eBooks, from the perspective of a reader and a writer
I’ve been living with an eBook reader for the last couple of months. In that time, I’ve rarely picked up a dead-trees tome.
While reading, I’ve been thinking about formatting an eBook for the small screen. And I’ve learned a few things. Like what? Keep reading …
It’s more than converting to PDF
Creating an eBook isn’t as simple as using your preferred template in your favourite word processor, writing the book, then converting the file to PDF. You need to consider such factors as page size, font size, as well as the output format.
If you have a standard 8.5″ x 11″ page, many eBook readers will force the entire text of the page to appear on the screen. That’s great, but the type is very small and hard to read.
To get around that, you can zoom in. Doing that, though, will disrupt the flow of the page. Zooming in an eBook reader fits as much of a book’s page on the screen. When you move to the next page, chances are that the last paragraph (or last couple of sentences) of the actual eBook page will be displayed, followed by a large stretch of white space.
Overall, a smaller page is better — 6″ x 9″, for example. That said, you need to be careful of how the pages are set up. I downloaded an eBook with mirrored margins. On every even page, the first letters of words all the way down the left margin were cut off.
Formats, formats
There are a lot of eBook formats. When I look at a reader, I don’t ask which formats it supports but which format the reader doesn’t support. Usually, though, I look for books that are in the following formats: PDF, MobiPocket, or ePub.
PDF is arguably the most common format. It’s OK, but you can run into the problems that I mentioned earlier.
I like books in MobiPocket format, though. It has good page flow, and you don’t run into the problems with PDFs that I mentioned. My main criticisms are that MobiPocket supports a form of DRM (which I’m vehemently against) although you don’t have to use it, and the software for creating files in MobiPocket format only runs on Windows.
I tried a few book in ePub format, and they were similar to MobiPocket.
As a user of free and Open Source software, though, I don’t like the fact that PDF and MobiPocket are proprietary formats. ePub is open, and I’d prefer to use that everywhere if I could.
What next?
I’m currently working on a short eBook. I don’t want to put any information into the wild at the moment, but suffice it to say that I’m planning on selling it from both my Web site (electronic format only) and from a well-known publishing site (as both an electronic and a printed book).
I’ll definitely be trying to apply the lessons that I’ve learned as a reader to my writing and publishing efforts. Stay tuned for more news.
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