Ha! Figured out the format fix for MOBI files, so now have beautiful EPUB, MOBI and PDF files up at Smashwords for the guinea-pig chapbook. Add that to figuring out how to disable the various other dud e-formats, and we’re sailing pretty close to perfection here, people.
Have also been trying out various ‘make your own EPUB files’ mechanisms available on the web (do a Google search, there are quite a few) and so far all have fallen short of the Smashwords standards. The most promising was saving the formatted Word doc as an RTF file and converting it to EPUP/MOBI via Calibre. The result was certainly usable/readable and looked pretty good throughout – except for links. All the internal and external links got somehow deformed and de-activated. So I’m still swearing by Smashwords.
So, Nic. What’s your solution to the long lines issue? Do you have a view yet on the strophe conundrum?
My biggest issue with ePub and poetry is that poetry (on the page) is as much about the space as it is about the words. And there’s no way of knowing how your reader is going to access the chapbook – the kindle experience is very different to the iPad experience, which is lightyears away from the cellphone experience.
(is kindle still insisting on adding extra whitespace after every paragraph break? That one drove me nuts for a while)
I’m still not convinced poetry can be well-served by the ebook formats – apart from .pdf, of course – not until there are some standards set for how reading devices handle the underlying coding (ebooks are just fancy html docs, after all).
Just put up a post answering the question, Rik: http://bit.ly/eb9uDU
What is ‘the strophe conundrum’? I commend this post to you for other e-poetry – solutions: http://bit.ly/ePK9Ar
Best and thanks for stopping by, Nic
Yay! Glad you’ve found the solution. I really like Smashwords. Sold a lot copies of my novel there.
I found you there on my first day! I’m really enjoying the Smashwords experience – it’s quite a platform.