This is the kind of file that usually has a .txt extension and the kind of file that a text editor works with.

If you are using a word processor, you must use its “save as” or “save copy as” feature to save a temporary copy as a plain text file. This item is usually on your word processor’s file menu.

If your text editor or word processor gives you the choice, the preferred type of plain text file (its character set or encoding format) is UTF-8. Some word processors may call it Unicode instead of UTF-8.

You should turn off all the automatic formatting features of your word processor, such as smart quotes, automatic italics, automatic links, automatic lists, headers, footers, table of contents, etc.

No. Usually, sending it once is enough, unless you modify the image. Then upload the new version. We reuse it on every formatting run.

No, we are not. Please be sure to do your own backups.

Occasionally, you may return to your book page (after uploading a file or after clicking the Mobi or EPUB or PDF button) before the processing has finished. In that case, you might see the new files yet. Give it a few seconds, then click on the red Refresh file list button.

Sometimes, depending on your web browser and how it caches web pages, when you click on a file (such as mobireport.txt), you web browser will show a previous version. On a report file such as mobireport.txt, you can tell by looking at the time stamps. If you are looking at a stale version of the file, the trick is to refresh or reload the page.

In most web browsers, you reload the current page by one of the following methods:

• clicking on the reload button
• pressing the F5 key
• right clicking on the page and choosing Reload
• right clicking on the page’s tab and choosing Reload Tab

When you click on the EPUB button, you will get an EPUB file unless there are serious errors. Go to your book page to see if an EPUB file (such as stormy.epub) is present in your list of files.

After pressing the EPUB button (on your book page), typically within 2 to 30 seconds four things occur:

• You are sent to an information page (containing a link back to your book page).
• The .epub file is created if possible.
• If the .epub file was created, the EpubCheck program is run to check whether the resulting .epub file meets the EPUB 3 standard.
• A report file named epubreport.txt is generated.

When you return to your book page, click on the epubreport.txt file to see the results.

Here is an example of a report file where the EPUB file was created but had some errors that prevented it from validating successfully. (The manuscript name for this example was xxx.txt.)

EPUB formatting started September 19, 2013 at 05:29:10 PM
Input came from a text editor text file (utf-8)
Starting to process manuscript xxx for EPUB
Generating HTML output
Warning: Cover image file has not been specified (add a <cover> tag)
Finished processing manuscript xxx for EPUB

Starting to run EpubCheck
Epubcheck Version 3.0.1

Validating against EPUB version 3.0
ERROR: xxx.epub/OEBPS/content.opf(45,37): item with id 'coverpage' not found
ERROR: xxx.epub/OEBPS/content.opf(45,37): assertion failed: itemref element idref attribute does not resolve to a manifest item element
WARNING: xxx.epub: item (OEBPS/cover.html) exists in the zip file, but is not declared in the OPF file

Check finished with warnings or errors

EPUB formatting finished September 19, 2013 at 05:29:14 PM

The first part of the report, up to the line that says

Finished processing manuscript xxx for EPUB

is related to creating the EPUB file. There were no fatal errors, so an EPUB file was produced successfully, but with the warning that the manuscript was missing the <cover> tag.

Everything after the line

Starting to run EpubCheck

and before the line

EPUB formatting finished September 19, 2013 at 05:29:14 PM

is the output of the EpubCheck program. Note that it has two errors and a warning. This does not mean the EPUB file was not created; it means the EPUB file does not pass the validation tests. In this case, all the messages are the result of the missing <cover> tag. Put that line into your manuscript and try again. For this example, I would add a line like the following

<cover> cover1.jpg

to the xxx.txt manuscript. Of course, be sure you have uploaded your cover image file (in this example, it is a file named cover1.jpg).

The trick to handling the errors is to fix what you know is wrong, then try again. Don’t worry at first about any of the errors or warnings you don’t understand, until there are no problems left that you do understand.

(This section will be filled in as problems arise.)

The common convention in fiction is to indent the first line of paragraphs except for paragraphs that begin a chapter or that follow a break (such as a scene break).

This refers, of course, to the typset, finished book, not necessarily to a typewritten manuscript submitted to a traditional editor or publisher. This may be at the heart of the confusion some authors have about the subject. If you were taught in a typing class to indent every paragraph of a manuscript, that was for the purpose of preparing a typescript to submit to an agent or editor, not the typeset version of the printed book.

It is usually thought of this way: The purpose of the first-line indent is to separate paragraphs, not to mark the start of a paragraph. Thus, the first paragraph of a chapter or scene does not need to be indented.

Of course, there are exceptions, and it is not the end of the world if you prefer a different style. Book designers are free to style their books however they like. Nepo Press is not quite that flexible. You can adjust some aspects of your book’s formatting, but not everything.

Nepo Press follows the convention. If, instead, you would prefer to indent all paragraphs, you can control that for Mobi and EPUB and HTML by editing the style sheet (make a custom version of style.css and htmlstyle.css, named perhaps custom.css and htmlcustom.css) as described elsewhere in the documentation and change the appropriate paragraph style. That is, change the lines

p.first {text-indent: 0; }
/* p.first {text-indent: 1.25em; } */

to comment out the first and uncomment the second, like this:

/* p.first {text-indent: 0; }  */
p.first {text-indent: 1.25em; }

A similar change for PDFs is not possible at this time.

• If you are running Emacs, add ’coding: utf-8’ to the local variables for the manuscript, e.g., by putting this line at the top of your manuscript:

# -*- mode: org; coding: utf-8 -*-

Then, save the file and it will be in UTF-8 encoding. The line above also sets the mode to Org Mode, which gives a lovely outline processor. Pressing S-Tab (shift tab) cycles through the 3 views—try it, you’ll probably like it. If you don’t want Org Mode, then use the following line at the top of your manuscript:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

• If you are running TextEdit on a Mac, be sure to turn off RTF.

• For most word processors, you can select the encoding at the time you perform the “Save As” or “Save a Copy” step.

In preparing an existing manuscript, the italics (and bold) need to be marked with asterisks. You could do this by reading through your manuscript and looking for any word or phrase that was in italics and then putting an asterisk before and after it. This is the hard way and should never be necessary.

Instead, use your word processor’s ability to search and replace by pattern and/or formatting.

Exactly how you do this depends on the word processor or text editor you use. One obvious way to find out how is to read your word processor’s documentation or to Google for something like “Microsoft Word how to search for italics” or “LibreOffice how to search for italics”.

See the previous question.

Italics are no problem in chapter titles, but EPUB does not allow them in the table of contents. An EPUB file will still be created, but it won’t pass EpubCheck validation.

So, if you are only making Mobi and PDF files, the following will work:

* Chapter One <break> A *Really* Important Chapter
...

If you are making EPUB files also, you could do it this way:

* "Chapter One <break> A *Really* Important Chapter" "Chapter One - A Really Important Chapter"
...

Note the difference. In the second example, two items are supplied, each within double quotation marks. The first item, containing italics, is the title to be used in the body of the book. The second item, with no italics, is the title to be used in the table of contents.

Another way to do it would be to supply three chapter titles: one for each of the three formats, like this:

<onlyepub>

* "Chapter One <break> A *Really* Important Chapter" "Chapter One - A Really Important Chapter"
...

</onlyepub>

<onlymobi>

* Chapter One <break> A *Really* Important Chapter
...

</onlymobi>

<onlypdf>

* Chapter One <break> A *Really* Important Chapter
...

</onlypdf>