Support Forums : Message List - cebpubs

Re: courier on Kindle

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:38:39 +0000

Enclosing text in courier magically appears tags will cause it display in a typewriter font, which is either courier or something very much like it. However, you have to use the tags for each paragraph, as Kindle will revert to the default font at the first

tag it encounters. If your book is showing up in courier, I'd suspect that whatever converted it to html has inserted these tags, or possibly if it was converted directly from Word the Kindle converter added the tags.

Re: Basics of publishing in Kindle

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:23:57 +0000

iUniverse contracts allow relatively easy cancellation. As to the cover, unless you supplied the graphic, no, you can't use it, and if you did supply the graphic, you still can't use the composited cover, only the part you supplied, which would usually just be the background without any text. You own the copyright on the book itself, but iU, just like any other publisher, owns the copyright on the parts they created, including the cover. Granted, once you cancel, the cover isn't of much use to them, so you can always ask for permission to use it, but you really do need to have that in writing just in case they decide to get picky. Now, as we've been discussing here recently, a striking cover design doesn't seem to be the biggest factor in Kindle sales. I do quite well with very generic covers. Given that the first view most Amazon users have of the cover is that little thumbnail, readability in a reduced form often wins out over something that looks great full size but reduces to a colorful blur as a thumbnail.

Re: Making a book cover.

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:02:07 +0000

The best selling book in my line (62 copies so far this year, 315 last year) has a cover consisting of a plain, greenish background with the title in the upper third, and a black border around the whole thing to set it off from the background on the sales page. I think what's more important for digital book covers is that the thumbnail view is clear. On trade books, you want a cover that's striking enough for people to pick up the book and, perhaps more importantly, for book store employees to want to stock it with the cover showing and not the spine. Online products are always displayed with the cover showing. Of course, I'm more or less forced to admit that the most obvious way to boost sales is to have a good description, and, perhaps even more important, have a title that sounds "dirty." One of the things people like about the Kindle and other digital book readers is that you can read them in public and there's no garish cover letting the other people on the plane know that you're reading [i]Hot High School Cheerleaders[/i] or something equally embarrassing. Anyway, for my company, I've created most of the covers in an old version of PaintShop Pro (from well before Corel bought out Jasc). I [i]could [/i]get a lot fancier, but sales suggest that it probably isn't that important.

Re: Upload Error Message: No BODY tag found in content file

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:12:56 +0000

The problem with the leading space is only with the opening declaration. Once you're past that, the system doesn't really care. As I recall, the last time this came up there was an unclosed declaration or tag inside the section, so the system was treating everything after that as part of the tag and not finding the tag. The first thing to check is usually to see if a > is missing anywhere before the body tag.

Re: The new pricing model

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:04:36 +0000

I stopped not so much because no one was following the links as because their affiliate program was such a complete pain in the butt when it came to linking particular titles. If the government stays out of it, I think they can avoid the gas pedal. It's about a 99% percent chance the real reason Toyota replaced a $3.00 cable with $300.00 worth of electronics was an EPA prompted desire to smooth out acceleration and save that extra .001 mpg.

Re: Digital Rights Management

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:51:04 +0000

In a public domain work with commentary, the editor/publisher/commentator owns the copyright in the newly-created material, but can assert no claim as far as the p/d text itself. The copyright statement should indicate which material rights are being claimed for, just as you have to do on a copyright registration application when part of the work consists of previous published material. Now, if the book contains new, copyright material, there's certainly nothing wrong with using DRM. There really isn't anything wrong with using it even if the book is entirely p/d material, because you still have a right to protect your work in editing and formatting the ebook. The "I can lend a printed book" argument is invalid, as the acts are entirely different. If you loan someone your paperback copy of [i]Raging Hormones[/i], the same book has moved on to a new reader, but there is still only one book, and as the purchaser you have every right to loan it out. If you loan them the same work as an ebook, in the majority of cases you haven't really loaned the book, you've published a new copy, which you have zero right to do. B&N has addressed this issue by utilizing a method that locks the original purchaser out of the original ebook if he "loans" it to someone else, and he can't read it himself until it's returned or the loan period expires and the book is no longer readable on the borrower's unit. The value of DRM is precisely that it transforms an ebook into an electronic equivalent of a printed book, which is only physically transferable. By not using DRM you are, in effect, giving every purchaser a license to distribute as many copy as they like. This happens quickly enough as it is, even with books where no electronic version was ever released (look on the ebook groups on UseNet and note how easy it is to find Harry Potter books), but I see no good reason to make it any easier on the pirates.

Re: It's been six days, why is my book still under review?

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:32:54 +0000

From their website, there's no evidence that Apple's bookstore has any interest in signing up anyone. Of course, they may end up like Sony, happily signing you up to provide content when they're ready, then leaving you to sit waiting for a couple years because they're [i]not [/i]ready yet if your family name doesn't happen to be Penguin.

Re: How to translate/transform existing paperbacks to KINDLE?

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:24:45 +0000

Logic suggests that the only pdfs that would be likely to format correctly through DTP would be those that wouldn't work very well as a printed book. That is, no headers, footers, page numbers, etc., just straight text with the absolute minimum of formatting.

Re: Tax Forms

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:13:20 +0000

The deadline for mailing 1099s, W2s, or anything else of that sort is always January 31. With normal mail service, you should have them by the end of the week if you're getting them. Note also that, in general, 1099s are filed and mailed only to individuals, using a Social Security number as a tax ID, or an EIN for a schedule C company (that is, a sole proprietorship filing Form 1040). Corporations, which will always have an EIN and never an SSN, file Form 1120, and are expected to keep track of their own earnings. They don't get 1099s because corporate income is usually taxed when earned, and not when received, so a 1099 recording payments made between Jan 1 and Dec 31 would be showing income for part of the previous tax year and fail to show income for the last part of the current tax year.

Re: Can I or can't I use PDFs to upload my files?

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:30:56 +0000

If you have the full version of Acrobat, you can simply open the first file, then add the second to the end, and so on, eventually ending up with a single file that contains all the rest in order. This is one method commonly used to produce the interior block for print books, which these days are mostly printed from PDFs. I'd suggest saving the first under a different name before you start appending the others, of course, so that way you'll still have the original in its unedited form. If you don't have Acrobat, it might be harder, but any good PDF creator/editor should have the ability to add pages.