Posts Tagged ‘Kindle’

Should I Write Customized Books?

October 29, 2011

This week I succeeded, after considerable struggle, to create ebooks for Prostate Cancer and the Veteran. Now, people who have a Kindle or a Nook or another device, including a PC with ebook software, have this book available to them—and at a lower cost than the print version. I won’t go into the gory details of converting a print book to an ebook but converting to the Kindle was easier than converting to the Nook (ePub format). I won’t bother with other formats unless there is demand for them. Also, I understand that some devices have software that allows them to read books in Kindle or Nook format.

Writing this short book and creating print and ebook versions along with receiving requests for information on various Carlisle players has caused me to think about making little books on individual players or families of brothers who played. Each book would contain the three introductory chapters that provide background on the Carlisle program, the team and Pop Warner. That would be followed by a chapter or chapters on the player or players being covered in the book. Ebooks could also be created when requested.

I don’t plan on charging off on a project to create any individual player books but will seriously consider it if enough people request them. So, if you’re interested in a single player or family of players, let me know. Otherwise, I won’t know that there is anyone out there interested in a book on a specific player. I could also create books based on a specific relationship. Two that come to mind are Carlisle Indians in the NFL and the Carlisle Indian School – Washington State College Connection.

As I said before, if there are no requests, I must assume that there is no interest.

Ebook Created for Carlisle Indian School Football Immortals

January 5, 2009

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.

a brief introduction

Carlisle Indian School Football Immortals: a brief introduction

A Brave, New Technology for the New Year

January 2, 2009

My New Year starts off with learning a new technology. ebooks are all the rage now, or so we’re told. What is an ebook you say? It’s an electronic book. Instead of lugging pounds of paper around with us, we’re now able to carry a lightweight electronic appliance that stores words as binary digits instead of in ink on paper. I say words because the first generation of these devices does not handle graphics well and color not at all. The advantages of ebooks are many: lower cost per book ($10 is the price on many new releases), ability to search the book as easily as other computer documents, font scaling to make larger type immediately available to these aging eyes, portability, and ease of acquisition. Amazon.com markets a device they call the Kindle, perhaps because they think it will light the fire for this new technology. Included with the device is Whispernet, a wireless broadband network that supports one-click purchase of new books – from Amazon, of course. Before thinking that the Kindle is the cheap razor for which Amazon sells the blades, consider the price. At $359 (down from $400), they ain’t cheap but are almost continually out of stock. New and refurbished units are available on eBay but few are bargains.

Leading competitors for Kindle include the Sony Reader Digital Book PRS-700 and Mobipocket eBook Reader. According to Sony, its device is the first one to use the EPUB international standard for ebook publication. The Mobipocket Reader runs on devices ranging from desktop computers to cell phones as well as things in between. The Mobipocket format purportedly runs on or can readily be converted to run on Amazon and Sony devices. I’ll find out more this weekend.

Next time I’ll share my experience preparing one of my writings for this brave, new world.