout software will export to epub, but it also inserts a lot of extraneous code into the files that make it more complex than necessary to edit, requiring a lot of "clean-up" that is often more work than creating a file from scratch. This tutorial will not attempt to explain everything you'll need to remove from your epub file in such cases, but only what you need to put into it. Once you've learned that, you'll be more readily able to clean up an InDesign exported epub.

Additionally, Amazon offers an InDesign plug-in for export directly to Mobi, but this does not yet fully support fixed-layout features such as region zoom. Consequently, I do not cover InDesign exports in this tutorial. However, the files produced can be edited using the instructions contained here.

2. Image Editor

Images in Kindle ebooks need be correctly formatted both for pixel resolution as well as file size. Thus, you will need an image editor like Photoshop or the Gimp that can resize images and accurately compress them into JPEGs. In Photoshop, using the "Save for Web" option gives you greater control over the final file size, with several options for retaining the highest quality at the optimal compression level. Image size will be discussed in further detail later in the tutorial.

3. File Compressor / De-Compressor

An epub file is really just a zip package with its extension changed. You can manually change the .epub extension to .zip in order to extract the files inside and add new ones (be sure to change your file browser settings to show extensions so that you can edit them). However, some programs, such as 7-Zip, allow you to modify the contents of an epub without changing the extension, or even extracting the files, which can save you a great deal of time. Set your preferred text editor (i.e. Notepad++) as the default in 7-Zip (Tools > Options > Editor) so that you can simply right-click on a file from within the epub archive and select "Edit" to open and modify the file without extracting it. You can also drag and drop new files into the archive, or delete ones that are already in there.

II. CONVERSION TOOLS

1. Kindlegen

As mentioned, Amazon provides a free conversion tool called Kindlegen that can produce a final Kindle compliant file that can be uploaded to KDP or distributed to Kindle customers as you see fit. This is a command line tool that is simple to use, accepts epub input (as well as X/HTML), and supports all the features of KF8. Although it may appear complex at first, it is really very simple, and its use will be fully explained in this tutorial. It is available for Windows and Mac, as well as Linux.

A Note on Calibre: Many ebook creators rely heavily on a readily available (and often updated) free software package called Calibre, created by Kovid Goyal. While Calibre is a fabulous program, both for ebook conversion and organizing your digital library, it does not fully support fixed layout formats, due to their complexity and the proprietary nature of some included code, which will not work in other formats. Do not attempt to use it to produce fixed layout ebooks in Kindle format.

2. Kindle Previewer

Another free tool offered by Amazon is this graphical interface, intended (as the name suggests) for previewing your Kindle file before uploading to KDP. However, it also functions as an interface with Kindlegen, automatically converting epub inputs into Kindle format for previewing. Consequently, some prefer to use it for this purpose rather that accessing Kindlegen directly.

Kindle Previewer is supposed to function as an emulator, allowing those who do not own a particular Kindle app or model to see how their ebook will display on any given Kindle reader. Since few authors can afford to purchase every device available, this can be quite useful. Unfortunately, the previewer has been plagued with bugs and is notorious for not displaying content accurately. It's better than not having any idea at all, but I recommend the real thing whenever possible. If you intend to produce a professional quality Kindle ebook for sale to the public, it is incumbent upon you to acquire at least one current Kindle device on which to test your product for quality assurance purposes.

III. THIRD-PARTY UTILITIES

1. Mobi Unpack

In some instances it may be useful to know what's happening inside your Kindle file after it's been converted (to see how much your images have been compressed by Kindlegen, for example, or to see what code is being added or altered). As mentioned, standard un-zip software will not suffice, as the final Kindle file is no longer just a zip archive with a different extension, and therefore cannot be extracted in the usual way. For this purpose Mobi Unpack will be required. This is a python script (and thus requires Python to be installed), that creates a decompiled archive of a Kindle file's contents, allowing you to see what changes Kindlegen has made. This is not required for this tutorial, but its use and purpose will be discussed here to some degree, along with a few of the more interesting results you may find.

2. KindleStrip

The file created by Kindlegen will always be much larger than the source files from which it was created. This is because the final file will include both a KF8 formatted version of your ebook as well as a reflowable Mobi7 version for backwards compatibility with older devices that do not support KF8 fixed layouts. In addition, the original source files are also included in the final .mobi package as a zipped archive, just in case Amazon needs them for re-converting later. However, only the portion relevant to a customer's device will be downloaded from Amazon to their e-reader, so the actual file size delivered will be smaller than the one created. You may want to "strip" the file in this manner yourself for selling elsewhere, such as on your own website, or through other retailers. KindleStrip is another python script that fulfills this function.

NOTE: Both of the above are complex programs and procedures intended for advanced users only. I provide them purely for your information, and do not cover their use in this tutorial, nor are they required to proceed. The links provided lead to Wiki pages that detail their use and offer further resources.

IV. DOCUMENTATION

1. Kindle Publishing Guidelines

If you haven't already visited the Kindle Format 8 page at Amazon it would behoove you to do so, as it is the central hub for all things KF8, containing links and information about the format. Along with a FAQ and forum, the primary resource is the Kindle Publishing Guidelines, a pdf document containing all the details Amazon has disclosed concerning Kindle ebook code thus far. Sadly, there is both a wealth and scarcity of useful data, in unequal measure, some of which is contradictory and some just poorly written, none of which is thorough, although much is critical to know. You'll get the necessary portions here, but I recommend you also read the official guidelines when you find the time. They will make more sense once you have worked through this tutorial.

2. Samples

While you're hanging out at Amazon be sure to download the free ebook samples they link to on the KF8 page. These include both reflowable and fixed layout samples, each of which can be downloaded separately, or all together in a zip file from the "Samples" link. These contain both compiled Kindle formats of the ebooks as well as all their source content, including some informative notes within the code. At present, however, they are somewhat out of date, although they have occasionally been updated. The examples are instructive, if not always clearly explained. There is nothing in them that you will not learn more clearly in this tutorial, and much is missing that is given in great detail here.

3. Further Resources

As with most things, the Internet is filled with facts and fancies regarding ebook formatting, some insightful, much confusing, and most awash with errors. There are none that I know of regarding the KF8 fixed layout format specifically that are worth visiting, although there is a great deal of information to be found concerning the ePub standard upon which Mobi files are based. A few stand out for their clarity or wealth of content, and the primary ones among these are listed here for your reference.

Supported HTML5 / CSS3 tags - An Amazon page that lists the major elements supported in KF8. Though not exhaustive, these are more than most authors will ever need. The list is also included as an Appendix in the Kindle Publishing Guidelines.

International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) - Central hub of the committee tasked with developing and maintaining the ePub spec, on which all major ebook formats are based, including KF8. Because of this it is useful to know the actual code and its parameters.

MobileRead Wiki - A platform for the discussion and dissemination of information concerning ePub code and file structure, including many sample files created to test out various elements that you can download.

A number of other specific resources will be mentioned at the points where they are relevant.

New "Tutorials" Tab

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 19:51:51 PST

To make gleaning information from this site a little easier for those who are searching for the various tutorial posts and related ephemera that are now scattered about this blog, I've created another new tab up on the menu bar, this one appropriately titled "Tutorials". There you will find links to each part of the iBooks and Kindle fixed layout series, along with the earlier KF8 image zoom tutorials.

In addition, I have added a link to the iBook Template on the "Templates" tab, as well as some additional links to further discussions of KF8 fixed layout functionality posted in the several updates made to the original KF8 Template, under which they can now be found. I will continue to update these tabs as new content is added.

Kindle Fixed Layout Template - Advanced Version

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 05:51:56 PST

Here at last is the complete, 18-page advanced template for creating ebooks in Kindle fixed layout format. Unlike the simple, image-only edition of the template, this one functions both as a template as well as an extended sample of what a Kindle fixed layout ebook can do, demonstrating with progressively more complex examples just what each function does. Each page is designed to illustrate a single feature of the code (though sometimes more), with each one building on what came before. Thus, any given page can provide the code required for your particular project; or you can take all the portions that appeal to you and build your own fixed layout ebook using that as the starting point.

Within the various component files (html, css, opf) are contained some interlinear notes listing the various sections of code and pointing out the relevant portions for that page. These are neither exhaustive nor explanatory, as the companion tutorials will provide the detailed commentary and analysis, but they serve to organize and clarify the use and structure of the code for ease of reference. Incidentally, I have employed a number of variant ways to reference the CSS, which I will discuss at the proper time, but be aware that this is not a lesson in HTML or CSS, and those elements are only explained insofar as they relate to creating Kindle fixed layout ebooks specifically.

As with the image-only template, this one is available for free download on the "Templates" tab above, both in a compiled .mobi file format for viewing on your Kindle, as well as the .epub source file from which it was created, thus allowing you to crack it open and tear it apart to your heart's content.

Bear in mind that all text and image content is my own and cannot be sold or used for any commercial purposes whatsoever, and are only included to provide examples of KF8 code usage. The template itself is offered under a Creative Commons license and can be distributed freely so long as no fees of any kind are involved. Any work derived from it is strictly your own, provided the above stipulations are met.

Here is a rough breakdown of what is included in the template:

Image-only page, using self-contained CSS within the HTML file
Text-only pages, with or without background images
Thumbnail image expandable to full-page size
Table of Contents with active links and custom styling
CSS <div id=> versus HTML <img src=> image insertion methods
PageId Spine attribute: "page-spread" versus "facing-page"
Embedded text versus "live" text embedded fonts
MagZoom using "sourceId" for magnifying default text content, with or without additional styling
Alternate text placement examples using magTarget values to move zoomed content
Adding backgrounds to magnified regions, using images or Lightbox fills
Emulating word wrap around images using precise line positioning, as well as word and letter spacing
MagZoom using "TargetId" for creating magTargets with alternate content
Alternate formatting for magnified text, with either the same or different content
Image switching by inserting different images into the magnified window overlay
Region Magnification using Panel View to zoom specific sections of an image
Using temporary color fills to position panel MagRegions
Lightbox effects for dimming the surrounding background
Using TargetParent to create a Lightbox fill within a text box
Switching the entire contents of a page with one action, including images, live text, and an active hyperlink in the activated content

With the advanced template now completed, the blog portion of the tutorials will recommence on a semi-regular schedule, while the companion ebook edition should appear within a fortnight - barring unforeseen interruptions, and depending on the speed of final proofreading and corrections. Given my tendency toward methodical production, expect it to be more like a month (and then double that for good measure). But the online tutorials will continue presently.

Finally, please do not inundate me with questions about how to do things demonstrated in the template, as these will be answered in due time as the tutorial progresses. Be patient and bear with me, as I have a full time day job, am attempting to produce a 300+ page graphic novel, and have a course load of over 400 hours of video instruction to wade through in the next few months. Feel free to leave comments and questions regarding content already discussed here that you'd like more information on, but I won't respond to anything I plan to deal with in a future post or in the forthcoming ebook.

Best of luck with your own projects, and let me know how it goes. I'd love to see what you come up with!

Page Turn Prototype Demo Video

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:59:56 PST

This is the coolest thing ever! I want this on every e-reader I own!!! Why would you not want this? And why is it not already available? Seriously, if this does not start to show up on next year's ebook apps and devices then I will be sorely disappointed. I would use this all the time, for reference works I read or glancing back at a map or list of characters to refresh my ailing memory.

Setting aside any commentary or arguments for or against replicating the physical book experience in the digital medium, it can be hardly be debated that for any linear string of a text or data to be presented at its best it requires the most flexible system of accessibility possible, since one can never know exactly how the end user might want to interact with it. And since not all ebooks are alike, no one method of approaching them will suffice for all. It's good to know that someone out there is thinking seriously about these things. I just hope that Apple and Amazon (and Google and Samsung...) are paying attention.

Kindle Fixed Layout Template - Simple Version

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 15:09:59 PST

When I started writing this new tutorial on formatting Kindle fixed layout ebooks I had every intention of just using the same KF8 template I had already posted back in March of last year. However, once I got down to the business end of detailing the many things that can be done with Kindle code, I quickly realized I needed to include a few more examples to illustrate what I was trying to describe.

Consequently, I began adding in new pages that would demonstrate such features as image switching, alternate text positioning, and page spread options. This, of course, required the creation of new content designed to demonstrate each point, and as usual I got carried away. The original template consisted of a mere five pages. The new one comes in at eighteen.

It also comes in two varieties. The first one, posted here today, is a somewhat truncated version of the full length one that will be completed in the next few days. This edition contains only images, with a single CSS file, and no table of contents (as seems to be the custom with most digital comics), making it very easy to use as the basis of your own project. There are no layers or separate text elements, but just a single image embedded in each page, albeit in a number of different ways. Specifically, there are three image referencing methods, plus three landscape layout styles (with two instances of each), these being single pages, two-page spreads with an inner margin, and two-page spreads combined into a single landscape image.

The tutorial posts discussing these elements will commence as soon as I polish off the advanced template, for which I still have one more page spread yet to finalize the art and layout. In the course of revising these new editions, I decided to create new art featuring the two characters who act as our hosts throughout the companion tutorial. Naturally, this became a much bigger task than I had planned.

Finally, rather than include the links here in this post, where they'll soon be lost to time, I have created a new "Templates" page that is linked to on the menu bar above. There you'll find links to all the templates I've created readily accessible and available for download. I will also be updating my iBooks template and tutorial as soon as this KF8 one is complete, as that is now well out of date, and missing several features added in the last major iBooks update. But that's a project for another day!

Kindle Fixed Layout Functionality [UPDATED 2-18-13]

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 12:02:01 PST

Before we dive into the next portion of the tutorial, I thought it would be useful to post the following chart which comprises Appendix A of the ebook. This information will be discussed thoroughly and referred to throughout the tutorial, so having it beforehand might be helpful (especially since the ebook isn't out yet). And since much of it will make no sense without some explanation, I will provide a short introductory breakdown here as well. This will get a little technical, and may well make no sense at first for some of you (if so, just skip it for now and refer back when necessary), but it will all become clear in time. First, the chart...

Function Booktype	Kindle 3	Paper white	Fire (Gen1)	HD7	HD9	PC app	Android app
1 - Page-Spread Comic Children None	N/A No No	Yes Yes Yes	No No No	Yes No No	Yes Yes Yes	No No No	Yes No No
2 - Letterbox Color Comic Children None	White White White	White White White	White White White	Black White White	Black White White	Choice Choice Choice	White White White
3 - Virtual Panels Comic Children None	No No No	Yes No Yes	No No No	Yes No No	No No No	No No No	Yes No No
4 - HTML Image Zoom Comic Children None	"Yes" "Yes" "Yes"	"Yes" "Yes" "Yes"	No Yes Yes	No Yes Yes	No Yes Yes	No No No	No Yes Yes
5 - Cover Image Access Comic Children None	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes	No Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes
6 - Cover Doubling Comic Children None	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes
7 - TOC Menu Link Comic Children None	No No No	No No No	Yes Yes Yes	No NONE No	No NONE No	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes
8 - Bookmarks Comic Children None	No No No	Yes Yes Yes	No No Yes	No No Yes	No No Yes	Yes Yes Yes	Yes No Yes
9 - Live Text Functions Comic Children None	No No No	No No No	No No Yes	No No Yes	No No Yes	Yes Yes Yes	No No Yes
10 - Hyperlinks Comic Children None	No No No	No No No	Yes Yes Yes	No Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes
11 - Font Embedding Comic Children None	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes	Yes Yes Yes

Each of the 11 rows features one functionality element in KF8 that I have tested on the devices and apps listed in the five columns to the right. These are (in order): the Kindle for PC desktop application, a first generation Kindle Fire, the new Kindle HD 7" and HD 8.9" devices, and the Kindle for Android app. Unfortunately, I do not have a second generation Kindle Fire to test, nor a Mac on which to test the Kindle for Mac desktop application. And, of course, as mentioned in the Introduction, fixed layout files cannot be tested in the Kindle for iOS/iPad app, since transferring them in any way I have attempted (Dropbox / DiskAid / Send To Kindle) actually breaks the file. I didn't bother testing these on my Paperwhite or Kindle 3 keyboard model, since comics and graphic novels on these devices are pointless, even though technically they now support the format [see Update below].

As mentioned previously, there are two official book types for Kindle fixed layouts, defined by the appropriately titled "booktype" metadata value in the OPF file (to be discussed in an upcoming section), these being "children" and "comic." But, of course, you can also enter "none" (or simply leave it out), making essentially a third practical booktype. Unlike all the other Amazon-specific metadata values, which determine functionality for a specific listed attribute (such as fixed-layout or orientation, for example), the "booktype" attribute effects a broad range of overall ebook functionality - none of which is detailed by Amazon in their documentation. Hence, this chart. In it, each of the listed functions has been tested with each of the three booktype values set.

In addition, each of the three was tested with the RegionMagnification set both to "true" and to "false," since Amazon states in the Kindle Publishing Guidelines (Section 5.7) that the new Virtual Panels feature (row 3) is reliant upon this setting. This does not prove to be the case, as thorough testing resulted in no change whatsoever in the Virtual Panels functionality with either setting on any device or app. This, of course, may change in future updates, and I will update the chart accordingly at that time. But I have made no note of this distinction in the chart at present, since there is none.

Also, I should point out that in every case changing the booktype made no difference to the functionality of the Kindle for PC app, which appears to simply ignore the setting.

I have entered bold text for the results that stand out as the exception to the rule in order to make the disparity more readily apparent at a glance, and to point out issues with the functionality.

In addition, Appendix A provides no test results for region magnification features (aside from the new Virtual Panels function), as this is contained in Appendix B, and will be dealt with in the latter, more complex portions of the tutorial.

And now the breakdown...

1. Page Spread

A new function in KF8 is the "page-id" spine element which (purportedly) allows for the creation of two-page spreads in landscape mode (either with or without a margin in between). As you can see from the chart, this is only consistently true for the HD 8.9" ('HD9') device, while the HD7 and Android app work correctly with the "comic" booktype value only. In all other cases only one page is shown at a time in landscape mode. Even the Kindle for PC app, which shows an activated two-page button icon, does not actually display two page spreads.

2. Letterbox Color

This refers to the color used to fill in any display space outside the page area, much like the "letterboxing" used in widescreen movies on a 4:3 format television (or iPad). I only tested this because I noticed it was sometimes black and sometimes white and wasn't really paying attention at first to when and where. As it turns out it's only black on the two new HD devices with the "comic" booktype chosen, and white at all other times, with the sole exception of Kindle for PC, where the three standard values of white, sepia, or black are all still available. Not critical, but sometimes one or the other blends better, so it is interesting to know. And given that it is the newest of the Kindle line that sport the black background, this may be an indication of future changes.

3. Virtual Panels

This new feature is apparently a fallback for fixed layout ebooks that have no custom region magnification elements included, and works by dividing the page into four equal quadrants (or "panels") that are zoomed by tapping and advanced in sequential order by swiping (the ordering being based on the "primary-writing-mode" value to allow for right-to-left and left-to-right reading order). Surprisingly, the zoomed page can also then be scrolled around by dragging, and variably resized using pinch-and-zoom, making it a very nice add-on feature for most fixed layout ebooks (in the absence of precisely placed mag zones, that is). As already mentioned, it is supposedly activated by default when the RegionMagnification value is "false," but this value actually has no effect at present: Virtual Panels either work in a particular Kindle reader or their don't, and in most cases they don't. In fact, in only two instances does this currently work: on the HD7 and Kindle for Android app, and only when the booktype is set to "comic." My guess is this feature will continue to roll out until all Kindle iterations have it - aside, perhaps, from the HD9, which somewhat surprisingly doesn't have it; but, then, it doesn't really need it, either, due to its size. However, as you'll see in the next item, you can actually zoom images on the HD9 in certain instances.

4. HTML Image Zoom

This ties in somewhat with the last item, since only one or the other can work. This relates to the HTML <img src="...> insertion method for adding background images in fixed layout, as opposed to the <div id="...> method of referencing a CSS background-image url. Amazon recommends the latter, but for reasons I will discuss later, I disagree (in fact, Section 4.2.3 of the Guidelines says it's a requirement, because "HTML images interfere with Region Magnification," which is demonstrably untrue). The important factor here, however, is that the <img src="...> method allows the user to zoom a background image by double-tapping on it anywhere that it's not overlaid by text or Tap Targets, while the CSS method does not. This allows for zooming and scrolling entire background images (minus any text overlays), which until Virtual Panels was the only way this could be done. However, since the Virtual Panels function effectively creates a Tap Target covering the entire page, where that feature is active this one cannot be, since the background image cannot be tapped (the images still appear correctly using the HTML insertion method, so there's no issue where the image's placement is concerned). That said, assuming the RegionMag "true/false" value will eventually work as stated, you will then be able to chose one or the other, so this information will still theoretically be relevant. As seen in the chart, however, it's not just the Virtual Panels factor that determines whether <Img Src> Zoom works or not, since in no case does it work with the "comic" booktype value chosen. But since this is - at present - the only place where Virtual Panels works, in all other case (aside from Kindle for PC) this image zoom method works. An important distinction to make between Virtual Panels and the HTML "img src" method is that that latter only magnifies the actual background image (which is sometimes desirable and sometimes not), while Virtual Panels zooms the entire page, including text overlays, making it more like the iPad's pinch and zoom feature than Kindle's standard Panel View. (For an additional difficulty with Virtual Panels, see number 10. Hyperlinks below.)

5. Cover Image Access

6. HTML Cover Doubling

These two go hand-in-hand, and it all really comes down to one thing: Amazon flat out got it wrong on this one. In Sections 4.2.4 and 4.3.7 of the Kindle Publishing Guidelines Amazon either "requires" or "recommends" (depending on the section) than an HTML page containing the cover image be included in fixed layout files, even though in Section 3.2.3 they unequivocally state that you are not to do this because the cover image may appear twice - which is, in fact, exactly what happens in every instance. They then contradict themselves further by providing (in Section 3.2.3) one exception to this rule, in which case you must enter the linear="no" value to the spine entry for this element (the underlined element being "mandatory"); but then in the later two sections they state that the same value must be set to "yes." All this contradictory information can be cleared away easily by the facts: if an HTML cover is included, the cover image always appears twice. "Cover Image Access" simply refers to whether you can swipe back to the cover once you have moved forward into the book, and was tested in conjunction with the cover doubling issue to see how pervasive the latter was. In only one instance are you not able to return to the cover (even the HTML one) by swiping (or tapping), which is on the HD7. You can still access the cover via the menu link on this device, when again you will be presented with two consecutive covers, one JPEG, one HTML, but you cannot swipe back to it once into the book, whereas on every other device or app you can do so, and there will always be two consecutive cover images in a row. Therefore, there is simply no reason whatsoever to include an HTML cover, and several good reasons not to.

7. TOC Menu Link

Since we're on the subject of menu links, here's another issue to consider. For some unfathomable reason, Amazon has decided to remove the "Table of Contents" link from the default "Go To" menu on the new HD devices. And not only that, but on ebooks with the "children" booktype value the entire "Go To" menu is inexplicably missing. Gone. Completely absent. No links to the cover, the beginning, or any other internal links. Apparently they think readers of children's ebooks don't use menus, nor that comics should ever have a Table of Contents - which, granted, they often don't, but lengthy graphic novels could certainly benefit from one. Perhaps they thought removing it was better than including a Go To menu where all the links are non-functional, but even so, removing the option is a bit reactionary, especially considering that the menu is still present and fully functional in all other Kindle readers.

8. Bookmarks

9. Live Text Functions (inc. Notes, Highlights, Search, & Definitions)

Of all the ebook functions that should never be disabled, these are the ones. If any feature promotes digital reading over print it's the ability to interact in highly useful and informative ways with the text. Being able to annotate, highlight (without ruining the book!), instantly search the entire text, and get the meaning of any word with just a tap of your finger - not to mention adding as many bookmarks as you like - are just some of the wonders that set ebooks apart. And yet Amazon has somehow decided (intentionally or inadvertently) that these features are not needed in children's books or comics. For with either of those booktypes entered they are all disabled - with the single exception of bookmarks in "comics" on the Android app. And mind you, this is not a fixed layout issue, not some odd quirk in the fixed layout Kindle code, since when you delete the booktype value altogether (or enter "none") all this functionality is back, with the fixed layout intact. It did not used to be this way for the "children" booktype, which originally retained live text functions, although "comic" did not have them from the very first. However, disabling them for children's ebooks only happened recently. I have ranted long and often on this here before, so I won't go on at length now. To me, there is simply no justification for this decision, since decision it must be, as there is no logical reason why a manufactured metadata value would have any effect it was not designed to have, unless Amazon is just not paying attention, which I find unlikely.

10. Hyperlinks
Somewhat similar to the live text problem is the issue of interactive links, both internal and external. Here there is fortunately only one disparity, which is on the HD7, where the "comic" booktype completely disables all text hyperlinks, none of which work at all. External hyperlinks are still blue, but non-active. This is clearly related to the Virtual Panels feature, rather than live text functions, since in all but this one instance hyperlinks work correctly even where live text is disabled. But as Virtual Panels currently only work on the HD7 and the Android app, it is possible that this feature is somehow interfering with the links, since Virtual Panels overlay the entire page with a tap target. However, given that the Android app is not effected, it's uncertain what is actually causing this. My concern is that as the Virtual Panels function is rolled out across devices the loss of hyperlinks might become a widespread problem. Hopefully the HD7 issue is an aberration, but it's 50/50 at the moment, so we'll just have to wait and see. Fortunately in most cases this is not an issue at present (which is little comfort to owners of a brand new HD7).

11. Font Embedding
This was just a standard test that I'm happy to report has essentially become unnecessary, as font embedding is now supported by all tested Kindle devices and apps. This was not the case just a few short years ago, when Kindle reflowable files did not allow custom fonts. Now they do, and KF8 has supported them from inception, and happily continues to do so. I include it because it's just good to know. And it's always nice to end on a positive note.

CONCLUSION

These are all considerations each ebook designer must weigh and make decisions on, based on their project and target audience. Bear in mind that digital publishing is still in its infancy, and in a state of great upheaval at the moment. All of this will settle out in time, but for now we have to be aware of what is possible and what is not, and try to stay abreast of any changes (which are numerous and often). Already this chart shows the great disparity between a single year's development of the Kindle Fire line: in at least half the features listed there is a difference in functionality between the 1st generation Fire and the latest models.

My biggest issue continues to be the lack of support for live text when either booktype value is entered, making my clear recommendation not to add one. The only functionality that will be lost by doing this are the two instances where Page Spread works with the comic value entered, but not when it is absent - these being the HD7 and Android app - as well as Virtual Panels on the same two readers. But since these features are hardly universal, being not yet present in any other case (aside from the HD9 where Page Spread is functional regardless of booktype), there is very little incentive to add a booktype value. The primary exception, unfortunately, is that only the "comic" booktype allows images of up to 800kb in size; otherwise, you're restricted to 256kb for fixed layouts, which can be a significant consideration with the advent of HD displays. Of course, this may all change (and probably will) over time as new updates are rolled out. But one cannot plan current work based on future possibilities. One must take what data is available today and use it to inform your present efforts.

As mentioned, I will update this chart regularly, and note the changes made at the bottom of the post. If a large number of changes are suddenly made - say, when a new line of devices arrives - I will do a new post and reevaluate the situation.

And by the way, if anyone has a 2nd generation Fire or a Mac with the Kindle desktop app and can test any of these features I would very much appreciate the information. I would love to add it to the chart for reference and will gladly give you ample credit and provide a link, both here and in the published ebook. For that matter, if any of your own testing contradicts what I have listed here, please let me know so I can look into it further. Comment below or send an email to scot(at)fantasycastlebooks.com.

UPDATE 1/6/2013

Just for the sake of being thorough, I went ahead and tested the eInk Kindle 3 and Paperwhite devices. And while I won't bother to include the data in the chart above due to space restrictions, I will point out the primary data points here.

First, and most surprising, is that the Paperwhite actually supports Page-Spread in all booktypes. This is accessed via the menu's "View in Landscape" option, since the Paperwhite has no internal orientation sensor. Just as interesting is the fact that, while the Kindle 3 does not support Page-Spread, it does default to landscape orientation for the booktype values "children" and "none" (though inexplicably showing only one page at a time), while for comics it reverts to portrait orientation. There is no way to change the orientation from the Kindle 3 menu. Letterbox color is white in each instance.

Equally surprising is support for Virtual Panels on the Paperwhite with "comic" or "none" booktypes (but not for children's books). This is, therefore, the only device that currently does so with the booktype absent, and only the second device that supports it at all. Why the eInk Paperwhite would support this function, but not the 1st gen Fire is beyond me (except that the Fire's OS has not been updated for some time).

Another curious fact is that pinch and zoom is available for all pages on the Paperwhite with any booktype setting, regardless of image insertion method. The Kindle 3 has some default zoom functions available via the menu, with incremental 5-way controller scrolling in all directions rather than the Virtual Panels' default quarter page progression. So that's a sort of "qualified" yes for that feature.

Cover issues remain consistent on both devices, and there are no Table of Contents menus in any instance. Bookmarks are functional in all three booktypes on the Paperwhite, but not at all on the Kindle 3, even though it retains the default Bookmark and TOC menu links, they're just grayed out and inactive. There are no live text functions, nor active hyperlinks, on either device in any booktype, but font embedding is consistently present.

UPDATE 1/15/2013

The chart has been updated to incorporate the tests I ran on the Kindle eInk devices for ease of reference and comparison. This makes the text in the table somewhat smaller that I'd like, but this is a restriction of the blog format. You can easily use the zoom function on your monitor to increase the text size for better readability, or - since it's a live table and not an embedded image - copy and paste it into a word processor and increase the font size.

UPDATE 2/18/2013

Removed information regarding Guide items, which now receives a more in-depth analysis within the body of the tutorial.

Kindle Fixed Layout Tutorial - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 11:16:18 PST

WORKING METHODOLOGY

There are two fundamental types of fixed layout ebooks that can be made in Kindle Format 8. Amazon divides these into "Children's" and "Comics" categories, even though this is a rather broad, and often inaccurate, labeling scheme, since any genre, age level, or subject category can be produced in either format. Yet there are significant differences between the two.

The primary difference is that "comics" consists entirely of full-page images, while "children's" ebooks include text laid over the top of background images. Both can include interactive Region Magnification features which, in the case of comics' "Panel View" function enlarges a pre-defined area of the full-page image when tapped, while the children's format includes the ability to magnify text boxes. But, of course, this isn't entirely accurate either, since comics can include text overlays and children's books might include only images.

Still, each has these inherent features for a reason, and each will be discussed and analyzed at the appropriate time. For practical purposes the division suits us here, since there are presumably two essential groups of people reading this tutorial:

Those who want to make simple, image-only ebooks (i.e. comics)
Those who want to create complex layouts reflowable format does not allow (i.e. children's books and other illustrated content)

With this in mind, we will begin by covering all the necessary steps in producing image-based ebooks in Kindle fixed layout format, from start to finish, and then progress to add in layers and region zoom features. In that way everyone can start at the beginning and jump ship when they're project is complete.

As for our plan of attack, a glance at the table of contents will provide a quick outline, but here are the essential steps:

· A look at the necessary Tools, including the Template, which will be our project guide throughout the tutorial

· An overview of the File Structure of a Kindle fixed layout ebook, followed by a look at each of its component parts

· The OPF file, including Metadata, Manifest, Spine, and Guide items

· The NCX file, including Metadata, NavMap, and PageID features

· Creating Images for Kindle fixed layouts, including the Cover

· HTML page layout, including CSS styling for image-only ebooks

· Converting and testing your file using Kindlegen and Previewer

· HTML & CSS for Panel View, including an analysis of Virtual Panels

· HTML & CSS for Text Zoom, including Font embedding

· Tips & Tricks with Zoom functions

Each of these are subdivided into smaller parts, detailing what each one does and what your options are. Some are short and simple, others somewhat long and complex, but all as thorough as they need to be. So with that, let's get started!

Kindle Fixed Layout Tutorial - Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 12:04:53 PST

The following is the first part of a multi-part tutorial on making fixed layout ebooks specifically for the Kindle that I will be posting over the course of the next few weeks. These comprise the working draft of an ebook on the subject that will be published later this month. I will be posting at least the first portion of the book, up to and including the step-by-step creation of an image-only fixed layout ebook in Kindle format for comic books and graphic novels.

The remaining sections covering the addition of Panel View and Region Zoom functions may or may not be posted here, in part because I have already provided a functional overview of the Region Magnification feature here and here, and of course because I'd like to get a little compensation for my efforts in the form of ebook sales. However, depending on the feedback I receive I may post some additional sections.

The new tutorial covers every aspect of producing KF8 fixed layout files from start to finish in a step-by-step approach, and also includes links to a newly revised fixed layout template for your use in starting your own project. The published tutorial will also be updated as Amazon adds new functionality to the Kindle platform (such as full audio and video support), with buyers of the ebook receiving free downloads and notification of all future updates.

Posting this here is also something of a beta test. Blogging a book has become an effective - and strategic - practice that allows for author-reader interaction prior to a book's official publication, giving both sides time to work out bugs and polish up the prose, helping to improve the final product. So any feedback you have to offer will be seriously considered and heartily appreciated.

INTRODUCTION

Comics and graphic novels, as well as many illustrated children's books and non-fiction works, contain complex layouts and graphic elements, such as full-bleed images and text wrapping, that require special formatting not available in standard "reflowable" formats. These "reflowable" ebooks allow users to resize text and margins, and even change the font or background color. Conversely, "fixed-layout" content is... well... "fixed," displayed exactly as the ebook creator made it.

And while all those reflowable features are one of the things that make ebooks truly unique, graphic design is an art form, with a long and illustrious history of development. Fixed layouts allow that art to be preserved. This tutorial explains how to create fixed layout ebooks for the Kindle platform. It does not delve into reflowable formatting, nor creating fixed layout files for other platforms such as Nook or iBooks. Kindle ebooks are unique in the way they're made, and in this tutorial you'll learn how that's done.

Fixed layout formatting supports "full-bleed" artwork (i.e. edge-to-edge with no margins), as well as the layering of multiple elements on top of one another, using a basic set of HTML and CSS for styling and placement, as well as a bit of Kindle-specific code for features such as Panel View (Kindle's image zoom feature). You don't need to know very much code to make an ebook work, but, of course, the more you do know, the more complex your design can be. In this tutorial I'll explain all you need to create layouts as simple or complex as you like.

With the introduction of the full-color Kindle Fire e-reader in November of 2011, Amazon also released a new ebook format known as Kindle Format 8, or KF8 for short, as the successor of the preceding Mobi 7 format. KF8 includes many new features, including fixed-layout capability for creating image-heavy ebooks with text overlays, as well as text and image zoom, much of it based on proprietary code that only Kindle apps and devices can read. Initially only the Fire could read KF8, but in recent months the format has been rolled out to nearly all of the Kindle line of apps and devices.

This ebook provides a step-by-step tutorial for producing fixed-layout ebooks formatted for Kindle devices and apps with KF8 support. All Kindle devices from the third generation forward now support this format (inc. Kindle Keyboard and Touch, but not Kindle 1 or 2), as well as all updated Kindle apps for PC, Mac and Android.

Kindle for iOS is a special case at present, since it requires fixed layout files in .azw format - the newest iteration of KF8 - which cannot be transferred manually to the Kindle app without damaging the file (transfer via email results in conversion to reflowable format, and file managers like Dropbox or DiskAid either do not recognize the file or have no Kindle file association), and thus cannot be tested during production. However, the Kindle iPad app does support KF8 fixed layouts with full-page images and region magnification functions, and these will be available to users who purchase and download the ebook directly from Amazon.

Ironically, the Kindle for iOS app is the only Kindle reader that currently supports audio and video, making it pointless to produce Kindle ebooks with these features at the present time. Therefore, this tutorial does not currently cover those functions, although it will be updated at such time as Amazon decides to make them available on a majority of their devices. For those interested, the Kindle Publishing Guidelines has details on their creation.

The ebook edition of this tutorial uses reflowable formatting, so that all Kindle apps and devices can open it. It has images placed in between the blocks of text (not behind them), so that they flow along with the text in any display size. You can make image-only ebooks with reflowable formatting, but there will be a large white margin around the outside that will reduce the size of the useable image area. To remove it you must use fixed layout formatting.

You must decide for yourself if fixed layout or reflowable is the right choice for your project. In general, if it can be formatted as reflowable without losing important aspects of the design it probably should be, since fixed layout removes many features ebook readers like, such as font resizing. But for image-based ebooks like comics and graphic novels fixed layout is really the only choice.

UPDATED 1-5-2013 to include an explanation of the current Kindle of iOS issue. Also added the "Vitruvian Robot" illustration.

Tablet Market Share Update

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 09:29:21 PST

Barnes & Noble today announced a 10.9% drop in retail sales over the 9-week holiday season - due in part to store closures during 2012 - coupled with a 12.6% decline in Nook sales. This was offset somewhat by a 13.1% increase in digital content sales, showing that current Nook at least users continue to use their devices steadily.

But BN were not the only ones who showed a slowdown in device sales. Apple's iPad line performed less well than expected, losing ground to rival tablets, with a 7.14% decline in market share, while the Kindle Fire gained 3.03%. Mind you, this still leaves the iPad with a whopping 78.84% of the tablet market compared to The Kindle Fire's 7.51%, so it's hardly disastrous, if even damaging.

This is the same thing that happened to Amazon ebook market share when other e-reading devices began to appear: the Kindle once held well over 90% of the ebook sales, which is now down to a still-respectable, yet decidedly smaller, 65% or so. The same thing is likely to occur with the iPad as new high-quality (and lower priced) devices hit the shelves.

And bear in mind that these are only tablet stats, and do not include the many other Kindle models such as the Paperwhite and Touch, which are dedicated e-reading devices (i.e. no apps or video). Including those gives Amazon a far larger share of the overall device market, a share that is steadily growing.

What this discrepancy between tablet and ebook sales tells me is that iPad owners do not use their tablets for reading, but Kindle users do. What I wonder is if Amazon's push into the multimedia tablet market is bound to hurt their ebook sales. Probably unlikely, but it does take their focus further away from books, which is the place they started.

The statistics in the chart above are based on data use monitoring, a clever way to see who's using what. New device activations and traffic sampling can tell a lot about what products are actually being used, as opposed to what was bought or given and is just collecting dust. The full chart also contained a section detailing smartphone use, which I've cropped off as not relevant to this blog, but you can click the image above to see the full thing and read a bit more commentary.

Other notes to point out from this information is the serious lack of interest in the Surface, which fared poorer than the Blackberry Playbook that has been written off as all but dead. Admittedly Microsoft's entry into the tablet market is intended for serious professionals only, and is a top notch machine, but it's also priced at a premium level that's way out of the average user's reach, particularly given the rapidly growing competition.

But what surprised me the most was that Samsung's Galaxy Tab is doing so much better than the Nexus. Granted, Samsung has a few years' head start on Google, who have only recently entered the fray. But with consistently rave reviews for the Nexus line I would have thought to see a larger increase. I suppose it just goes to show how tightly Apple has this thing locked up - even though they've lost a little ground, they're still the uncontested champs, and will be for some time to come.

Tablet & e-Reader Display Resolution

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 13:20:47 PST

Here's a quick comparison chart I put together showing the display resolution and aspect ratios of most of the major tablets and e-reading devices currently on the market, or generally still in use. It is not exhaustive, but it covers the primary reading devices being used by the majority of ebook readers, and consequently is a useful reference for making decisions regarding ebook formatting (the reason I compiled it in the first place).

I just thought I'd share it, since the information isn't readily available in one place - at least not without having to sort through a lot of useless information that's not relevant - and most tech specs neglect to include pixels-per-inch and aspect ratio as part of their breakdown. These are handy to know when you're preparing cover art or internal illustrations, particularly for fixed layout ebooks aimed at a target market or platform.

DEVICE	Resolution	Pixels	Aspect

KINDLE E-INK	800 x 600	167 ppi	4:3
KINDLE PAPERWHITE	1024 x 758	212 ppi	4:3 *
KINDLE FIRE	1024 x 600	169 ppi	10:6 **
KINDLE FIRE HD 7"	1280 x 800	216 ppi	16:10
KINDLE FIRE HD 8.9"	1920 x 1200	254 ppi	16:10

NOOK	800 x 600	167 ppi	4:3
NOOK COLOR/TABLET	1024 x 600	169 ppi	16:10
NOOK HD 7"	1440 x 900	243 ppi	16:10
NOOK HD+ 9"	1920 x 1280	256 ppi	3:2

KOBO MINI [5"]	800 x 600	200 ppi	4:3
KOBO TOUCH [6"]	800 x 600	167 ppi	4:3
KOBO GLO [6"]	1024 x 758	213 ppi	4:3 *
KOBO VOX [7"]	1024 x 600	169 ppi	10:6 **
KOBO ARC [7"]	1280 x 800	215 ppi	16:10

IPAD 2 [9.7"]	1024 x 768	132 ppi	4:3
IPAD 3 & 4 [9.7"]	2048 x 1536	264 ppi	4:3
IPAD MINI [7.9"]	1024 x 768	163 ppi	4:3

MOTOROLA XOOM 8.2"	1280 x 800	184 ppi	16:10
MOTOROLA XOOM 10.1"	1280 x 800	149 ppi	16:10

GALAXY TAB 7"	1024 x 600	171 ppi	10:6 **
GALAXY TAB 8.9"	1280 x 800	169 ppi	16:10
GALAXY TAB 10.1"	1280 x 800	149 ppi	16:10

NEXUS 7"	1280 x 800	216 ppi	16:10
NEXUS 10"	2560 x 1600	300 ppi	16:10

SURFACE RT [10.6"]	1366 x 768	148 ppi	16:9
SURFACE PRO [10.6"]	1920 x 1080	224 ppi	16:9

* 10 pixels narrower than full 4:3 ratio ** Actual ratio is 128:75 = 10.24:6 - or 16:9.375 (i.e. 17:10)

As you can see the aspect ratios fall primarily into two categories - 4:3 and 16:10 - with a few peculiar discrepancies, particularly 10:6 on some common 7" devices. This is remarkably - and almost frighteningly - equivalent to the pan-and-scan / widescreen fight that went on for several years in the video industry (and is still continuing to some degree), and is, in fact, partially due to it, since the primary reason these multimedia devices have begun to appear in widescreen formats is to accommodate accurate video presentation.

However, a print book's natural aspect ratio is akin to old tube television's 4:3 standard, and so a comparative digital two-page spread fits nicely on an iPad but is miserably represented on the 10:6/16:10 devices. And since ebooks and print books will very likely continue to coexist for many years to come (and thus ebooks will naturally continue to emulate their printed counterparts, especially where fixed layout is concerned) my preference would be for the 4:3 format to triumph over widescreen (ironically opposite to my desires for film all those years I worked in the video industry), since black letterboxing is less intrusive to video than the relative shrinking of a book page, which in many cases renders it illegible. The fact that people are (surprisingly) will to watch videos on their tiny 5" iPhones just goes to show it's nowhere near as critical as the legibility of text.

As a minor side note, I find it ironic that no other major tablet brand has gone after the iPad's 4:3 ratio for one of their larger multimedia devices. Intentionally avoiding a head-to-head confrontation where Apple dominates the market, or merely a different focus?

At any rate, I hope you find the data useful. I'll try to keep the chart updated, so bookmark this page for future reference.

The Kindle Paperwhite - A Semi-Review

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 10:20:12 PST

Kindle Paperwhite Exploded View

There's a cool article over at the NYTimes detailing how the Kindle Paperwhite works, with this nifty graphic showing an exploded view of its contents. Hit the link to see it with the text overlays that explain what each piece does. It's amazing what they can cram in there these days.

I bought a Paperwhite a few months ago, mostly for format testing, but also because I love the longer battery life of the eInk screens, which means I don't need to take a charger with me when I travel. Unfortunately it was a big step down from the brightly lit, full color Kindle Fire, with its crisp, smooth letters and high contrast. By comparison the Paperwhite is dull and gray, making the words appear washed out, even though it has the best eInk screen to date, with a higher resolution than an iPad 2 or Mini. But sixteen shades of gray is still all that you get, which is a long way from fifty.

The main thing I dislike about the Paperwhite is its sluggish response, with a maddeningly slow refresh rate compared to LCD, which is nearly instantaneous. By comparison the Paperwhite seems to take forever to respond, even though it's miles ahead of earlier eInk devices - 450 mSecs, compared to 600 mSecs for the older models (i.e. 25% faster). Yet given that a color eInk display capable of video refresh rates was announced in November, even half a second for one transition is glacially slow (video refresh needs at least ten times that to approach the standard 24fps).

Video-Capable 6" Color eInk Prototype

Of course, one major stumbling block that Amazon faces is the cost of production, with component parts making up the bulk of the cost. Given the current tablet battle, price point can be a far more important stat than cutting edge performance. This is why we get incremental upgrades. It's also very often a question of compromise between higher resolution and faster processing speed, since more pixels require more processing power, which drains more battery life and costs more to produce.

Readers of this blog will know that I'm a big advocate of color displays, which reproduce cover art and hyperlink colors that even text-based novels include, not to mention on-device bookstore browsing, which is an abysmal process on a black and white device. Just imagine going into a physical bookstore and only seeing black and white on all the shelves. You would think that Amazon would want to add color as soon as possible, simply as a marketing strategy. But all good things in time. One day this will be a mute point.

The Not So Easy to Reach the Menu

The other thing that throws me constantly when using the Paperwhite is the placement of the tap zones, which I find irritating beyond belief. I wrote a post about this back when Amazon first introduced this "new improved" zone layout, which made no sense to me in theory, and is worse in practice. I'm so used to tapping the center of a touch screen to access the menu that I'm constantly turning the page on the Paperwhite instead. Who thought up this nonsense? Off with their heads!

On the good side, the new front light is a handy feature, rendering the display illumination more or less consistent in any light, from direct daylight to pitch black. Given that the screen looks washed out most of the time this isn't a raving endorsement, but at least it looks washed out consistently. And it's also really light, weight-wise, making it much more pleasurable to hold for long spells than any LCD reader I own (three Fires, two iPads and a Nook tablet), aside from my Motorola Razr Maxx (which is a full two ounces lighter).

Interestingly, I thought that I would love the new "Time To Read" feature, which calculates the time remaining in a chapter or the whole book rather than showing the number of pages left. This is continuously calculated from your actual page turn progress, and so theoretically gets more accurate the more your read. However, I find that it causes me to be more aware of how fast I'm reading than what I'm reading. Perhaps I'll start to ignore it over time, but I often stop to ponder over certain passages, and tend to re-read lines and phrases that I either want to absorb more thoroughly (in the case of non-fiction), or simply enjoyed (primarily with fiction, but a well turned phrase or deeply moving thought is never out of place); the "Time To Read" feature often interrupts those moments with a jarring "Oh crap! I should be reading!!!" But then, maybe that's a good thing. I probably should be reading, after all.

And since eInk only uses battery power to turn the page (as long as the new front light is turned off, that is), I often just set down the device when I pause to answer the phone or get a drink, leaving the reader on. Eventually the screen times out and the splash screen wallpaper appears, but all that time is now added to my reading speed, making it highly inaccurate and rendering the feature useless. Again, it's something I can remedy by retraining myself to turn the darn thing off, but at best that's an unnecessary inconvenience that I never had to worry about before, and at worst I'll still forget most of the time. But I suppose that's just the nature of the times we live in.

Smashwords Now Accepting EPUBs

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 08:39:37 PST

According to a site update yesterday, the self-publishing aggregator portal Smashwords is now accepting ePub files in preparation for the launch of Smashwords Direct, allowing ebook formatters to bypass their Meatgrinder conversion tool and upload a finished file for direct distribution to retail outlets. In theory, this will finally allow for complex formatting such as fixed layouts and floating sidebars that the Word .doc based ingestion system did not support. However, the details are still a little thin.

Here's the official statement:

December 30, 2012 - (Updated) We're preparing to launch Smashwords Direct, our direct .epub upload option. One year ago in my 2011 annual year-in-review over at the Smashwords Blog, we made a commitment to launch SWD in the second half of 2012. We're working to fulfill that commitment. We're nearing the beta launch of SWD. The first iteration will enable those of you with professionally designed .epub files to replace your current Smashwords-generated .epub with another .epub. It'll also allow authors to upload .epub files instead of Word .doc files. Thank you to all the Smashwords authors who provided .epub files for our internal testing. Update: As of earlier today, you may now upload an EPUB to supplement your DOC-based book (replacing its EPUB with your own), as well as create new books using only an EPUB. (Note: We do not currently produce sample files, online HTML reader content, or other ebook formats based on EPUBs.)

Unfortunately, this is as much information as is given, and the formatting guide and FAQ have not yet been updated, so the details are unclear. For example, does the Smashwords ePub ingestion engine handle fixed layout ePubs formatted specifically for iBooks, or only those based on the ePub standard? Will ePub3 compliant files be supported, recommended, or required? For now it seems your only option is to upload a file and see what happens. But at least this is a step in the right direction. Post and let me know if you've given this a try.

UPDATE 1/1/2013

Smashwords has added some additional information regarding epub uploads both on their blog and a new documentation page for SW Direct. The initial results reported are not surprising: fully one third of submitted epubs failed validation. This just shows how sketchy knowledge of good epub formatting is right now, which is the main reason Smashwords has only supported word processor documents until now, since most authors know how to use those. I imagine epubs will become a big headache for Smashwords.

What's To Come in 2013

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 12:46:02 PST

Having looked a bit at what transpired in 2012, it's time to turn our eyes to what's ahead for the coming year. As always, predicting the future is a dicey affair, based as much on hopes and guesses as much as facts. So this year, rather than offer yet another banal shopping list of what I expect to see, I thought I'd simply give some links to others who very likely have much better insight than I, and add a few comments of my own to their predictions. There are plenty to choose from, but here are a few I think are worth a look:

Digital Book World - Ten Bold Predictions for Ebooks and Digital Publishing in 2013.
- #2 (year of the enhanced ebook) - I'm hoping to see #2 come true, but it's been pending for awhile, and I'm not expecting to see an overnight explosion anytime soon. iBooks Author proved that this is still a hit and miss affair for most, but one that's just not cost effective, given current device limitations. In fact, I'm willing to bet that until the full line of Kindle devices support audio and video, enhanced ebooks will remain a very small niche market. After that, look out.
- #4 The $0 Kindle. This will never happen. There's just no good reason to give away what people are more than willing to pay for, and Jeff Bezos is no idiot. So while the price of Kindles (and other e-reading devices) will continue to fall quite rapidly, they'll level off at somewhere around the $25-30 mark ($29.99 is my best guess for rock bottom), a price which almost anyone would happily cough up. And lest you answer that Kindles will be packaged in as part of the Prime program, I would once again remind consumers that $79 per year is not free. Free shipping does not cost $79/year, so quit calling it free shipping already! It's not a free book each month if you're paying an annual fee for it. Amazon is not stupid enough to pay authors to give their books away for free - best official Prime membership estimates are somewhere between 5-10 million, which is a lot of money when each one is paying nearly eighty bucks a year for "free" services - and this is why Amazon can happily put up half to three-quarters of a million bucks each month for ebook lending royalties, since there's still plenty to spare.
- #7 (major privacy breach at a library) - This is a fairly bold prediction, and it's one I hope does not occur, ever. Especially for libraries, who are already struggling against a rising tide to eek out some niche in the growing ebook market. Publishers are already hesitant enough to come on board with library lending (one of my predictions from 2012 that didn't really pan out, unfortunately), and this would put a kibosh on that for a good long while to come. In addition, libraries are already pretty good at handling large amounts of customer transaction data, so I see no real reason why it should be a library and not someone else. More likely it will be one of the major publishers who are trying to move into retail operations for the first time who will botch the whole affair. But then, even Facebook can't seem to get a handle on privacy and site security, so who knows.
- #10 (Barnes & Noble stock will fall below $10) - Although BN is struggling, I wouldn't count them out just yet. They've had a less than stellar year for sure, particularly given that Microsoft invested $300 million into Nook operations with no discernible result at all. And last week Pearson bought a 5% share in the company, propping up the retail giant even more. But BN's end of year outlook was far below expectations, as they announced themselves in a press release last week. Apparently the new toy departments are not quite pulling in their share, and the addition of more video content has not drawn in as many Nook buyers as they'd hoped. Honestly, I didn't even bother to go look at the new HD Nook line, which may say something about the general lack of enthusiasm being shown. For me, while I like my original Nook tablet just fine, it's limited by Barnes & Nobles overall higher prices and thinner content, as well as the somewhat less consistent reading experience - even with its microSD slot, transferring files is a hassle, and purchased content is hidden in a locked folder somewhere that I've never been able to access. In addition, BN's refusal to open up their fixed layout spec to independent authors has put me right off them as a serious contender in the self-publishing market. As it is I sell a hundred times more books at Amazon than I do at Barnes & Noble, which tells me everything I need to know. Still, BN is a major player in the retail space for books, and I think they've got something up their sleeves that Microsoft and Pearson want a part of. And they've finally begun to move into International territory, which will either help or destroy them. So we'll just have to wait and see.
- The rest are pretty obvious, so no comment is really necessary.
Jeremy Greenfield (of DBW) provided three predictions of his own over at Forbes, each of which deserve some thought.
- #1 Goodreads becomes a Bookseller. According to Goodreads, this is a "no" (or at least a "not yet"). This goes hand in hand with the Infographic posted yesterday, which shows how much Goodreads' clout has grown this year. Having social networking sites devoted to book lovers has been a tremendous boon for authors and readers alike, and with their dedicated user base it only makes sense to move into retailing. But this comes with a lot of baggage as well, since the site would no longer be wholly user-driven, with its income derived from affiliate referral fees (and some advertising), but led by economic market forces such as major ad budgets that would eliminate the visibility of many independent authors and books for smaller niche markets, turning them into something more like Amazon than Facebook for Book Geeks. In a way I'd actually hate to see this, although it could have some benefits as well. A one-stop-shop for books - and only books - would be nice, a place where direct reader input provides the market force that propels (or derails) the sales trajectory of what's being published. It's a natural marketing machine for authors, so it will probably happen eventually.
- #2 Ebook marketplace gets dynamic and goes beyond discounting. This is already happening, so it's not really a prediction. In fact, it's almost become customary for independent authors to give away the first book in a series as a loss leader promotion to entice readers, and free giveaways are standard fare on blogs and social reading sites like Goodreads and LibraryThing. As mentioned in the post, Barnes & Noble even used the tactic of giving away a free ebook with every book purchased (from a pre-determined list) in the last few days leading up to Christmas. So I'm not really sure this is a prediction so much as a general trend that will continue. Of course, it depends on how creative e-retailers get.
- #3 Major publishers will form back-list marketing divisions. Duh. Since ebooks technically never sell out (or "go out of print") without a title actively being killed off, it only makes sense that publishers will have a lot more content that needs looking after. This is about as much a prediction as the 2nd of January will follow the 1st. What's more interesting to me is what will happen to the current glut of start-up conversion houses when all those back-list titles have been converted into digital and there's not enough work to be had by all.
Laura Owen over at Gigaom offered up three of her own predictions, of which the first - the remaining publishers settling in the DOJ suit - is a foregone conclusion (what Apple will do is less certain). She also chimes in on Barnes & Noble's downturn, saying they will cut their Nook line, which is also obvious, since the new HD devices inherently made the earlier models obsolete. The real question is whether they will go through with their plans to split off the Nook line into a separate business enterprise, and what will come of that if they do. But she offers no thoughts on that. Finally, there is this:
- A well-known author will turn down a seven-figure deal to self-publish. Didn't this already happen? Okay, looking back it was only a six-figure deal that Barry Eisler turned down to self-publish his work instead, so I guess that doesn't count.
Mark Coker at Smashwords chimes in with his list of what's up and coming for 2013. Some of the more interesting are:
- #2 Unit volume of ebooks exceeds print. This is the first time I've seen the unit statistic given as the vital figure. I've talked about this a lot in previous posts, since it's always the total revenue that everyone compares, which is not a fair comparison given the discrepancy in cost of production and distribution between print and digital (and consequently the profit margin), but also because the units sold are ultimately what matter, as in, how many books are actually getting out there in front of readers' eyes? Unfortunately, these numbers have been nigh-on impossible to find, since only dollars are reported in the AAP charts. I'm with Mark on this one (he also puts ebook sales at 45% of the trade book market by next year, so we'll have to see what extent the recent plateau trend continues - it's currently hovering somewhere around the 22-25% range).
- #6 Overall ebook prices will decline. This is already happening as a result of the recent settlements and end of Agency pricing by most of the big six. With the remaining two more than likely due to settle, retailers will start an ebook pricing war, which Amazon, of course, will win. In the end this is only good news for consumers, who have had to pay some utterly ridiculous prices in the past few years (which they're stupid to pay, since it only aggravates the situation by encouraging publishers to increase their prices).
- #8 Tablets will become the new paper as E-Ink becomes niche product. Only until color E-Ink arrives. Then it's all over for LCD. And this is just a matter of time. Given the extreme long battery life of E-Ink devices, when color reflective technology reaches the point where it's cost effective, high quality with full-saturation color, and has rapid refresh rates that allow for video and gaming, then the backlit screen will disappear. When this will happen is another question altogether, since like most advancements it's just waiting for a big development in the technology, and one can never predict when that will come. But it will come eventually. It's inevitable. And in ten years' time we'll all look back and laugh at the primitive black and white era when color had to be projected with embedded lights! Computer monitors, too, by the way, will all be color e-Ink in the future, and paper thin. Now there's a prediction for you.
- #'s 9-12 all deal with the global market in one way or another, but again it's a fairly mute point: the global market has been growing steadily for the past two years as various retailers expand their reach, and it will continue to do so. It's called evolution. Get used to it. With Apple expanding the iBookstore from 19 to 50 countries in 2012, it's no big calculation to predict their market share will grow (and some competitors will subsequently decline). But to say that the iBookstore will be the breakout story of 2013 ebook retailing is a little bold. In order to consider the iBookstore a "breakout" Apple will have to more than double its current share of roughly 15% in order to be a serious contender against Amazon's current 55% share (see chart here). Of course, these are only U.S. sales stats numbers, so once the International market is factored in the story will be vastly different. Kobo, for example, isn't even figured in the mix here, whereas they're one of the major ebook retailers outside the U.S. But again, those statistics are not as easy to come by (yet). Maybe the breakout story of 2013 will be that International sales figures will start appearing in the BISG charts.
- #13 B&N will rise again like a Phoenix. Well, at least someone's on their side.
- #14 In self-pub...more money will be made in author services than book sales. Not a prediction. Already happening.
- #16 The Big 6 will become the Big 4. It's already looking like the Big 5 (pending merger approval for Random Penguin House), so what's one more? I predicted bankruptcy for one last year, and that happened, so unless they pull their heads out and restructure for the digital age it may be the Big 2 before all is said and done (and that will be Amazon and Apple, by the way, not Penguin House and Macmillon-Simon-Hachette).
- #17 Stigma of Big 6...(or whatever)...will increase as self-pub stigma evaporates. Is there still a self-pub stigma? Where? More self-pubbed authors are making millions every day, with entries into the bestselling charts increasing all the time. If there was still a stigma against self-publishing at the beginning of 2012 it's all but disappeared with the rise of E.L. James, et.al. More readers are buying independent works and more authors are jumping in to try their hand. How is that a stigma? On the other hand, I don't there ever has been, or ever will be, a stigma against traditional published works from a reader's point of view. That's only something authors must contend with, and for very different reasons than anything to do with public perception. And while some of us can see how wanting to be traditionally published is more a vanity pursuit for the sake of validation these days, it's hardly the main reason one would choose to accept a publication offer. If you're making a good income self-publishing then you've already been accepted by the common populace, and if you're not selling anything through self-pub pursuits, then there's nothing to stop you from taking up an offer. This is just a dumb prediction all in all which misses the entire point of what's going on.
- #18 EPUB will disappoint. Already has. See my post here.
- #19 Ebook subscription offerings will face uphill slog. I would say "face impossible climb." The whole subscription model for ebooks is just idiotic. While it makes perfect sense for a niche target market like O'Reilly's tech references, two huge factors stand in the way of there ever being a "Netflix" of ebooks. The first is that people can only read so many books, and if you look at the charts given in my recent post on Pew's latest stats, you'll see that the average person reads 15 books a year, with the mean being only 6. This is hardly enough to justify paying a monthly fee for access. Amazon's Prime members are no doubt pleased to have the added benefit of one free ebook a month for no extra charge, but I highly doubt they'd be willing to pay $79 a year for just that. Secondly, the publishing world is far more fragmented than the video industry, with literally millions of self-pubbed authors out there, and thousands of independents, rendering any comprehensive subscription system impossible. If the miserable state of video streaming subscriptions is any indication, ebooks don't stand a chance. Oh, and by the way, there's already a "subscription" model out there that's been pretty popular for awhile: it's called the library.
The Guardian - Our e-publishing predictions for 2013. This is not a very well thought out list, and I'm only including it because of:
- #4 re: digital publishing startups. The important point here is the last part which predicts that we'll see more self-published authors form co-ops like Awesome Indies, which is a great idea and one I'd like to see pursued. A number of self-published authors who have gone the route of establishing themselves as actual publishers (as I have done), have begun to accept and promote outside submissions (which I have not as yet), using their collective skills and manpower to present a united front in their marketing and at conventions, where they share booths and help promote each others' work. In this way they remain independent and yet united behind a common cause.- #5 Traditional publishing will become more experimental. Unlikely. Traditional publishing's answer to the self-publishing digital revolution was to buy existing vanity presses and charge exorbitant fees for services authors can either do themselves or find elsewhere at a fraction of the price. Their adoption of digital has been sluggish to put it mildly. The traditional model is too slow, too archaic, too behemoth to be innovative. And if "storygames" like Black Crown Project are any indication, what little effort they do make will fail miserably. What the heck is the Black Crown Project anyway? I defy you to discover it without having to submit your personal information for scrutiny and increased spam influx.
- #7 Publisher-led online communities... If putting social networking links on your marketing page makes it a "community," that makes every website out there an online community. Crime Vault is nothing more than a storefront for Hachette's books, with a Twitter link. At least SF Gateway has a forum, such as it is. It takes more than a comment box to build a community (see yesterday's post on Goodreads).
- #10 Amazon will be forced to file for insolvency...with the pseudo-comic postscript "All right, that last one might be a tad optimistic," which is a blind potshot with little or no thought behind it. Honestly, if people hate Amazon so much then why do they keep shopping there? Or is it just that the minority have the loudest mouths? Two things continue to annoy me about this ongoing Amazon-bashing (aside from mindlessly reactionary blathering itself), the first being the blatant hypocrisy of criticizing a successful business venture in a world where human endeavors are supposed to be applauded, and the second is that no retailer has done more to assist and support the independent spirit than Amazon with its Kindle publishing program. Apparently starting an ambitious endeavor on a shoestring against overwhelming odds is admirable...until you actually succeed at it. Jeff Bezos started Amazon in his garage with money that came primarily from his parents, with a business plan that showed no profit for at least five years (which is exactly what happened). He's smarter than me, and chances are he's far smarter than the idiot who wrote this critical "prediction."

My prediction for 2013 is simple: the future will arrive...and it will soon become the past. All we can do is try to keep up.

Goodreads Grows By Leaps & Bounds (Infographic)

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 09:44:39 PST

I love Infographics (and apparently a lot of other people do as well), so here's a new one posted on the Goodreads blog yesterday, showing how much they've grown this past year - in 2012 their numbers doubled! This is four times more growth than either Facebook or Twitter showed over the year (+125% each). Even more than Pinterest (+145%). Vastly more than Instagram (-25%).

From among the data provided, the most compelling figure given is the more than quarter-million books that have been given away to users during the year. How many social networking sites can boast a stat like that? And certainly, if you're looking for a book review, Goodreads is the place to go: with more than 20 million book reviews posted, whatever book you're looking for is pretty sure to have at least one.

And while Goodreads is not immune to fake reviews and planted promotions, you can be certain that the vast majority of these are from actual readers of the book, since that's what the site is all about. However, my main gripe there has always been with users who rate and/or review books they list as being on their "to-read" list, or which they state outright in their review that they haven't finished! Why would I want to read someone's review of half a book?! Even worse are readers who simply give books five stars because everyone else is, without adding any critical commentary of their own to the discussion. After all, Goodreads is a social networking site, not a "jump on the bandwagon" platform.

Still, you can get a general sense of what a book is like from the amalgamation of feedback given on the site, and usually there are one or two thoughtful reviews that provide real insight into a work you might be considering. And with the glut of reading material available these days - and so many other things competing for your time - choosing the right book can be a critical decision.

If you're interested in seeing how well other social networking sites are faring, check out the compendium of Infographics here for a look at further stats from 2012. In particular, the "Winners/Losers" section of one entitled "Current State of Social Networks" is interesting.

2012 By The Numbers (According to Pew)

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 16:03:39 PST

While we're having a look back at the year in passing, it might be a good time to stop and take stock of the situation. To that end, no doubt, numerous surveys and tallies will soon be forthcoming, but the first of these is this one by Pew Research, detailing current e-readership statistics in the U.S. (follow link to read the full results).

The main trend this year was a shift away from dedicated e-reading devices, such as the eInk Kindles and the Nook Simple Touch, in favor of full-featured tablet devices like the iPad and Kindle Fire. This is hardly surprising, and not entirely enlightening since the comparison is not exactly fair: last year there were far fewer tablet devices available, and thus much less competition for the dedicated devices. But this has been a general trend ever since the first iPad was released, and with every major dedicated device platform now also boasting a tablet version of that same machine, it's only natural that a certain portion of the target audience for e-readers would be drawn off in that direction. After all, you get an e-reader and a load of other features too. Historical sales have clearly shown that a large number of consumers are more than willing to pay extra for added features, even during a recession, oddly enough. And of course, now that we're emerging from that economic dip those numbers are only going to increase.

The chart above shows that over the course of 2012 U.S. ownership of some variety of e-reading tablet device increased overall from 18% to 33%, a significant increase. At the end of 2011 device distribution was split evenly between tablets and dedicated e-readers at around 10% each, while this year dedicated device ownership nearly doubled to 19%, while tablet ownership leaped to 25% - a full quarter of U.S. adults over the age of 16 now own a tablet device of brand or another.

In other findings, the overall number of book readers who now read ebooks increased from 16% to 23%, while at the same time those who read print books declined from 72% to 67% (again, counting only those over the age of 16). Interestingly, that overall number of book readers declined slightly from 78% of the population (over 16), to 75%, meaning that a full quarter of the U.S. population does not read books at all, a sad statistic if there ever was one. But then, with games and movies and apps galore to keep one occupied its hardly any wonder.

There are two additional charts on the Pew Research page that give detailed breakdowns of the demographics within the above numbers, and some of these are quite enlightening as well (useful for authors to know how and where to promote their work).

For example, among ebook readers Urban Females make up the fastest growing segment of the market, with Women leaping from 20% to 31% (+11%), while Men grew from 22% to 30% (+8%), and Urban jumping by +12% from 22% to 34% while Rural only grew by a paltry +3% from 17% to 20%. Likewise, the 16-17 and 30-49 age ranges showed the greatest ebook adoption this year, growing by 15% and 16% respectively, while the 50-64 year old bracket barely edged up by 4%, outpaced only slightly (interestingly enough) by the 18-29 age group at +6% - even the 65+ age bracket fared better at +8%! This is probably an economic issue more than anything, with twenty-somethings mainly struggling just to make ends meet these past few years.

The final chart above provides a breakdown of how many books each demographic faction reads per year, and here again there are some interesting finds. For example, Rural readers tend to consume more books each year (17) than their techno-savvy Urbanites (14), while the 65+ age bracket reads the most overall (18). So writing books for old retired farmers is the way to go, I suppose (Fifty Shades of Grey?). Not surprisingly, women tend to read more than men, at an average of 17 to men's below-average 13 (the average being 15). The mean number of books read per year is 6, meaning that half of book readers read less than this and half read more (the half that read more tend to read considerably more, thus driving the average up). Of the two extremes, 7% of Americans 16 years and older read only a single book this year (and actually confessed it), while 14% read 21 or more books during the past twelve months.

As a personal aside, I only managed to read 34 books this year (so far) - rather an off year for me, as I tend to read a book a week, more or less. But two factors enter into this, one being that I also read a ton of reference materials this year (tutorials and product guides and the like), which I generally do not count among my reading list, and secondly, many of the books I read this year were rather long - my total page count was just shy of 11,000, which is more than last year's 8900 pages, even though I read more books in 2011 (47). If I counted comic books and magazines the number would be vastly higher. I may have inadvertently neglected to add a title or two to my Goodreads page as well, but it's hard to always remember to do so.

So, as you see, these statistics charts must be taken as a very broad average of a much more complex picture. Still, it's worth a glance to have at least a general sense of the world we live in, and where it may be going.

Pending Projects for 2013

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 17:21:26 PST

Just a quick rundown of some upcoming activity in the near future...

Publication of a complete Kindle fixed-layout format tutorial, with multiple support template files (for which I've had a great many requests!), from basic image-only ebooks to complex layouts with region various magnification styles and methods
Updates to the iBooks Tutorial and Template to include changes introduced in the latest format upgrade (as per the Asset Guide 5.1)
How to create a single epub file that is compliant with both iBooks and Kindle ingestion systems, as well as all standard EPUB-based platforms
How to build a Nook fixed layout file with Replica Map for reflowable zoom pop-ups (currently not accepted by B&N for ingestion from independents, but functional for side-loading, and thus, direct sales)
Re-publication of The Complete Study Guide to Beowulf, in print and ebook (iBooks and PDF via my website, as well as a Kindle version if I can rework the formatting to fit a 7" display size)
Ongoing series of digital art tutorials based on The Ring Saga illustrated novel project, available at fantasycastlebooks.com in conjunction with my "new" author blog at www.rscotjohns.com (pending further chapter releases, to be forthcoming very soon, I promise!)

I've spent the better part of last year in learning mode, immersing myself in endless tutorials and online courses and seminars to help develop my digital art skills and teach myself how to use a lot of new software I've acquired (or had for awhile but not used), such as Lightwave 11, Modo 601, ZBrush 4R4, Postworkshop Pro 3.0, Corel Painter 12, and just recently Photoshop CS6 (upgraded from CS4 primarily so I can use the degrading brush feature for more realistic watercolor effects).

I may confine my art posts to the other blog and keep this one dealing more with the technical aspects of digital publication and ebook formatting, since that's what it seems to have morphed into. Either way I'll note any major updates in all three places (with the bulk of content being hosted on the Fantasy Castle Books website).

I haven't gotten too much into digital modeling yet, and probably won't do too much along these lines until the Ring Saga project is complete, since I have most of my models compiled and/or morphed from existing models already. I mainly needed to build some custom props that I have been unable to find for purchase, or build from spare parts found elsewhere. For example, I'm currently working on a massive Valhalla prop for Odin's hall based loosely on Nordic stave church architecture. I'm doing this as a modular construction set, and may release it on Renderosity once its complete.

In addition, I've been working on a lot of Viking-era costumes, as the ones I've purchased have been giving me no end of grief, being way out of date and far too low rez for my liking. Having learned to make my own high resolution textures I decided that I may as well learn to make the costumes themselves as well, so that I can fully customize my characters. The problem I'm now facing, of course, is in having to redo a lot of art I had thought to be completed. But this is as it must be, and the delay will be worth the wait in the end (or so I can only hope).

First up, however, are the ebook tutorial updates, since I've been harangued to no end regarding this for months now - hardly a day goes by I don't get at least a couple of requests for help from authors attempting to format their own fixed layout ebooks, and since my iBooks tutorial is a bit out of date now, and my Kindle one useful only for the region magnification features, both are in need of fleshing out.

So those are just a few things you can look forward to in 2013, sooner or later.

2012 - The Year in Review

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 09:20:01 PST

The Mayan "Doomsday" Calendar - Not!

What do you know, 12-21-12 has come and gone and the world is still here! So I suppose it's time to look ahead and make some plans for the new year. But first, we should pause and reflect on the year that has passed...

2012 has proven to be a year a enormous turmoil for the publishing world, with more upheaval than the Mayans might have ever guessed...so much so, in fact, that I stopped blogging about it back in August (after all, why bother if the world was going to end in just a few months?). In truth, the pace of change in the publishing industry has become so rapid and frantic that it's nearly impossible to keep up with. Take just these few points for example (in no particular order):

Encyclopedia Britannica goes out of print [still available digitally]
Newsweek goes goes all-digital (final print edition this week)
Three new iPads appear in a single year
.iBooks and KF8 formats are rolled out, while EPUB3 is still virtually ignored
Amazon updates the Kindle Publishing Guidelines five times
Apple updates the iBookstore Asset Guide five times
Top tablet display resolution increases from 1280x800 (160ppi) to 2560x1600 (300ppi)
Microsoft invests $300 million into Barnes & Noble with no noticeable effect on either
Apple and five of the Big 6 publishers are sued for collusion by the U.S. Dept. of Justice
eBook pricing fluctuates wildly as 4 of the 5 sued publishers settle throughout the year and Agency pricing is dropped
Google (wisely) bails out on its fledgling retail partner program (to sell virtual goods in a physical space), leaving independent bookstores hanging...
Kobo steps in to offer a new ebook program to bookstores, who still have no idea how to sell them
Kobo launches its own self-publishing portal
Penguin and Simon & Schuster invest in "self-publishing" divisions
Random House and Penguin announce their pending merger
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt files for bankruptcy (May), then buys Webster's and CliffsNotes (Nov)
Amazon strikes a print-distribution deal with HMH, but no retailers will stock their books
Jackie Collins decides to self-publish, because "publishers are in business to make money"
Self-published author E.L. James scores a 7-figure deal for her fan fiction erotica trilogy
J.K. Rowling publishes a novel for "adults" - poor ebook formatting makes it (even more) unreadable, but people buy it in droves anyway
eBook sales slow (to a modest 37% increase), but still surpass hardback print sales
Pew Research announces that U.S. tablet ownership is now 25% (Oct)
CEA announces that U.S. tablet ownership doubled in 2012 to 31% (Nov)
Forrester Research announces that U.S. tablet ownership doubled in 2012 to 19% (Dec) [huh?] - showing that no one agrees on what a tablet actually is

And these are just a few of the highlights of 2012. There was also a big storm and a moderately suspenseful election, but that doesn't concern us here. The big takeaway from this year's news events is that everything is really still up in the air. In fact, I won't even try to make any predictions about what next year will bring (well, maybe one or two...). But I will have a look at last year's predictions and see how I did [you can find that blog post here].

1. EPUB 3 will fail to heal the digital format fracture

Contrary to the wishful thinking of many independent publishers and ebook formatting professionals, this was a no-brainer for me. As I wrote in my post titled "EPUB 3: DOA" back in February, "The idea of creating an open standard that many reading systems can handle is a noble, but unrealistic goal. It's just not a practical business model." I think EPUB 3 will gain some inroads in the coming year, but will ultimately be found wanting as the code is haphazardly supported and consequently displays inconsistently across devices. There is hope, however, as several major players have announced "full" support for the EPUB 3 specification, among these being Apple's iPad. But neither Amazon nor B&N will follow suit, since their own fixed-layout formats are now well entrenched, so that only Google and Kobo offer any serious avenue for EPUB 3 to survive.

2. Conversion services flourish as pubs embrace fixed layouts

This was something of a hit and miss prediction, in that conversion services have certainly flourished over the course of the year (though fixed layouts have not), with literally hundreds - if not thousands - of new start-ups appearing from out of the woodwork, offering everything from per-word pricing to flat rate packages, as well as software applications and plug-ins that can purportedly take your basic text file and turn it into polished gold (for a fee). Most of these are bunk, but some of them offer honest work and real quality, although many are overpriced (Simon & Schuster's new "self-pub" package will set you back as much as $25,000!). I've been working for several months now (under strict confidentiality until last week) as an ebook formatting consultant for Circular Software, makers of CircularFLO, an InDesign plug-in which creates a single output file that is both EPUB 3 and KF8 compliant, with full feature sets for Kindle and iOS devices, including fixed-layout and live text region magnification (download their free sample ebook for an impressive introduction). iBooks Author appeared this year as well (even receiving a 2.0 upgrade in October), offering a simple user interface for creating complex fixed format books. Unfortunately, it's only available for Mac and the output it produces can only be sold in the iBookstore, severely limiting its appeal and functionality. So things are looking up for fixed-layout content, but it's still very much in its infancy, as formats fluctuate and develop to take advantage of their intended devices. Eventually it will all settle out, but it will take a few more years yet.

3. The Kindle 5 will have a color Mirasol/eInk screen

Wrong. This was a big disappointment in every way for me, although I'm quite impressed by the entire Kindle "5" line, including the Paperwhite, which is by far the best eInk reader yet devised (I even bought one, even though I swore I would never buy another black and white e-reader). Unfortunately, Qualcomm announced this year they were suspending development of Mirasol displays (due to high fail rates in production), and eInk has still only managed to produce pastels when the world expects fluorescent. This will come, just not as quickly as I had hoped.

4. 10" Kindle Tablet will debut at $399

Well, not exactly... The all-new, larger Kindle "tablet" debuted in September at $299, a full hundred bucks below my guess, but it's also 1.1" smaller than I predicted, at 8.9". So it's a toss-up, really. Is it a tablet? I'm guessing Pew Research thinks so, but not Forrester's. This is where things just get dicey and I give up. I mean, is an iPhone a tablet, just because it has a lot of apps? Is the Kindle HD 8.9" not a tablet because it doesn't have as many apps as Apple? Honestly, who cares. It's a device you can do a load of stuff on, and probably most of what you want to (and then some).

5. Publishers will come on board for library lending

Okay, don't even get me started! This has gotten nowhere fast, and it's just ridiculous. Simon & Schuster now boast ... count them ... one (1) title that can be borrowed in ebook format from your local library. Yep, you read that right. One. Meanwhile, Penguin (who last year pulled all ebook titles from library lending) has signed up with 3M and Baker & Taylor to make titles available in a whopping four libraries, with prices at full retail for a one year license (which is better than HarperCollins' full retail fee for every 26 transactions). This is a "test program" they say, but so tentative is its reach that it will be hard to gauge the results. Hachette, too, have rolled out a test program with two ebook distributors - with a limited number of titles to a limited number of potential patrons. And, of course, Random House caused a furor back in March when they increased their ebook fees to libraries by a staggering 300%. Not exactly "coming on board" I guess.

6. Ebook prices will increase, stabilizing into three pricing tiers

Yeah, this didn't really happen either, although for reasons no one could have anticipated. Due to the DOJ lawsuit (and subsequent settlements) this year against Apple and five publishers, Agency pricing was suspended, allowing retailers to once again determine the price (via discounts) at which that they sell their ebooks. This has actually caused overall ebook prices to go down rather than increase, although there has been a fair degree of fluctuation either way, none of it remotely resembling stability. There are, however, still a few primary prices at which ebooks tend to gather, these being the .99 cent price point (quickly losing relevance via over-saturation and high trash ratio), $2.99 (the lowest price point at which the higher royalty rates kick in), $5.99-7.99 (which seems to be the sweet spot for independents and popular back-list titles), and above ten bucks (where the "pros" congregate and charge what they will to those who will pay whatever is asked because they don't know any better and only read what everyone else reads anyway). This latter can range all the way up to an astonishing $17.99 or better, for a work you can often find in print for less at big box retailers - and which will be half that (if not forgotten) a year from now. Which goes to show that what people pay most for is celebrity. Which is why actors and athletes get paid millions while bricklayers and coal miners eat dust.

7. A self-pubbed author will reach the N.Y.T. Top 10 with a $9.99+ title

Fifty Shades of Grey anyone? This hit #1 in March after nearly a year of building momentum, with the second book hitting #8 the same week, upon which it was immediately picked up by Knopf Doubleday and held the top three spots for 25 weeks. I don't know what the retail price was for the ebook before Knopf stepped in, but it was $9.99 after that. Still, it began life as self-published fan fiction, and sold 250,000 copies before reaching #1. And while most self-published hits don't command the over $10 price point, they hit the Top 10 more often these days nonetheless. Forbes did a piece on just this phenomenon two weeks ago, listing other self-pubbed successes such as Stephanie Bond, Bella Andre, and Colleen Hoover, a Smashwords author who hit #8 on the NYT bestseller list before being picked up by Atria Books. Again, I don't know what her retail price was, but being a Smashwords title I imagine it was fairly low - $2.99 at most. The trend, however, is that an increasing number of self-published authors find legitimate success in terms of sales (which equals readers), and generally a publishing contract follows.

8. Ebooks will account for 50% of the trade book market by year's end

Not quite. However, there is growing confusion about what this number actually is. The latest "official" statistics place it at around 25% to maybe 30%, but it could be more (or less), depending on who's counting, and what they count. The thing is that only a fraction of publishers actually report their sales data to the AAP (Association of American Publishers), who "officially" tally this stuff, as well as the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), who look into it. But I don't report my sales figures to them, even though I'm officially a publisher, with Fantasy Castle Books filed as a sole proprietorship back in 2008. That's somewhere around 2200 ebook sales this year not counted in the "official" tally. Publishers Global lists 2660 publishing houses in America (though I'm not one of them), although only 1189 report their sales data to the AAP, leaving 1471 listed publishers unaccounted for in the sales stats, not counting all the self-pubbed authors out there selling ebooks. One wonders if those quarter-million self-pubbed Shades of Grey sales got on record. Finally, it also depends on whether you're using individual sales or total revenue as your percentage value. After all, ebooks are by far less expensive then print books overall, so if one print book sells at ten bucks but five ebooks sell at .99 cents, then ebooks make up roughly 33% of the market by revenue ($4.95 out of $14.95 total sales), but 83.3% of the overall market by volume (5 books out of six sold). The truth is somewhere in between the two, although you can look at it either way.

9. Major trade publisher files for bankruptcy

Check. That would be Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. But the troubles aren't far behind for several others, among them PenguinHaus, whose pending merger smells fishy and desperate to me. While this will inherently make them the largest publishing house in the world, it will also complicate their pipeline, render a portion of the staff redundant, and remove one avenue for authors to get their work published, meaning that the two houses together will inevitably produce less output than they currently do apart. This will only fuel the self-pub frenzy as fewer legitimate authors find plausible opportunity pursuing the traditional route.

10. An all-new breed of e-book emerges

Not yet. I'm waiting for someone to come up with something really clever, something no one else has thought of, or implement available features in a new and unexpected way. But for the time being I think everyone's just trying to figure out how to make what we have work before they change it and we have to start over. The Choose Your Own Adventure book series got a 21st century revamp this year, with the titles being refreshed and rolled out in hyper-linked eBook format. But that's not exactly new and exciting, is it? More interesting is what Coliloquy are doing with episodic content creation, where readers can input feedback on a current section which is then compiled and transmitted to the author for use in creating the next episode. But like most trending fads, it's unlikely this will last and become a standard practice. What I want to see is an ebook that takes advantage of digital technology's interwoven audiovisual capability to produce an all new breed of book, something that is not a "book" - and yet is still a book. But we're all still stuck with our page-turning preconceptions of what a book is supposed to be, so this might not come for some time yet. It might also take some coding skills that most of us just don't have (or current devices can support). But creativity will always find a way.

That about sums it up. All in all a very hectic year. Looking forward to what 2013 will bring.

New Blog

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 12:43:03 PDT

I started this blog in late 2008 as a way to document my "adventures" in independently publishing my first novel. This included everything from the post-content creation phase through production, promotion, and sales tracking. Beginning at just around that time the publishing industry began to change in very substantial ways, first with the advent of print on demand and then the rapid explosion of digital self-publishing.

Consequently, since then I've been focused primarily on trying to keep up with the rapidly evolving landscape of the publishing world, and this blog has gotten more and more technically involved and less about the creative process than I had originally planned once that first book was put to bed.

In addition, my own creative process has changed enormously with the inclusion of illustrated graphics in my ongoing Ring Saga project, an addition which has greatly increased the burden of technology in my life. Producing text-only books is a simple process by comparison to the creation of a fully illustrated graphic novel, particularly in digital format. This is why I've been so focused here on ebook production over the past year or so. And I intend to continue working on those aspects of independent publishing, and talking about it here.

But I've also decided to start a new blog to document and discuss the creative side of book production, from developing story ideas to struggling with plot complications and character flaws. Things book readers would be more interested in than how to format a Kindle ebook, like why I had a particular character make a particular choice, or what color should the Fafnir dragon be. Those elements just don't seem to fit this blog audience, which has grown over the years into an eclectic group of tech-focused authors and ebook creators, rather than readers of my own creative work, who I fear I have somewhat alienated here. Hopefully the new blog will rectify that, and give those readers a place to go.

In the menu above you'll find a link to this new, as-yet-untitled, content-focused blog at rscotjohns.com. I suppose I'll just call it "Scot's Other Blog."

The Ring Saga Archives

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 14:56:24 PDT

I've spent the past few weeks loading content back onto the Fantasy Castle Books website, and now have nearly a hundred pages of resources for the further study and enjoyment of both Beowulf and the Ring cycle matter, including over a hundred individual files you can download for free in a variety of formats. There are links from bookshelf collections on each page like the one seen above, some leading to other shelves with additional titles to dive into.

This is only about half of what I've got, and many of the bookshelf titles in the Ring cycle portion of the site have no links yet, but that's about as far as I'm going to go for now, as I need to get back to work on creating original content for The Ring Saga, which I've put off for far too long. I'll add more resources to the site as I find time, but for anyone interested in the Old Norse sagas and mythology there's plenty there to delve into. There are also a fair number of pages devoted to my own creative work, including both art and story content, and more will be added there as I find time as well. As always, the front page of the site will list any new additions, and I may also start mentioning them here.

If there are any particular areas not yet available on the website that you're interested in, let me know and I'll push it to the top of my priority list. I know some of you have shown an interest in other, earlier retellings of the Ring cycle story so I'll add a page with links to some of that, as well as the Arthur Rackham illustrations I had promised. For those of you in the Old Norse study group make sure you check out the Elder Edda and Volsunga Saga pages, as they have links to download a lot of the "Comparative Study" editions I put together.

Click the image above to go directly to the Ring Saga Research page, or click the Fantasy Castle Books tab at the top to hit the main page of the website. And as always, I welcome any feedback, comments, questions, or issues you may have. Just drop a note here or via the Contact page on the site.

By the way, I've added sample chapters of my books that you can download in three formats, and you can now once again read the entire first chapter of The Ring Saga online, plus some shorter online excerpts from The Saga of Beowulf. Just hit the Samples page for the online stuff or go to the Bookstore for the downloadable files.

And lastly, if you haven't taken advantage of the free ebook offer yet, you can still get any one of my titles free until the end of the month. Even if you've already got them, downloading from the Fantasy Castle Bookstore will get you automatic membership status with access to restricted content and all future upgrades, as well as all available formats of that title now and in perpetuity, so no matter what e-reader you use in the future you will always be able to read the ebooks you get directly from my website.

The Saga of Beowulf Archives

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 12:04:18 PDT

I have finally completed rebuilding The Saga of Beowulf portion of the online Archives, or at least as much of it as I could dredge up from the wreckage of the previous website. There are four levels of menus, each featuring a bookshelf filled with resources for the study and enjoyment of either the original Beowulf poem or my novelization of it - just click on a bookshelf item to open it. These range from outlines and story summaries to chronologies and genealogies not found in the novel, as well as maps, detailed glossaries and a handful of downloadable texts, including my original feature film screenplay. There is video and audio content, high-resolution artwork, and a few additional hidden bonus features. In addition, there is an Art Gallery, with six clickable artist easels featuring artwork created for the novel, each of which take you to a page with notes and alternate artwork.

I will now turn my attention to The Ring Saga, reconstructing the Archive I had started for that project. Once the resources for chapter one are up I'll begin posting materials for the new chapters as I complete them. You can currently get Chapter 1: Theft of the Rhinegold as a free download, but only until the end of the month. After that each new chapbook will be posted as a limited edition offer. There will also be a members-only area with bonus content not included in the print or ebook editions. Membership is granted automatically with the purchase of any book from the Fantasy Castle Books website, including the free ebooks currently available through the 31st.

Fantasy Castle Bookstore Grand Opening

noreply@blogger.com (R. Scot Johns) — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 21:18:33 PDT

At long last, and after many trials and tribulations, the new bookstore is up and running. And in celebration of that fact I'm giving away a free ebook to anyone who wants one. Just head over to the new website by clicking on the menu link above and use the coupon code "Free Ebook" to get one free title of your choice.

The bookstore offers both print and digital editions, and each have special benefits only available by purchase through this website. All print editions are autographed by the author and include a complementary bookmark featuring artwork from the cover of the title purchased, as well as the ebook edition for no extra charge. Digital editions are DRM-free and include all available formats for a single price, as well as any future updates and revisions. These will generally include the Kindle edition, an ePub version and a PDF, at the least. See the FAQ page for more info regarding ebook formats.

The new website is still a work in progress, and very likely will be for some time to come, as I continue to uncover archival materials that were lost in the move from the old website. Only time will tell how much I'll find, but I'll keep adding to it as I come across things in my search and find time to post them up. For now, there is some artwork in the gallery, which you can access by clicking on The Art of Beowulf in the Archive bookshelf.

The newest updates to the site will always be posted on the front page in the "Latest New & Updates" section, or you can subscribe to receive email updates or via RSS feed.

Finally, for a limited time I am offering for sale handmade chapbooks of the Theft of the Rhinegold, the first chapter in The Ring Saga. Additional chapbooks will be offered as they are completed until the final book is finished, at which time the individual chapbooks will be withdrawn from print. Digital editions are available as well for just .99 cents each. Stay tuned for Chapter 2 coming soon!