Archive for eBooks – Page 2

Should you self publish in Apple’s iBook Store?

It depends on whether you want to publish and jump through all the hoops Apple requires. Those hoops include:

A drop cap is nice but….

Recently, I got an email asking how to make a drop cap in ebooks.

At first, I poo poo’d the idea but then I thought, it’s not up to me to say what goes in your ebook.

Do I recommend a drop cap? Not really because you never know what size font your reader has set on their eReader but if you like this effect, you should know how to do this so I’ve supplied the code below:

You can put this CSS in the <head><style> section of your html code.

The code is a class and looks like this:

.dropcap {float: left;
margin-right: 5px;
color: purple;
font-family: ‘Arial’, Georgia, sans-serif;
font-size: 48px;
font-weight: bold;
margin-top: -5px;}

Now that your eyes are rolling back in your head or huge in panic, let’s explain what I just wrote. The dot or period means the above is a class and when you put a <span class=”dropcap”> in front of the letter you want it to drop and then after the letter put the ending code of </span>, it should look like the following when you write it in the <body> section of your ebook’s html file:

<p><span class=”dropcap”>Y</span>ou need a drop cap as the first letter of the first paragraph of each of your chapters. If you want to stand out and say hey, I can format and you can’t. Neener. Neener.

And then you get this in your ebook:

You need a drop cap as the first letter of the first paragraph of each of your chapters. If you want to stand out and say hey, I can format and you can’t. Neener. Neener.

Pretty snazzy huh?

So what does the code look like when putting it in ebook’s HTML:

<html>
<head>
<title>Your eBook Name</title>
<style>
.dropcap {float: left;
margin-right: 5px;
color: purple;
font-family: Arial, Georgia, sans-serif;
font-size: 48px;
font-weight: bold;
margin-top: -5px;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<a name=”chap01″><center><h3>Chapter 1</h3></center></a>>br /><br />
<p><span class=”dropcap”>Y</span>ou need a drop cap as the first letter of the first paragraph of each of your chapters. If you want to stand out and say hey, I can format and you can’t. Neener. Neener.</p>
<p>you then continue on with your paragraphs putting in as many as you need with beginning and ending paragraph codes.</p>
</body>
</html>

EZy Peezy right? Well it is if you copy the drop cap code from above (between the horizontal lines) and paste the code into your text editor and then save it as .html

graphic of Judith Tramayne's signature in her article 'Ez-ily make a drop cap in your ebook'

P.S. Coding for ebooks is really EZ with my Kindle EBook Course and my soon to be released EPUB eBook Course.

P.P.S. The drop cap isn’t necessary in most ebooks and should only be used if your ebook warrants the extra coding.

Binary Code – what the heck does that have to do with ebooks?

Before your eyes glaze over and you go into spasms of agony, I promise this won’t be a dissertation on a computer’s binary code but rather a small explanation of why, when you make an ebook, you could get some errors.

As I’ve said before “computers are dumb.” Not their fault really but hey, they can’t think like we do so maybe they’re not dumb exactly but they do expect what you input to be precise. They have to be told the difference between a Capital letter and a small letter.

This is where Binary Code comes in.

Binary Code is made up of ones (1) and zeros (0). And now you know why I didn’t invent the computer. I mean, really, what kind of language is that?

Well, it’s the language your computer understands. For instance:

A Capital letter “A” has a Binary Code of 01000001 and a small letter “a” has a Binary Code of 01100001. And every letter in the alphabet has a different binary code.

So what does Binary Code have to do with ebooks?

Quite a bit actually because if your ebook’s title is JumpOverTheMoon.html and in your Table of Contents file or your Table of Contents NCX file has jumpoverthemoon.html in their hyperlinks, then when you compile your ebook, the program you’re using will spit out errors.

Spaces, underscores and special characters also have binary code attached to them. So if you write your ebook’s html title as Jump_Over_The_Moon.html then both your Table of Contents better have the same name in their hyperlinks.

Now if you’re saying I don’t have these Table of Contents so this doesn’t apply to my ebook then that’s fine but your readers are going to be extremely upset when they click Menu in their Kindle and there’s no Table of Contents and worse, no navigation at the bottom for them to use their five-way controller. To them, it means you are an amateur.

Sounds harsh I know but you’re competing with “big boy publishing houses” who have either programs worth thousands of dollars that convert their ebooks or they have a ton of people just formatting their ebooks.

So all I’m saying is be careful and use exact letters and numbers in your html code.

graphic of Judith Tramayne's signature for her post on Binary Code

P.S. My Kindle eBook Course will give you all the files you need to make an outstanding, professionally formatted ebook.

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