(Your EPUB Formatting Butler)

Frank Sergeant

copyright © 2012-2014 Frank Sergeant

all rights reserved

The companion book (Mobi Machine) was secretly dedicated to Amy. This book is dedicated to Julie, Amy’s darker sister. While Amy is writing and publishing for Amazon’s Kindle, Julie is very suspicious of eBooks, especially Kindle. She prefers to publish in a more universal format: EPUB. I love Amy and Julie, so I had to write a book for each of them.

EPUB Machine (Your EPUB Formatting Butler) is the second of the three user manuals for the Nepo Press web-based book formatting system. We might call the system EPUB Machine when making EPUB files, Mobi Machine when making Mobi files, and PDF Machine when making “camera-ready” PDF files for printing paperback books. The same system does all three. This book focuses on how to make EPUB files (eBooks) for the Barnes & Noble NOOK and NOOK Apps, Kobo eReaders, Apple’s iBooks—just about every eReader except Kindle—showing you everything you need to know to get started. If you want to create EPUB eBooks, this is the book to start with.

For making Mobi files (for Amazon Kindle and Kindle Apps), start with Mobi Machine (Your Kindle Formatting Butler). These two manuals contain essentially the same information—once you have read one, you probably do not need the other. Pick based on whether your primary interest is EPUB or Mobi.

After you have read one of these manuals, you are ready to make eBooks, but you’ll probably want to read the third manual, Advanced Mobi and EPUB Machines, eventually. It covers advanced formatting techniques including how to make “camera-ready” PDF files for publishing and selling printed books through CreateSpace and Amazon.

For self-publishers, EPUB Machine hits the sweet spot with the best combination of high quality, low cost, ease of use, and flexibility.

What do you need? You need a computer with a web browser, a word processor or text editor, an internet connection, and a Nepo Press book account at nepotism.net/formatting (you can start with a free trial account). You don’t need to install any software. Your same manuscript will work for Mobi files, EPUB files, and PDF files, giving you “one-stop” formatting with nearly instant turn-around. Format your books on your schedule, not someone else’s. No limit to the number of revisions, so fixing typos or changing your list of “Other Books by This Author” can be done whenever you wish.

If you are using the Nepo Press service, or planning to use it, this is the “missing manual” to help get you oriented and up to speed quickly.

The trick is to add simple, visible markup to your manuscript then feed that to the EPUB Machine. The result is a professional looking eBook, without the formatting errors so commonly seen in self-published books.

The EPUB Machine has gone through several stages of evolution.

The first generation required an author to (a) download, install, and configure several pieces of software, and (b) switch from a word processor to a text editor.

Gentle (and not so gentle) feedback suggested that authors did not enjoy either requirement, although there were exceptions.

In the next generation, we eliminated the need to switch to a text editor, but the burden of installing the software remained.

Finally, in the current generation, that burden has been lifted. Instead of every author installing the software on his local machine, we install the software on the Nepo Press server. Now an author uploads his manuscript through a web browser, clicks a button, and downloads the resulting EPUB file.

This has the additional advantage that the author never needs to re-install software to upgrade the system. We do all of that in a central location. The next time the author connects to the web site, the new software is available automatically.

We wanted to make the Nepo Press formatting service as close to “one-stop formatting” as possible. Previously, an author could make both Mobi files (Amazon Kindle) and EPUB files (B&N, Apple, Kobo, etc.), but what about paperback books? The current generation solves that problem also. The touch of a PDF button now produces a “camera-ready” PDF for publishing paperback books through CreateSpace.

So, the EPUB Machine is also a Mobi Machine and a PDF Machine, but the focus of this book is on making EPUB eBooks (for everything except the Amazon Kindle eReaders and Kindle Apps).

This is the very system Nepo Press uses to format its own books and we look forward to sharing it with you.

You will need a Nepo Press book account to use with this book. If you don’t have a book account yet, you can set up a two-week trial account for free. Email frank@nepotism.net with the exact title of your book and the author name (pen name or multiple authors are OK.)

First, thank you! I appreciate your taking the time to consider the EPUB Machine system for creating eBooks.

The EPUB Machine is a dedicated EPUB file maker. It turns your manuscript into an EPUB 3 file suitable for reading on almost all eReaders and eReader apps except for the Amazon Kindle, or for publishing and selling on Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, etc. As a by-product, it also makes an HTML version for reading in a web browser.

It not only makes an EPUB file, it automatically runs EpubCheck on it so you can be sure it meets the EPUB 3 standard, helping you to get your book accepted by Apple, B&N, etc., on the first try.

It is simple to use and produces great looking eBooks.

This is the system we use to format books for Nepo Press.

The secret is simple, explicit markup.

Experience keeps a dear school,
but fools will learn in no other — Franklin

The general publishing process starts with your manuscript. In times past, you might have written it in longhand or on a manual or electric typewriter. Then you would send it to your editor or publisher. Eventually, hopefully, it would reach the typesetter who would turn it into a beautifully laid-out book.

As you were writing your manuscript, you would add notes or clues to it to communicate to the typesetter how you wanted different parts of your book formatted. You would underline words the typesetter should set in italics. The underlines would not appear in the printed book; they just served as clues to the typesetter.

Similarly, you would leave a blank line between paragraphs and start each chapter on a new page, centering its heading on a line by itself.

For a figure or diagram or photo, you would draw an arrow and put a note in the margin, “picture of author goes here.”

In this fashion, as you were writing, you would mark up your manuscript to give the typesetter the clues needed to format your book.

Note that this markup was visible to the naked eye. Of course it was; that was the only way to do markup in longhand or on a typewriter.

In our modern electronic era things have changed somewhat though not all that much. You use a computer now instead of a typewriter, but you still mark up your manuscript.

Unfortunately, if you write your manuscript in a word processor, the markup is now hidden rather than visible. The markup is still there, though. You see its effects on the computer screen (words in different font sizes or in different typefaces) but you don’t see the actual markup.

The hidden nature of the markup often causes trouble when you try to convert your manuscript to an eBook. Even though what you see on your word processor screen might look OK, that is not what the conversion program will see when it formats your book. The conversion program sees only the internal, hidden markup—and that might be such a mess that the conversion fails or looks bad on an eReader.

Most of us have seen eBooks that look funny. Their formatting is off somehow. New chapters start in the middle of a page or at the bottom of a page instead of on a new page. Paragraphs break in the middle for no apparent reason. Words that looked separate in the word processor are now run together in the eBook. The “go to” menu doesn’t work right. The logical table of contents doesn’t work. Curly quotes face the wrong direction. Funny line breaks. Fonts hard-coded at the wrong size.

If you haven’t noticed such problems, just download 10 or 20 eBooks at random from Amazon or B&N or Apple. If you don’t want to purchase 10 or 20 titles just for this experiment, you can find free eBooks listed at sites such as

Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,
He travels the fastest who travels alone. — Kipling

This chapter shows how to mark up a novel from scratch.

Of course, as an author, you probably are not starting from scratch. You have probably finished (or at least begun) one or more manuscripts. Your main question may be how to mark up those existing manuscripts. We’ll get to that in the next chapter, but it will make it easier to understand the markup if we start from scratch.

So, let’s jump right into creating a manuscript, a very short mystery novel entitled “Windy Day”. This is not a serious novel; its entire purpose is to illustrate how to format a novel for EPUB eBooks.

First, start your word processor or text editor. We’ll assume you are using a word processor (such as Microsoft Word or LibreOffice) but you could also use a text editor (such as gedit or Notepad or Emacs). EPUB Machine works either way.

Format early and often — Frank Sergeant

Now that you have a good idea, from the previous chapter, of how to mark up a new manuscript, you are probably ready to mark up one of your existing manuscripts.

Throughout this chapter, we will use the name windyday.doc to represent your existing manuscript. Of course, you must substitute the name of your manuscript.

It is a good idea to make a backup copy of your manuscript before starting to edit it, so you can fall back if necessary. For example, if your manuscript is named windyday.doc, you might use File / Save a Copy (or File / Save As) in your word processor’s menu to save a copy under a different name, such as windy-before-markup.doc.

After marking up your manuscript or making changes to it, here is how you will run EPUB Machine to create an EPUB file.

• Save a temporary copy of your manuscript as a plain text file (skip this step if you are using a text editor instead of a word processor as your manuscript will already be a plain text file). The text file must have the exact name your book account is expecting.
• Upload the text file to your Nepo Press book account.
• Click on the EPUB button.
• Click on the Return to Book Page button.
• Click on the epubreport.txt file in the list of files to see if there were any errors or warnings. (If you don’t see that file in the file list, wait a few seconds then press the Refresh file list button.)
• Click on the web browser’s back button to return to your Book Page.

If there are no errors, the file list will now contain the new EPUB file and also an HTML version of your book.

The above steps will be described in more detail below.

Save as a temporary text file

From within your word processor’s menu, click on File / Save a Copy or File / Save As to save a copy of your manuscript as a temporary file ending in .txt. (If your manuscript is named windyday.doc, then name the temporary file windyday.txt.) If your word processor gives you a choice for the file encoding, select UTF-8. This saves a temporary copy of your manuscript as a plain text file, which is what EPUB Machine needs to work its magic. Note, regardless of the name of the .doc file, the .txt file must have the name your book account is expecting. This name is listed on your book account page. The point of this step is to be able to hand EPUB Machine a file that contains the explicit markup but without the hidden word processor markup.

If you are maintaining your manuscript in a text editor, this step will not be necessary, since your manuscript is already a plain text file.

This text file name (such as windyday.txt) must match exactly the manuscript name your book account is expecting. If you get the name wrong, you will get a message explaining the problem when you try to upload it. Just go back to your word processor and repeat the Save a Copy or Save As step, giving it the correct file name as specified in your book account.

If you are using LibreOffice or OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Word, the process is almost identical.

You are probably using their native file format odt. So, your manuscript may be named windyday.odt rather than windyday.doc, but this doesn’t make any difference. You still need to save your manuscript as a temporary plain text file (windyday.txt).

After saving a copy of your manuscript as a plain text file with the File / Save As menu item, take a look at the name of the file you are currently editing. This is usually shown in the title bar of the word processor’s window. If you had been editing a file named windyday.doc or windyday.docx or windyday.odt, the file now open in your word processor is probably the plain text version (with an extension of .txt). If so, close this file (File / Close) so you won’t accidentally edit the wrong file, then reopen the .doc or .docx or .odt version. This isn’t necessary with word processors (such as the recent LibreOffice) that have the File / Save a Copy menu item. If you did accidentally make extensive changes directly to the .txt version that you don’t want to retrofit into the .doc version, no problem, just keep editing the .txt version.

Because creating an EPUB file is so easy with EPUB Machine, you do not need to wait until your novel is finished. You can format it early and often.

At the same time EPUB Machine creates the EPUB file (such as windyday.epub), it also creates an HTML file (such as windyday.html) that you can view in a web browser.

Why both? Sometimes you just want a quick idea of how your novel will look. The web browser is perfect for this.

Sometimes you want to print a hard copy of your novel for proofreading (or for handing to a beta reader). The HTML version is good for this, although you may prefer to print the PDF version. The printed version even respects your chapter page breaks.

Other times, you want to see your novel on a real eReader (for proofreading or just the sheer pleasure of it). In that case, download the EPUB file (windyday.epub) to your computer, plug in your eReader and drag the EPUB file to it. Search on YouTube for something like “NOOK sideloading” or “Kobo sideloading” or see the YouTube videos (where we show how to do it for the Kindle):

We have now covered the essential markup. That’s all you really need to produce an EPUB file for the typical novel.

But, EPUB Machine can do even more than the basics. This section adds some further details about the markup available and discusses a few other topics that might be of use.

If you want to wrap one or more paragraphs inside a box, use the box tags. This would be useful for emphasizing a note or creating the functional equivalent of a side bar.

Just put a <box> tag at the beginning of the section to be boxed and put a </box> tag at the end.

This causes a visible border to be drawn around the section.

<box>

First paragraph of a sample.
It continues here.

Second paragraph of a sample
block.

</box>

and would be rendered like this:

You can put notes to yourself in your manuscript by writing them on lines that start with a pound sign (#). Such lines will not appear in your eBook.

Sammy grew wings and
flew to the moon.

# Note to self
#  I need to make this
#  character more believable.

A line beginning with a pound sign is a comment. A pound sign anywhere but at the start of a line is just a pound sign. Note that the comments are separated from the previous paragraph and the following paragraph by blank lines.

By default, the first character of the first paragraph of each chapter will be set as a “drop cap”. We use a fake drop cap by making the character larger but not lowering it. We could also turn it red if we wished. All this is adjustable in the style sheet, as described more fully in the Advanced book.

However, the drop cap formatting is applied only if the first character is an ordinary letter or number. If the first character is punctuation or a special character of some sort, then drop cap formatting will not be applied to it automatically.

The following will turn off drop caps:

<dropcaps> off

If you don’t want any drop caps, turn them off near the top of your manuscript. If you want to turn off drop caps just for a chapter or so, turn them off before the chapter and turn them back on afterwards like this.

<dropcaps> off

* Dedication

...

<dropcaps> on

* Preface

The automatic drop cap applies to the first character of the first paragraph immediately following a level one or level two heading, that is, the first character in a chapter. If a subheading (or certain other things, such as a quote block) appears prior to the first paragraph, then no drop cap will be applied.

You might also have trouble if the first paragraph of a chapter starts with italics, as in

*What am I doing with my life?* she
wondered as she ...

Because it starts with an asterisk rather than a letter, the “W” will not be set in a drop cap automatically. You can force it with the <dc> tags discussed elsewhere or you can just skip the first character and italicize the rest of the phrase, like this:

W*hat am I doing with my life?* she
wondered as she ...

A quick way to turn off drop caps for, say, the title page or copyright page, is to put a subheading of some sort before any other text. Even a blank subheading will work. For example:

*

***

copyright <copy> 2012 Nepo Press
...

or even

*

*** copyright <copy> 2012 Nepo Press
...

Three dots (periods) in a row (...) are converted to an ellipsis (…).

The Chicago Manual of Style suggests three separate dots separated by spaces. If you do it that way, EPUB Machine will not covert them into an ellipsis character. Because this runs the risk of a line breaking in the middle of an ellipsis mark, which looks funny, we suggest using the three dots without spaces (which will get converted into a ellipsis character), thus avoiding the line breaking problem.

Several forms of emphasis can be used in your manuscript:

• italics
• bold
• bold italics

Usually, the only emphasis you need is italics.

Italics

A single pair of asterisks, such as

*single* word or *several words*

indicate italics. Note that the asterisks are tight against the word or phrase. There must not be a space immediately after the starting asterisk or immediately before the ending asterisk.

The above example would look like:

Bold

A double pair of asterisks, such as

**single** word or **several words**

indicate a bold font and would look like the following (if you don’t see the bold, then your eReader doesn’t support bold—a good reason to stick to italics for emphasis):

Again, the asterisks are tight against the word or phrase. Don’t write it like this:

** this**

or

**this **

Also, if you really need it, you can use a pair of triple asterisks to indicate both bold and italics. This is usually overkill.

Here is an example that applies all three types of emphasis:

"Did you *really* do that?" asked
the boy.

"Yes, I *really did*," replied
the girl.

*I can't believe she did that*,
thought the boy. "**Wow!**  That
was very **bold** of you," he said.
"I would ***never*** do that."

and it would look like this

Note the difference between using asterisks for headings and using them for emphasis:

• in a heading, the asterisk always starts in column 1 and there is always a space after the asterisk(s)

• in an emphasized word or phrase, there is never a space after the beginning asterisk(s) and never a space before the ending asterisk(s). Here are some examples showing the correct and incorrect use of asterisks for italics:

This is *very good*.
This is * not good*.
This is *not good *.
This is * not good *.

The above would be rendered like this:

Because a heading always has a space following the asterisks and because emphasized text never does, EPUB Machine is able to tell what is or is not a heading, even when the asterisks start at the left margin.

*** This is a subheading

*This* is not a subheading, (no space)

Here is a ***bolded and italicized
phrase*** split across two
lines---no problem.

The above example would be rendered as follows:

Sometimes you might want to force a line break without starting a new paragraph. This can be useful in headings and in quotations.

Most of the time, you should let the eReader determine where your lines break. Sometimes, though, you want a little more control. The <break> tag forces a line break.

Suppose you have a long chapter heading such as “Chapter 17 The Missing Ugly Green and Purple Parrot from Chicago”. If you write it this way

* Chapter 17
  The Missing Ugly Green
  and Purple Parrot
  from Chicago

as you could in a text editor, it is the blank line that marks the end of the paragraph.

In a word processor, the above would be written more like the following:

* Chapter 17 The Missing Ugly Green and Purple Parrot from Chicago

that is, you would not press the Enter key until after typing “Chicago”. In a word processor, it is the Enter key (the Return key) that marks the end of a paragraph.

However, the rendered version in the eBook would likely be too long to fit on a single line on some (most) eReaders. The eReader would break the title somewhere but it might not be where you’d like it.

The example above would be rendered like this:

Instead, you can use the <break> tag like this (in a text editor)

* Chapter 17 <break>
  The Missing Ugly Green <break>
  and Purple Parrot <break>
  from Chicago

or like this (in a word processor)

* Chapter 17 <break> The Missing Ugly Green <break> and Purple Parrot <break> from Chicago

which would force line breaks where you want them and would be rendered like this:

Suppose you want to quote some poetry. The locations of the line breaks are important, so rather than just letting the lines wrap, you would insert <break> tags at the appropriate places, such as in the poem “Antigonish” by William Hughes Mearns.

<quote>

Yesterday, upon the stair, <break>
I met a man who wasn’t there  <break>
He wasn’t there again today  <break>
I wish, I wish he’d go away...

</quote>

The above has three paragraphs:

• the beginning <quote> tag
• the poem itself
• the ending </quote> tag

Again, note that the above is how it would be written in a text editor. In a word processor it would look more like this:

<quote>

Yesterday, upon the stair, <break> I met a man who wasn’t there  <break> He wasn’t there again today  <break> I wish, I wish he’d go away...

</quote>

In either case, it would be rendered like this

For poetry, instead of using the <quote> tags and the explicit <break> tags, you could use the <poetry> tags instead, like this:

<poetry>

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away...

</poetry>

and it would be rendered like this:

However, the <poetry> tags probably won’t be entirely satisfactory unless you are using a text editor.

The hyphen (-) has several uses. A single hyphen is rendered as a hyphen. Two hyphens are rendered as an en dash (–). Three hyphens are rendered as an em dash (—). A line that starts with four or more hyphens is rendered as a rule (a horizontal line).

He was ex-military
looking for part--time
work---I think he said
`work'---but I am not sure.

----

and would look like this

The <image> tag can be very simple. All you have to give it is the file name of the image.

<image> frank.jpg

The above example would look like this:

However, you can also supply a caption if you wish. If you supply more than just the file name, then each item must be in double quote marks (straight quotes, not curly quotes—turn off your word processor’s auto-format options if necessary). The second item of information is the caption.

<image> "frank.jpg"  "the author"

and it would look like this

the author

The third item of information is the credit. Suppose the photo had been taken by Newman Studios

<image> "frank.jpg" "the author"
  "photo by Newman Studios"

photo by Newman Studios

the author

Note that the image itself does not need to go in your manuscript directly, only the image tag. The image itself must be in a separate file, and needs to be uploaded to your Nepo Press book account. If your word processor has embedded your images in your manuscript (if you see the pictures in your manuscript), you may delete them from the word processor, leaving just the <image> tags as shown above.

You do not need to upload these image files separately to B&N, Apple, etc., as EPUB Machine bundles the images into the EPUB file, so all you need to do is upload the EPUB file.

However, the image files do need to be in the same directory as the HTML version of your book (e.g., windyday.html). This happens automatically when you view the HTML directly from your book account. However, if you download the HTML file to post it elsewhere, you must also put the image files in the same location.

Note the difference between the <image> tag and the <cover> tag. The cover image is special because it will appear inside your eBook and you will upload it separately to your bookseller. That is, when publishing your book, you typically upload both the EPUB file and the cover image. You might use two separate cover image files, depending on the bookseller’s requirements: perhaps a lower resolution file to go inside your EPUB file (such as 600x800 or 900x1200 pixels) and a higher resolution file uploaded to the bookseller for use on your book description page.

It is conventional in fiction to indent the first line of all paragraphs except for “first paragraphs”. That is, the first paragraph of a chapter (or section or scene, etc.) will not have its first line indented.

EPUB Machine sticks with this convention. The first paragraph of a chapter or section will not have its first line indented. Neither will the first paragraph after a scene break, a quote block, an image, etc.

EPUB Machine takes care of the indentation automatically. It doesn’t matter whether you insert leading spaces (or tabs) in your manuscript or not, as that has no effect on the indentation in the EPUB file.

Where should you keep your manuscripts on your computer?

Occasionally, it might be handy to mark a literal section within a paragraph to prevent the rendering of any markup, or just to force the font to be mono-spaced.

This can be useful to show a literal example.

That is done with the <ex> tags (“ex” stands for “example”).

This paragraph will
have <ex>some *words*</ex>
in a mono-spaced font

Note that the asterisks around the word “words” will not turn on italics, because the <ex> tag prevents the rendering of the markup. The above example would be rendered to look like this:

You can override the eReader’s default paragraph alignment with the <align> tag by setting <align> to right, left, or center. You can restore the default by setting <align> to default.

For example, if you use <align> left, the left margin will be lined up, but the right margin will be “ragged”.

The <align> tag goes on a line by itself, starting in column 1 and stays in effect until another <align> tag is encountered.

The <align> tag also affects the headings. Suppose you want most headings to begin at the left margin. The default (<align> default) or <align> left takes care of that. However, if you want the title page, heading and all, to be centered, you could do it this way:

<align> center

* Windy Day
...
<align> default

* Introduction

<align> default

This is the eReader’s default, typically either fully justified or left justified.

<align> left

With this style, the lines are left justified, rather than fully justified, leaving the right margin ragged.

<align> right

Lines are right-justified. This is useful mainly for short, single-line paragraphs.

<align> center

Lines are centered. This is useful mainly for short, single-line paragraphs such as on a title page or copyright page.

Left justification

<align> left

This paragraph is left justified.
Thus the left margin will be
lined up but the right will
be "ragged".
This is another sentence in
the same paragraph to give
enough words so we can see it
spread out over several lines.
You may need to change the font
size on the eReader to *see* that
the right margin is ragged.

<align> default

With small font sizes, you may not be able to see much difference between left and full justification. So, try also increasing the font size on the eReader.

Right justification

<align> right

These short lines

(each is a paragraph, of course)

are right

justified.

It is the left margin that is "ragged".

<align> default

Center justification

<align> center

These short

lines/paragraphs

will be centered

<align> default

Default justification

<align> default

This is the default alignment,
which will likely be either
fully justified or left justified.
If fully justified, the margins
will be lined up
on both the left and
the right.
One possible problem would be urls such
as http://nepotism.net/downloads or other
long "words" that do not provide a
convenient place to break
the line.
Since this book has lots of
URLs, perhaps we should have
used `left' rather than `default'.
You may need to change the font size
in your eReader to see the funny spacing.

The <quote> and </quote> tags set off a section of text to be displayed with a wider margin. This is handy for quotations.

<quote>

   This paragraph is in a
   quote block.

   This is a second paragraph within
   a quote block.

</quote>

The above example would be rendered as shown below:

There are four variants of the <quote> tag:

• <quote> … </quote>
• <quotei> … </quotei>
• <quotation> … </quotation>
• <quotationi> … </quotationi>

You can experiment to see which suits your book best. The main differences are the width of the margins and whether the font is changed to italics or not.

Use the <scene> tag to indicate a scene change within a chapter. It adds a little extra vertical space before the next paragraph and also causes the first word of the next paragraph to begin at the left margin (instead of being indented).

If you use just the <scene> tag, it defaults to showing a blank vertical space. If you would like something else to be displayed, just put it on the same line as the <scene> tag.

This would show three asterisks:

<scene> * * *

This would show three tildes:

<scene>  ~ ~ ~

The following example uses a single tilde to indicate a scene change:

end of previous scene.

<scene> ~

Start of new scene

It would look like this:

Here is another example, using three asterisks with no spaces between them:

end of previous scene.

<scene> ***

Start of new scene

It would look like this:

When you have a short quotation that doesn’t need a whole block of text, you can use the <smallquote> tag.

Unlike the <box> and <quote> tags, the <smallquote> tag is not a block tag (it doesn’t need an ending tag).

It displays a small centered quotation with an optional attribution. This could be used to provide a witty quotation at the beginning of a chapter.

The <smallquote> tag expects one or two items of information, as shown in the examples below. The first is the quotation. The second is the attribution, which is optional.

* Chapter 3 <break> The Trouble

<smallquote> "No man is an island" "--- John Donne"

This is the first paragraph.

It would look like this:

Here’s another example:

<smallquote>
 "Waste not, want not"
 "--- Anon"

Note how both the quote and the attribution are each enclosed in double quote marks and are written on the same line, or in the same paragraph, as the <smallquote> tag.

It would look like this:

Barnes & Noble’s self-publishing platform is called Nook Press (formerly called PubIt!), Kobo’s is called Writing Life, and Amazon’s is called Kindle Direct Publishing. Other than the names, the publishing process is nearly the same on all of them. As of this writing, you can publish your EPUB 3 eBook on at least Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, Google Play, and Smashwords. At this writing, Smashwords may still be working out kinks in their process with regard to their premium catalog.

Here is the general process:

• Register with the publisher to provide your contact and payment information on the publisher’s website, then just follow the prompts (the order may vary from publisher to publisher):

• Upload a description for your book.

• Upload your eBook (as an EPUB file for B&N and Apple and Google Play, and as a Mobi file for Amazon)

• Upload your cover image

• Choose the categories for your book

• Choose the keywords for your book

• Set the price for your book

• Preview your book

• Click on Publish!

We’ll run through those steps in more detail below for Barnes & Noble.

Publishing on Barnes & Noble

This section contains various tips for fixing minor problems, reading your book in a web browser, printing your book, customizing review copies, and such.

Block tags and setting tags that should start at the beginning of a line should go on a line (or paragraph) by themselves with a blank line above and below. For example, the following quote block is incorrect because it is missing the blank lines:

<quote>
Some witty
quotation or
poem
</quote>

The following quote block is even worse:

<quote> Some witty
quotation or
poem </quote>

Here is the proper way to write a quote block:

<quote>

Some witty
quotation or
poem

</quote>

Remember to back up your work early and often, especially your manuscripts. It is a good idea to keep some of the copies off site.

When EPUB Machine produces an EPUB file from your manuscript, it also produces an HTML file that you can read in a web browser.

The essence of eBooks is that the eReader device reflows the text to fit the width of the screen, given the font size and spacing selected by the reader.

An eReader’s screen is not usually as wide as a desktop computer’s screen. So, the style sheet used for the HTML version sets the width appropriately. If this is still too wide, you can make your web browser’s screen narrower by grabbing an edge or corner (with the mouse) and dragging to resize it to a comfortable width and height. You can adjust the font size with your web browser’s View / Zoom menu.

As mentioned previously, EPUB Machine produces an HTML version of your eBook at the same time it produces the EPUB file. There are at least two files related to the HTML version:

• windyday.html
• htmlstyle.css (or htmlcustom.css, etc.)
• any image files

EPUB Machine creates this HTML file in your book account. Thus, all these files are present in the same place. If you copy the HTML file somewhere else (to a directory on your computer or to a web server) be sure also to copy the style sheet, e.g., htmlstyle.css or htmlcustom.css, and all the image files.

This also applies if you email the HTML file to someone. You need to send him the style sheet and image files too. But why bother doing all that? Just send him the EPUB file instead—if he doesn’t know how to copy it to his eReader or if he doesn’t have an eReader, you can point him to the videos and Google searches mentioned earlier—or send him the PDF file.

The HTML version of your eBook is “printer friendly”. It is set up to force page breaks so that each chapter (each level one and level two heading) starts on a new page. You can print this file from your web browser to produce a hard-copy for proofreading purposes. (Or, you can produce a PDF as described elsewhere. A PDF is even more “printer friendly”.)

If the page breaks are not falling where you think they should, try a different web browser. Firefox is a good choice.

If you want to print just part of your book (perhaps just a chapter or two), then instead of going to File / Print in Firefox, go to File / Print Preview. From there, determine the range of page numbers you want to print, then from within the Print Preview window, click on Print and click on Pages: and enter the range, such as “50-62”.

Should you use a word processor or a text editor for your manuscript?

The easiest thing to do is just keep using what you are comfortable with. If you use and like Microsoft Word or LibreOffice, stick with it until or unless you find a reason to change.

Likewise, if you are an Emacs or Vi or TextMate or other text editor enthusiast, just stick with it.

However, as far as EPUB Machine is concerned, a word processor does not provide any benefits. You would have more control over the formatting if you switch to a text editor. Also, it would allow you to skip the Save-as step, since your manuscript would already be in a plain text format.

If you currently use a word processor but would like to switch to a text editor, it is easy to do. Full details are given in the Advanced Mobi and EPUB Machines book.

This appendix contains a list of all the tags recognized by EPUB Machine that have been discussed in this book. (Additional tags are covered in the book Advanced Mobi and EPUB Machines.)

Each tag is linked to the main chapter or chapters that discuss it. Also, you can use your eReader’s search facility to locate every occurrence of a specific tag.

The default options for some word processors, especially the auto-format options, will interfere with the operation of EPUB Machine.

Here are some of the problems to watch out for:

smart quotes

If your word processor substitutes curly quotes for straight quotes, it might cause a problem with the use of straight quotes in headings and tags (such as <image> and <smallquote>) (although EPUB Machine attempts to fix this automatically).

automatic lists

If your word processor turns a leading asterisk into a list, it prevents chapter headings from being recognized.

automatic italics

If your word processor turns asterisks around a word or phrase into an italicized font, it prevents the markup from reaching EPUB Machine, thus losing the italics in the eBook.

headers, footers, page numbers

If your word processor includes these items when saving as plain text, then these items will also appear (and in the wrong places!) in your eBook.

The solution is to change your word processor’s settings to turn these items off.

Specific instructions for turning them off in Microsoft Word and in LibreOffice are given in the following sections. Other word processors will be similar but you may need to browse through the menu system to look for something like “options” or “settings” or “preferences”. If you are stumped, just Google for the answer by searching for something like “WordPerfect how to turn off automatic lists” or “OpenOffice how to turn off table of contents”.

Microsoft Word

Here is how to configure Microsoft Word:

turn off headers, footers, and page numbers

• Double click on the header, footer, or page number
• Select the header, footer, or page number (press Ctrl-A or highlight with the mouse)
• Press the Delete key to delete the header, footer, or page number
• Press Esc to get out of the header area and back to the body of your document

turn off auto-format

• Bring up the Word Options screen by clicking on the File menu then clicking on Options. (If you don’t appear to have a File menu, click on the Microsoft Office icon.)
• Click on Proofing
• Click on AutoCorrect Options
• Click on the AutoFormat tab
  • under “Apply”, you probably should turn off all items (by unchecking them), but at least uncheck “Automatic bulleted lists”. (Otherwise Microsoft Word will undo your attempt to mark chapter headings.)
  • under “Replace”, you probably should turn off all items (by unchecking them), but at least uncheck the following:
    • Straight quotes with smart quotes
    • Bold and italic with real formatting
    • Internet and network paths with hyperlinks

• Click on the AutoFormat As You Type tab and uncheck at least the following
  • Automatic bulleted lists
  • Straight quotes with smart quotes
  • Bold and italic with real formatting
• Click OK to close the AutoCorrect window
• Click OK to close the Word Options window

LibreOffice

Here is how to configure LibreOffice:

• Click on the Tools menu
• Click on AutoCorrect Options…
• Click on the Options tab

You will see an “[M]” column and a “[T]” column and a description column. Uncheck the boxes under “[M]” and “[T]” for the following:

• Automatic bold and underline
• URL recognition

Next, click on the Localized Options tab and make sure the “Replace” box is unchecked under both “Single quotes” and “Double quotes”.

Finally, click on OK.

What If Your Manuscript Already Contains Smart Quotes?

Note, if you are starting with an existing manuscript, probably all the quote marks will already be “smart”, i.e., curly.

The quote marks used in tags and headings (such as chapter headings and <image> tags and <smallquote> tags) must be straight quotes, not curly quotes. So, it is a good idea to turn off smart quotes as described above prior to marking up your manuscript.

Generally though, you do not need to go through your manuscript to change them all to straight quotes because EPUB Machine attempts to change them to straight quotes automatically.

If EPUB Machine can’t fix this automatically, you may need to go through your manuscript and change all the “smart” quotes to straight quotes.

Additional Notes

If you have a different word processor, you should be able to find where to turn off any automatic formatting by browsing around its menu system or by doing a web search as described earlier.

You may have a different version of Microsoft Word or LibreOffice where the detailed instructions in this chapter will not apply exactly. If it is not obvious how to turn off the automatic formatting, a web search as mentioned above will likely lead you to the answer quickly.

Also, depending on how you have set up your word processor, there may be other settings and formatting that you will need to turn off.

This book has used miniature versions of the Windy Day novel as examples. Now it is time to show a longer example manuscript for that book. The manuscript is shown here with a short line width to make it easier to read on eReaders. If, in spite of this, lines wrap that should not, try changing your eReader to use a smaller font or to use landscape mode.

An even longer example is available from Nepo Press or from various booksellers, as the fake novel Windy Day.

Here is the manuscript.

<publisher> Nepo Press

<cover> windy.jpg

#### Title Page

<align> center

* "Windy Day"  ""

***

by

Frank Sergeant

#### Copyright Page

*

******

copyright <copy> 2012-2014 Frank Sergeant

all rights reserved

Published by Nepo Press (http://nepotism.net)

<align> default

Cover image credit

 - Bonsai Trident Maple <url
   "http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BonsaiTridentMaple.jpg">.
   Public domain, this image was released by the Agricultural Research
   Service, the research agency of the United States Department of
   Agriculture, with the ID K10474-1
   (http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/jun03/K10474-1.htm).

<contents>

<start>

* Introduction

This is not a real novel.  Its
purpose is to serve as an example
of how to turn a manuscript written
in a word processor into an eBook
(a Mobi file for the Kindle or an
EPUB file for nearly everywhere
else).

The manuscript can be written in a
word processor or in a text editor.
Visible markup is the key to its
simplicity.

Generally, when writing in a word
processor, the author is advised to
be *very careful* to use *styles*
for **everything**!

The general advice is

<quote>

   Don't format italics, bold,
   centering, larger fonts for
   chapter headings and
   subheadings.  Instead, apply the
   appropriate style.

   Do not indent paragraphs by
   pressing the TAB key.  Do not
   indent paragraphs by pressing
   the space bar 5 times.  Use the
   appropriate paragraph style
   instead.

   If you (like every other author
   in the world) have *already*
   written large portions of your
   novel without using styles
   exclusively, you must go through
   your entire manuscript and
   *remove* all of that hand
   formatting and apply the proper
   styles instead.

</quote>


However, using *Mobi Machine* (from the
*Mobi Machine* book) or *EPUB Machine*
(from the *EPUB Machine* book) you
do not have to worry about any of
that.

All you need to do is add
some simple *additional* markup.
The books mentioned above,
and available at least somewhere
fine eBooks are sold, will explain
everything in very simple terms.
They are written to be readable even
by inexperienced Windows users and
have associated YouTube videos to
show the details of the various
steps.

Enough of the introduction.  Let's
get on with the example novel.

* Chapter One

It was a dark and windy day.

*How did I get into this mess?*, I
wondered.

The leaves rustled as I walked
through the lonely forest path,
dragging the heavy bag.

I needed some peace and quiet.  I
hated being in a real forest
instead of my lovely bonsai forest.
I needed to *think*.  Not about my
life.  Not about next week.  I
needed to think about *today* and
where I was going to bury the body.

I was looking for a good grave site
because I *really* did not want her
body to be found.

<scene> ~

It was early morning but the woods
were getting darker the farther I
went. I found a secluded spot,
threw down the heavy bag, and
started to dig the grave.

This was a lot harder than it looks
on TV or in the movies.  It took
forever, but I finally finished.

I wondered if I would be able to
sleep tonight, although it's not
like I haven't done this sort of
thing before.

* Chapter Two

Driving home was a lot easier on my
nerves, now that the bag no longer
contained a body.

<scene> ~

Now where was I?  Oh yes, I
remember.  It all started last
night after dinner.  I was pruning
my favorite golden maple bonsai
tree.  If the shears hadn't been in
my hand, it might have turned out
different.  We got into an
argument---again---and I snapped.
Oh well, I guess the joke's on me.

<scene>

* Chapter Three

I was safely tucked in my bed,
sleeping like a log, after the good
healthy exercise and fresh air in
the woods today, when I was
awakened by a pounding on the door.

"Open up.  It's the police."

*No!* I had been so careful and now
it was all coming undone.  Some say
no good deed goes unpunished, but
that might be backwards in some
cases.

* About the Author

<image> "frank.jpg" "Frank Sergeant"

Among other things, the author
provides programming and technical
support services to Nepo Press.
His experience turning manuscripts
into eBooks led to the books *Mobi
Machine (Your Kindle Formatting
Butler)* and *EPUB Machine (Your
EPUB Formatting Butler)* and the
associated software.  This system
allows anyone to format books for
the Kindle or NOOK or other
eReaders "at the touch of a
button".  Really!  It's so easy an
adult could do it.

He enjoys receiving email from
readers at frank@nepotism.net.

The author's web site is at
http://nepotism.net.

<align> center

*** The End

Jeeves the Butler

Yes, I call P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster’s Jeeves a butler, knowing full well that he is a valet. I’ll try to get past this discrepancy and I hope you will too. In my defense, apparently Bertie occasionally loans Jeeves out as a butler and has said that Jeeves can buttle with the best of them. I felt that “Your EPUB Formatting Valet” didn’t have quite the same ring to it.