This weekend was productive – maybe. Walt Shiel offered some advice on converting print books to ebook format on a small publishers forum. The first step was to open an rtf file containing the book in question with Microsoft Word. Fortunately for me, Keevin Graham, the graphic designer who lays out my books, had already provided me with an rtf of Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs. The second step was to save the book as Web Page, Filtered, which produces an html file. So far, so good. The third step was to open the html file with Notepad and save it again, thus eliminating the “secret codes” Word embeds in documents. The resulting file was ready to import into Mobipocket’s ebook creator (available free on the Mobipocket site). There was one small glitch. Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs has a number of photos, illustrations and tables, items which ebooks don’t display well and which require considerable manual manipulation. FWIW, Keep A-goin’: the life of Lone Star Dietz has a lot more, a factor which will keep it from being converted into an ebook for some time. The illustrations are such an integral part of that book that I’m reluctant to publish an ebook of it without them.
My solution to the problem was to create a new book from Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs that includes only the background/overview chapters and none of the players’ biographies. Also, at 160,000 words some find the entire book too long and detailed for their taste. Carlisle Indian School Football Immortals: a brief introduction provides the key information about the history of the Carlisle football program and will be of interest to those who are not interested in reading about the individual players. Even this conversion required a lot of manual HTML coding because of all the illustrations and tables are a particular headache. After some “learning experiences” with the Mobibook creator, a prc file was created and uploaded to the Mobipocket site. The prc file was also converted by the Amazon.com Kindle converter and uploaded to its site. I’m waiting to hear back from Sony.
For those who become interested in the players or seeing better quality illustrations after reading the ebook, Tuxedo Press is giving ebook buyers free shipping on print books purchased from them. The net result is that the ebook cost is essentially being refunded because its list price is only $4.99 and Amazon.com is currently offering the Kindle version for $3.99.
Carlisle Indian School Football Immortals: a brief introduction
Tags: ebook conversion, Kindle, Mobipocket, Walt Shiel
Tom Benjey's Weblog 
January 6, 2009 at 12:28 am |
Whether an e-book with graphics/photos works well depends on many things, but they can be done well. We recently completed (for Kindle) two kids’ books for a client with a couple dozen illustrations in each. Came out pretty good. We’ve also done books with photos that came out OK.
For formats other than Kindle (MOBI, EPUB, PDF, etc.), even full-color graphics/photos can work fine.
Sometimes, you do have to fiddle with the graphics a bit and it also helps to proof them on the intended platform.
Walt Shiel
Managing Partner, Five Rainbows Services for Authors and Publishers
February 1, 2011 at 9:56 am |
I am interested in this book and want to buy but no very knowledgeable regarding ebooks and down loading. Any help?
February 3, 2011 at 8:07 am |
I haven’t done much with ebooks other than make some small books available for Kindle. You acquire one of these books just like you get any other book for the Kindle by purchasing it it from Amazon.com and downloading it to the Kindle. The folks at Amazon.com or wherever you bought your Kindle should be able to assist you with the downloading process.