Self Pubishing

Discussion in 'Self-Publishing' started by fjm3eyes, Apr 6, 2018.

  1. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Given how easy it is to go with all of the major formats once you’ve got the damned thing complete and in a Word document, why wouldn’t you just do that?
     
  2. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Look at your own response to my perfectly reasonable point and see where the hostility came from... it was you who started throwing your dummy and stropping off because someone disagreed with you.

    There's no belittlement here - just trying to give the OP (and anyone else reading) some useful advice based on my experience.. i.e that Pdf is not an especially sensible place to start since it is the hardest to distribute.
     
  3. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Yay ...
     
  4. Ksenia Tomasheva

    Ksenia Tomasheva Member

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    oh, yeah. It looks like they have all tools in place for converting your book from doc to Kindle format, so I see no issues at all... Will try it tonight on one of my books
     
  5. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    You may find that there's a problem with it not keeping break lines (if you've used them to separate sections) if that happens you may need to put a dash or similar in instead... this seems to be an issue with some versions of word and not others so its a try it and see thing
     
    Ksenia Tomasheva likes this.
  6. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Moose is quite positive on self publishing. Your rant should be aimed at someone who’s mostly opposed to it, like, say, me. But I’m fairly sure I had the sense to stay out of this thread, up to but not including now.
     
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  7. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    I didn't mean which programme would you use to create the PDF, but where you'll offer it for sale? Friends and family is one thing, but you say you'll be marketing "on the Web." Where can you offer PDF books for sale? Not the websites most readers go to.
     
  8. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Have I got this right? A PDF document can't be changed in any way?

    I know I acquired (for free) a couple of heritage reproduction books on Amazon a while back that were for Kindle. I was all excited ...till I tried to read them on my Kindle. I couldn't, because the type was way too small and couldn't be enlarged without cutting the body of the type in half vertically, meaning a constant sideways scrolling was needed to read the thing. I suspect these were PDF.

    If that's the case, there isn't any point in producing a book in PDF to be read on any kind of electronic media, is there?
     
  9. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    PDFs have worked fine on my Kindle, though I'm not sure I changed the font size.

    When you say you suspect they were PDFs... they probably weren't, unless you uploaded them to your Kindle through your email. I don't think there's another way to get PDFs onto your Kindle.
     
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  10. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Well I'm not sure. All I know is that they were unreadable. I could zoom in on the print but I couldn't change the print size. This would indicate scanned pages rather than text 'conversion,' wouldn't it? Very weird and annoying. I assumed this was done in PDF, because I had previously tried exporting one of my own documents to Kindle via PDF format, and the same thing happened. The stuff appeared on the Kindle and the print size couldn't be altered.
     
  11. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    you can use book funnel to deliver pdfs to kindle devices (or other ereaders), but its a bit pointless given how easy it is to generate a mobi or epub .. I've seen non fiction authors offer their books as pdf downloads through their own websites - generally due to the issues with amazon and their minimum charge policy (Ie if your book as lots of pics and is thus a large file its difficult to make it free or cheap) but I don't think 'I've ever seen a fiction author make it their only option
     
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  12. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    That sort of thing is common on sites like 4chan that have books as pdf in violation of copyright
     
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  13. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Both of the books that had this issue contained illustrations. Maybe that was the reason. I can't remember if I got them for free or for a very nominal sum. I deleted them from my account, and didn't ask for a refund, so I think they were probably free. I do remember writing a review for one of them, though, detailing the problem. It sticks in my mind that it was the story of Robin Hood, illustrated by Howard Pyle. It was the Pyle illustrations that made me want the book, and buying a genuine edition of the book would be way above my means. So I was excited about being able to get it on Kindle ...till I realised I might as well have bought it on a postage stamp.

    I just found my review. It's interesting that NOBODY else mentioned any issues with the Kindle when doing reviews. The book cost just over £2, so I didn't try to get a refund. I'm wondering why I had the problem. It's not as if I don't understand how to get and reformat Kindle books. It's just that this one wouldn't play. robin.png
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2018
  14. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    Oh gosh, yes. Both Kindle books I have with illustrations are a NIGHTMARE. The text is so small it's barely readable, but I can't zoom. I bought a third book which spelled out very clearly that the Kindle version does NOT have the illustrations the paper version has. All three were trade published, so I get the overall impression that this is a Kindle problem rather than user error, and they just aren't set up for illustrations right now.
     
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  15. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    If you bought it on Amazon I don't think it's a PDF - it's probably just a crappy mobi

    Can anyone contradict this? Does Amazon ever sell PDFs?
     
  16. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    I'm pretty sure Amazon only sell .mobi for Kindle version, though I wasn't sure if @jannert meant she had bought from a third-party seller.
     
  17. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Actually, I've been reading up, and apparently what we download from Amazon ISN'T .mobi? That's the best format to upload, apparently, but then they swish it through some conversion process and turn it into their own proprietary format? AZW?

    I don't know. Probably not PDF, though!
     
  18. Ksenia Tomasheva

    Ksenia Tomasheva Member

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    Obviously, Amazon has books from the third-paryy pubs, not only KDP ones in its store (I just figured it out yesterday, when didn't find neither Ukrainian, nor Russian languages among supported by KDP ones and asked this question to support. In Amazon store you can though find pretty big number of books in these languages). Thus, I assume that these third-party books could be made in a wrong way... Or, which I've seen a lot with old books, the scanned pages were just inserted into a doc as images and then converted to mobi.
     
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  19. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Like, in its BOOKSTORE it has non-Kindle formats? As your last line indicates, they tend to be converted to mobi, don't they?

    (Not sure if the "Obviously" was meant to be snarky or it's just a language thing, so I'll assume just language. For future reference, in English, starting with "Obviously" kinda equates to starting with "You're stupid". Not ideal!)
     
  20. Ksenia Tomasheva

    Ksenia Tomasheva Member

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    It was rather "I was stupid" to think that everything that is listed in Amazon store is made using their tools, and now I know it's not necessarily so ;) thanks for explanation! :)
     
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  21. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    It sure would seem they do.
    https://www.amazon.com/Books-PDF/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n:283155,p_n_feature_browse-bin:699208011&tag=writingfor07a-20

    ETA for the general discussion:
    You can check the format of an ebook from your
    kindle, if it is plugged into your computer with the
    charging cable. And you can find some ways of
    transferring your ebooks onto your computer, as
    well as converting them into different formats
    (though you have to look online to convert .mobi
    into a .doc, for instance).

    So it should be possible to convert a PDF book, into
    a format that will work better on your Kindle, and
    all you would have to do is transfer the converted
    version back to your Kindle, via the cable connected
    to your devices. :) (In Theory)
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2018
  22. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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  23. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    My mistake then. Though you can buy a CD with a PDF book on it.
    Not sure why they would have PDF as a format when they don't
    actually provide them in said format. Pretty weird...
     
  24. Edward M. Grant

    Edward M. Grant Contributor Contributor

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    In my experience, .epub is the best format to upload, because it seems to get the least munging before being sent out to readers. But Amazon's use of random, proprietary formats is a huge headache: took months to figure out why my books had suddenly lost their indents on iOS devices a year or two back. Hint: Amazon decided to reconvert the books into yet another new Amazon format that was only used on iOS at the time, and screwed them up in the process.
     

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