The new ePub3 format is talked about a great deal on the Internet, but aside from a short list of new features and capabilities, frustratingly little information is actually given about it. eReader manufacturers have barely begun to implement fragments of the new spec and they aren’t making  promises about when upgrades will arrive, presumably because they don’t want to encourage consumers to hold out for new models.

Though this video is almost a year old, it does provide useful insight into the vision of the International Digital Publishing Forum (the organization that created and continues to work on the ePub specification). In the video, Bill McCoy, Executive Director of the IDPF, presents an only-slightly-technical perspective on ePub3 with demonstrations of a few of its capabilities.

In response to this older video, Bill McCoy suggested I share the following which was posted much more recently.

Demystifying ePub3

The first installment of WordPress Websites for Writers and Publishers covered how to download, install and configure a copy of the WordPress software from WordPress.org. WordPress is an ideal, free platform for building websites perfectly suited to the needs of writers and publishers.

This second article in the series covers plugins—what they are and how to install them—and how to create pages for your new website. Here, you’ll get down to the business of writing and organizing content for your new site.

 WordPress Websites – Installing Plugins

Once you have set up an empty WordPress site (see the first article), you’ll probably want to hide it from the world until you’ve written content, organized it, and made it look the way you want it to. Fortunately, hiding your site is easily accomplished by installing a plugin. Literally thousands of plugins are available for WordPress. These are add-on technologies that enable you to set up mailing lists, enhance your typography, set up a digital download store, customize background graphics or just about anything else you can think of. Most are free; only a few are expensive. As you build your author site, you’ll rely on plug-ins to provide the unique combination of features that writers and publishers require.

Searching for and installing plugins can be done from within your WordPress dashboard or within the WordPress.org site. If you have forgotten how to get to your site’s admin area or “dashboard,” the address is:

http://(your_domain_name_here)/wp-admin

From the dashboard, select Plugins > Add New as in the example below (I color-highlighted the buttons to help you find them).

Type “Under Construction” in the search box and then click the “Search Plugins” button. When the results list comes up, find the “underConstruction” plug-in and click “Install Now.” This is one of many ways WordPress makes life easy for those who lack the technical skill to manage a traditional website. WordPress handles downloading and installing plugin files for you with a single click.

You should get a status report telling you the installation was successful. Assuming it was, click the “Activate Plugin” link. If you have problems with the installation, call your hosting company. Their support staff should be able to help you find and fix the problem so future plugin installations work properly.

After you activate the plug-in, you’ll be taken to the main Plugins screen where you’ll see your new “Under Construction” plugin and two more that were installed automatically when you set up your WordPress site. Notice that the other two plugins are not activated. In other words, you can turn plugins on and off as you want without having to uninstall and reinstall them.

Each plugin has a “Settings” link under its name in the plugin list. Most install an additional configuration panel under one of the main tabs at the left side. Usually, the new panel appears under the “Settings” tab, but some plugins create their own new tabs and others will install a configuration panel under “Tools” or “Appearance” depending on the plugin’s function.

Access the settings for the “Under Construction” plugin by clicking the “Settings” link or through the list of items that appears when you roll your mouse over the “Settings” tab.

The “Under Construction” plugin offers several options, including the ability to write a custom message in HTML (if you’re comfortable doing that, you can turn that option on at the bottom of the configuration screen), but all you really need to do is turn the plugin “on” and then hit the “Save Changes” button at the bottom of the panel (not shown).

Now, visitors to your site will see only a screen telling them your site is coming soon. Why can’t you see the “coming soon” screen yourself? Because you’re logged in to your WordPress site. If you sign out (this can be done at the top right of your screen), WordPress will treat you as a visitor and you won’t be able to see the site. (If you logged out, go back to your admin screen and sign back in so you can continue working.)

 WordPress Websites – Creating Pages

WordPress websites consist of a combination of posts and pages. If you intend to post articles and share news with your readers, you’ll do this in the posts section, but before you start blogging, you’ll most likely want to create a few pages that describe what you do, who you are and what your site is about. The “Pages” tab allows you to create them. Pages are the parts of your site that function as traditional web pages; they usually don’t change very often. Posts are a series of articles, news items and journal entries that show up in chronological order on a blog or news page (we’ll cover posts in a subsequent article). Through the magic of WordPress, a main menu bar is automatically created on your site that contains a button for each of your pages.

Before you begin, step back and consider which pages your site really needs. The fewer pages you have, the easier your site will be to navigate. If your site is for a single book by a single author, you may only require an “Author” page and a “Book” page. If you have several books or offer several services, create a hierarchy of pages that best organizes your site’s content. A pages can be a sub-page that appears in a dropdown menu under a main page.

To create a new page, select the Pages tab and then click “Add New” either from the menu or from the button next to the title on the “Pages” list. A “Sample Page” was created when you installed WordPress.

After you click “Add New,” you’ll be taken to to the “Add New Page” screen. This is where content creation takes place. Compose your title and then modify your text just as you would in a Word Processor. For the more technically proficient, the code generated for your text can be viewed by toggling between the “Visual” tab and the “HTML” tab at the top right of the content editing area.

If you want pages to appear as sub-pages of a main topic, you can set a page’s “Parent” in the “Page Attributes” dialog box in the right sidebar. For example, you may wish to create a “Services” page and then create individual pages for “Editing”,”Proofreading” and “Writing Workshops.” Set the “Parent” of these three latter pages to be “Services” and they’ll all appear in a dropdown menu under “Services” in the main navigation bar. We’ll explore a better way to control page hierarchy in the next installment of WordPress Websites for Writers and Publishers, but if you need that functionality now, it’s easily accessible.

Roll your mouse over any of the buttons for an explanation of its function. Click the “color bars” icon at the far right of the toolbar to reveal “the kitchen sink,” a second row of formatting tools that includes a “text full-justify” button, a text color option, buttons that allow you to copy/paste to/from Microsoft Word, indent paragraph options and others. A “Help” icon provides further explanation.

WordPress Websites – Adding Images to a Page

Above the toolbar is an “Upload/Insert” icon. This allows you to add images and other media into your pages.

Selecting the “Upload/Insert” icon opens up a window on top of your editing screen. To add an image, drag it to the “Drop Files Here” box or use the “Select Files” button” to choose a specific file. When the upload is complete, the window will expand to allow you to set options for how your image is displayed.

NOTE: UNLESS YOU WANT BIG “CLICK-TO-ENLARGE” IMAGES, RESIZE YOUR IMAGES TO THE DESIRED DIMENSIONS WITH AN IMAGE EDITING PROGRAM BEFORE UPLOADING THEM TO WORDPRESS. LARGE IMAGE FILES WILL SLOW YOUR SITE DOWN.

Filling the numerous description fields is optional, but these provide an excellent way to associate keywords with your images, both for internal searches of your site and for external search engines. Use the settings at the bottom to align your image to the text around it and to choose the display size for your image. In the example below, I uploaded the image at the size I intended to display it and then aligned the image to the left of the text.

When the image details are set, click “Insert Into Post.” Your image will be revealed in the text within the editing area.

WordPress Websites – Viewing New Pages

To see the result, use the “View Page” link in the yellow bar at the top of the page. (I like to control-click (command-click on a mac) on the link and choose the option to open the preview in a new browser window or tab.) This allows me to save changes in the editing window and then refresh the preview in the other. Here’s what our new page looks like in our new blog. Notice the “Author” button installed in the navigation bar.

Usually, we don’t want comment boxes on pages (they’re more appropriate to posts), so we’ll want to hide the comment box that appears by default. In the WordPress Dashboard, choose Pages > All Pages, and then select the “Quick Edit” link under the title of your new page that appears when you roll your mouse over its title. Deselect the “Allow Comments” checkbox and click the “Update” button.

We no longer need the “Sample Page” that was installed with WordPress. Roll your mouse over its title and click the “Trash” link to remove it. As is true with documents on your computer, documents will remain in the trash until you empty the trash.  As soon as you move the “Sample Page” to the trash, a third “Trash” option (not shown) will appear under next to “All” and “Published” at the top of the “Pages” panel.

In this article, you installed plugins, created and organized pages for your site, uploaded images, turned off the comment box and trashed pages you didn’t want. In the next installment, you’ll manage the order and appearance of the main navigation menu and work with the design aesthetics of your WordPress site.

WordPress – Websites for Writers and Publishers Part 2

Self-publishing educators tell you how to sell your book, but very few bother to ask if that’s a worthwhile pursuit. Tacking marketing on as the de facto second phase of writing a book places many worthy artists’ resources in jeopardy. How much time, money and energy should you put into marketing your book? The answer is found in an honest evaluation of where your work lies on the spectrum between art and business.

John is a landscape painter. He has painted for decades, cultivating the skills to complement his talent. He works as a restaurant manager but he’s passionate about his art and maintains a studio in his garage. He has sold several paintings, had some gallery shows, and dreams of gaining enough stature as an artist to quit the food service business and devote himself to painting. After all, he paints at least as well as famous artists who make good money.

Wilma runs a vinyl sign shop out of her own garage. She creates graphics on a computer, exports the files to her vinyl cutter and applies them to shop windows and hanging banners. She studied design and takes her typography seriously, choosing appropriate typefaces and kerning the letters more carefully than her competitors do. Sometimes, she gets tired of doing commercial work; she wishes she could spend more time painting for fun but she’s grateful not to be working in a cubicle.

John is a fine artist. Wilma is a commercial artist. For our purposes, they represent the fiction and the nonfiction writer respectively.

The fiction writer is interested in self-expression. This writer has a story to tell or a point to make and a desire to share it. Like John’s paintings, the fiction writer’s stories may inspire, enlighten, provoke, transport, entertain and transform their reader. That’s powerful and important stuff, but it’s art. It’s natural and proper for the artist to see his art as valuable and his “regular job” as a sacrifice that must be made to sustain his art, but the accompanying, vague business plan is usually to “hustle as hard as you can.”  People go to art galleries to window-shop, hoping something will inspire them, but rarely do they look for a painting of Bryce Canyon or a bowl of apples. Even less frequently will they type “painting of apples for sale” into a Google search. Like soul mates, art and those who give it wall space must find each other almost magically. The same is true for indie novels and fiction readers.

The nonfiction writer must be a capable artist and craftsman, but she positions herself deliberately to serve the needs of a specific clientele. People need signs. Why not create good ones and get paid for it? Clients will easily find you in the yellow pages or online—easy.  Perhaps they’ll see the sign on your truck? People want information about finances, codependency, politics, Lady Gaga and self-publishing. Why not write a book? People will search for topics and answers on Google and Amazon—easy. Our sign maker may not have oil paint all over her apron every day, but she’s found a way to directly market her talent, training and aesthetic sense to people who need it.

The fiction writer often says, “I’ve written a book. How do I sell it?” The nonfiction writer says, “I have an idea for a book that will sell. How do I write it?”

If it sounds like I’m discouraging fiction writers, I’m not; I’m finishing novel #3. But with the caveat that there are always a few notable exceptions (and nothing prevents you from being one of them), most successful fiction has big money behind its promotion. Write your novel, produce it and print it, but aim simply to do the best work possible before you set your sights on the bestseller list or run 5000 copies to “save money on printing.”

A quandary for artists is that most of them are more passionate about making art than marketing it. Time is limited; would you rather spend it writing or selling your work? Too many self-publishers don’t answer that question honestly. A year later, they’re jaded—and they haven’t written anything new. Write your story, print your story, use the available channels to distribute your story and encourage reviews. With perseverance, you’ll sell a few books and reach some readers, but be honest about how much marketing time you’re willing to steal from your limited writing time and be realistic about potential returns.

A great book is not necessarily a great product: a great product is not necessarily a great book. Smart publishers temper their expectations for commercial success with an honest appraisal of a work’s marketability. There are many ways to make money in independent publishing; retailing books is low on that list. To succeed as a publisher, you can try selling your books, but you can also use them to sell services or establish credibility as a speaker or consultant. To succeed as a writer, write well. To succeed at both, understand the difference between art and business.

This article was originally posted in September, 2010.  I updated it after speaking about book marketing at a writers’ conference. — Dave Bricker

Self-Publishing: Art or Business?

Self-publishing has seen a host of new eBook technologies announced in recent days. Moves to apply sales tax to digital downloads will soon impact publishers’ pricing and revenue models.

Amazon’s announcement of new tools and support for new features in Kindle KF8 format was big news last week until it was eclipsed by Apple’s launch of iBooks-Author, a visual tool that allows self-publishers to create interactive eBooks in a visual, drag-and-drop environment. The tool is exciting, but the web is alive with debate over the terms of Apple’s EULA (End User License Agreement); iBooks produced with iBooks-Author can only be distributed through Apple’s iBookstore.

Meanwhile, other innovators are quickly developing eBook publishing tools in anticipation of Reader devices becoming ePub3 compliant. Developers are racing to capture “rich eBook” opportunities while publishers hold out for standards-based tools and readers.

MIT’s Technology Review reports that “The Atavist Platform for publishing enhanced ebooks is what Apple’s iBooks Author program should have been. Out this spring, this Web-based tool for transforming any collection of words, images, sound, video, and other media could be the key to unlocking ebook publishing for the rest of us.”

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/27519/

GoodEReader.com reports that Graphicly has developed a new set of tools that will make the process of creating and distributing comic books easier then ever. Graphicly offers authors and publisher the ability to select the type of distribution they need, as well as the revenue model that best suits them – from a basic free offering to a flat rate per conversion, with a number of options in between.

http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/graphicly-self-publishing-comic-book-tools-in-development/

Infogrid Pacific offers an update to their free desktop Azardi Reader that I profiled in a recent post. the first ePub3-compliant eReader along with a selection of free demo eBooks that show off the interactive and graphic capabilities of the new eBook format we all can’t wait to get our hands on.

Korean researchers from the KAIST Institute of Information Technology Convergence developed a Smart eBook interface prototype—an iPad app packed with extra gestures for finer page control. Turn pages traditionally, skip through multiple pages to flip through the book or view several pages simultaneously.

Joel Friedlander, who writes TheBookdesigner.com, one of my favorite blogs for self-publishers, features a video interview with Indie Publishing luminary John Kremer. John is the owner of Open Horizons publishing in New Mexico and his website, www.bookmarket.com is the largest collection of marketing advice for indie authors anywhere online. Subscribe to Joel’s newsletter to receive his useful articles about self-publishing by email.

http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2012/01/video-john-kremer-on-book-marketing-in-2012/

The Baltimore Sun reports on the movement in Congress to tax digital goods. Consumers who buy goods—digital and physical—from online sites that don’t have any physical location aren’t charged the sales tax by the online retailer. That may be changing; Amazon has already made a deal with Indiana to collect sales tax. Publishers will need to consider sales tax into their future eBook pricing models.

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/technology/2012/01/omalleys_digital_download_tax.html

Recent Publishing News Recap from TheWorldsGreatestBook.com

Have You Got Any Castles? is a Looney Tunes cartoon short released on June 25, 1938 as part of the Merrie Melodies series produced by Leon Schlesinger and distributed by Vitaphone. The first Looney Tunes‘ bookstore animation of two, the plot consists of puns on book titles and literary characters.

I originally posted a YouTube video of the short that some one else put online, but a friend correctly pointed out that I was not making proper use of copyrighted material. As a writer and publisher, I think it’s important to respect that so I have taken the actual clip off my site.

The second Looney Tunes bookstore video, Book Revue is a Looney Tunes cartoon short featuring Daffy Duck, released in 1946. It was directed by Bob Clampett, written by Warren Foster and scored by Carl Stalling. Mel Blanc and Sara Berner provided the voices. The title is a pun; a Revue is a variety show, while a Review is a critique. Notice the wonderful hand-lettered book titles. See it on YouTube here.

I will continue to round up animated and artistic works that celebrate books and publishing. Send me a link if you know of something remarkable you think I should share.

Have You Got Any Castles? Looney Tunes Bookstore Animation

NITIAL CAPITALS have historical roots in the early days of book design; their use predates the printing press and the invention of moveable type. Today’s initial caps are not as fancy as those carefully rendered in gold leaf in ancient scriptoriums, but their association with classic book design remains strong. Initial Capital letters are often referred to generically as “drop caps” though a drop capital is actually a specific style of Initial Cap.

Some modernists discourage the use of initial caps, citing a host of typographical problems, but “Once upon a time” just wouldn’t be the same without a great big letter “O” at the beginning. Though not appropriate for every book, initial caps announce the beginning of a chapter with classical style. They suggest that the text you are about to read transcends mere data; this is literature.

Illuminated letter P in the 1407 AD Latin Bible on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England

This post examines different styles of initial caps and discusses the challenges of transitioning smoothly from large initial characters to the much smaller characters of body text. Digital tools and shortcuts make it easy to create initial caps but the easy way isn’t always the best way. Serious publishers understand the subtle differences between good typography and great typography. Many thanks to author and typographer Dick Margulis for editing and fact-checking.

Book Design: Different Styles of Initial Capitals

The Baseline Initial Cap is the simplest style; the large initial character sits on the same baseline as the body text. In the example below, I adjusted the initial cap downward to accommodate the curve of the S (which actually sits slightly below the baseline anyway) and the relative size of the body text.

Here’s a beautiful example of a Baseline Initial Cap from Moby-Dick or The Whale by Herman Melville. San Francisco : Arion Press, 1979 Wood cut illustrations by Barry Moser

The Hanging Initial Cap is another option. The initial is set beside the block of text where it “hangs” in the left margin. As margins shrink to save paper and printing costs, hanging initials are used less frequently, but POD-Publishers who opt to use classic layouts may find them useful and elegant.

The hanging initial can introduce typographic problems. Because the left edge of the text block remains left-aligned, the relative spacing between the hanging initial and the words adjacent to it is inflexible. The spacing between the first two letters of “Some” is too wide and I don’t even want to think about what a “Sporthole” is on line 2. Though readers will likely understand the intention of the text, the goal of “Crystal Goblet Typography” is to remain transparent and not introduce subtle anomalies readers can trip over.

The Baseline Hanging Initial Cap combines the previous two styles. As with the Baseline example, I adjusted the initial downward to accommodate the curve of the S and the relative sizes of the first two characters of the first word. Though the technique works best with wide margins, it does dispense with some of the problems caused when the initial hangs across multiple lines.

The Drop Capital is the most popular style of Initial. The first character is inset or “dropped” into the text. To make a Drop Cap in Adobe InDesign automatically, select a paragraph, set the first line indent to zero and then use the drop cap controls to specify how many lines tall the initial should be and how many characters should be initialized.

In the example below, the first character is initialized across two lines.

Notice how the first two lines are indented equally to accommodate the initial character, resulting in spacing problems. The Drop Cap Tool is certainly convenient, but digital characters have a certain amount of built-in space on either side (called side bearing) that causes the initial to sit slightly to the right of the left edge of the text block. Essentially, the Drop Cap Tool clears a box and drops in the initial—an easy solution but hardly an ideal one.

The best—if not the easiest—solution is to create Drop Capitals as separate text boxes where the position and text wrap can be adjusted by eye to accommodate both the shape of the initial and the proximity of the text that wraps around it.

Use Indesign’s TextWrap Tools to set the Initial Cap’s own textbox to “Wrap Around Object Shape.” Then use the white arrow tool to manually adjust the shape of the text wrap to produce ideal results for each character.

With a Handset Drop Cap, the first word is not so broken up and the first word of line 2 isn’t appended to the initial S to form unintended nonsense. The initial is positioned manually relative to the left edge of the text and the baseline. The text wrap area is outlined in green in the diagram below:

Book Design: Initial Caps with Quotation Marks

There are no hard and fast rules for using initial caps; typography is an art and art requires a discerning eye. When a chapter’s starting paragraph begins with quoted text, some typographers simply dispense with the opening quotation mark altogether.

Others add the opening quotation mark, letting it hang in the left margin. Many recommend using a quotation mark slightly smaller than half the point size of the initial cap.

As is the case in my examples, the initial cap is a different typeface (Raniscript) than the body text (Centaur). If the opening quotation mark is set with the same typeface as the initial, the first sentence can appear subtly off-balance. In the examples below, the initial’s text wrap is outlined in green to show how the quotation mark is positioned in its own text frame. Though the initial and the quotation mark can be combined, it’s easier to zoom in and adjust the elements separately by eye.

Setting the opening quotation mark to complement the closing quote is subtle but sensible, even if the two marks are set at different point  sizes.

Book Design: Transitioning from Initial Capitals to Body Text

Because of the difference in size between an initial cap and body text, some typographers create a “bridge” by setting the first word or phrase following the initial in big or small caps (as in the examples shown on this page). Read my post on small capitals for tips and perspectives on how to use them effectively.

For a lighthearted treatment of Initials, don’t miss Jessica Hische’s Daily Drop Cap. For a good discussion about how to correctly render drop caps on the web with CSS, Safalra’s explanation is the best I’ve seen.

For more Book Design Basics, see:
Book Design Basics Part 1: Margins and Leading
Book Design Basics Part 2: Optical Margins, Indents and Periods
Book Design Basics Part 3: Running The Numbers
Book Design Basics Part 4: Dashes, Hyphens and Dots
Book Design Basics Part 5: Small Capitals – Avoiding Capital Offenses

Book Design Basics – Drop Caps and Initial Impressions

IBooks Author is Apple’s new eBook publishing application, a drag-and-drop tool that allows publishers to create interactive books without having to write code.

From Apple: Available free on the Mac App store, iBooks Author is an amazing new app that allows anyone to create beautiful Multi-Touch textbooks — and just about any other kind of book — for iPad. With galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects, and more, these books bring content to life in ways the printed page never could.

Notwithstanding the fact that books have hardly failed to bring content to life these past five centuries since the introduction of the printing press, iBooks-Author looks pretty slick. However, Apple’s latest offering comes with sticky licensing restrictions that are unprecedented in the software industry.

iBooks Author Templates: One thing Apple has always done well in other applications like Keynote is to mitigate some of the damage that occurs when non-designers indulge in aesthetic experimentation. Though you are free to customize as you like, iBook-Author offers numerous templates that harmonize colors, font combinations, borders and backgrounds to guide the design process. Each template contains a collection of layouts for text, text with images, interactive pages, etc.

iBooks Author Widgets is a collection of interactive tools that can be dragged from a palette, dropped into an eBook template and configured with an intuitive user interface. They include photo galleries, audio and video media, quizzes, 3D objects, interactive images, Keynote presentations and even live HTML content. This last option is quite powerful because it enables publishers to embed web-based content that is kept constantly updated.

iBooks-Author Textbooks are a primary focus; Apple has already partnered with several major textbook publishers. The ability to highlight text and take notes is one enhancement. Study cards allow students to take this feature a step further. A testing module allows for review and assessment. Embedded media and interactive content have special value in an educational setting. Given that a large majority of students are visual learners and a number of others are kinesthetic (tactile) learners, interactive touch-screen textbooks will likely offer more engaging educational experiences for students who might otherwise be distracted from traditional textbooks. That said, textbook publishers have had tools and technology to create web-based courses for years, but this has not enticed them away from their core business of printing books. The difference is that many classrooms are already equipped with internet access while iBook textbooks require the purchase of a $600 reader device.

iBooks-Author publishes directly to the Apple iBookstore, making it easy for authors to make their books available—at least through Apple.

Apple has obviously done their homework. The Apple iPad is the first eReader device to leverage the new ePub3 specification and HTML5/CSS3 technology. They are also first on the field with eBook tools that allow publishers to create rich eBook experiences with visual tools. Of course, competing eReader devices will soon support these same technologies, and this presents some interesting problems.

Publishers are not interested in giving Apple exclusive rights to distribute their work, but the end-user license agreement (EULA) for iBooks-Author specifically states:

IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software (a “Work”), you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple.

Dan Wineman discusses Apple’s licensing problems in-depth on his Venomous Porridge blog: “Apple, in this EULA, is claiming a right not just to its software, but to its software’s output. It’s akin to Microsoft trying to restrict what people can do with Word documents, or Adobe declaring that if you use Photoshop to export a JPEG, you can’t freely sell it to Getty.”

Though the iBooks format will only run on iOS devices, eBook expert, Liz Castro writes on her blog that “it didn’t have to be this way. The files that iBooks Author creates are pretty reasonable EPUB files (masked with the .ibooks extension) and can be read in NOOK and other EPUB readers. You can unzip them and see the EPUB files inside.”

A smaller, technical issue with iBooks-Author is that it will only run on Mac OSX “Lion.” Many design professionals who use Macs (including myself) have not upgraded to the latest version of the Mac OS citing concerns about compatibility with other software tools. Ironically, it may be that consumers are quicker to adopt and use iBooks-Author than professionals.

As they did with the iPhone, the iPad and the Macintosh, Apple has set a standard for tools and technology that others will be challenged to follow. They introduced an innovative product and leveraged new web and eBook standards in groundbreaking ways. And yet, Apple’s “gated community” model is disturbing. Apple has chosen to serve themselves first and their customers second, even to a point of asserting the right to determine what publishers do with works created with Apple tools. This is contradictory to the very rights that empower self-publishing and freedom of speech and expression.

As I’m fond of saying, it’s still early in the eBook game. Adobe will introduce a new Creative Suite with publishing-focused tools this Spring. EBook Reader device manufacturers are hard at work integrating the new ePub3 standards. Let Apple have the benefit of the early adopters as a reward for their innovation and vision; they’ll pull the industry forward. It won’t be long before we have device-neutral eBook tools that deliver not only a smooth workflow but support for the principles that drive writers and publishers to do what we love.

The .iBook format is a “proprietary wrapper” for an open source ePub3 file that leverages open source technologies like javascript, CSS3 and HTML5.  It’s a zip file with a .ibook extension. Apple has not asserted ownership of anyone’s work, but they have asserted ownership of a “proprietary ” file format created using open source technologies that were developed by people who specifically intended to provide this code freely to the public.

Apple has made an investment in developing innovative, proprietary technologies that make it easy to develop a package of open source code. I think they are entitled to realize return on that investment, but it is a violation of the rights and principles of the open source community and the IDPF (who created the ePub3 specs) to limit what can be done with that code.

If Apple charged a fee for the software but didn’t restrict the distribution of the files created with the tool, they’d have my money today. But as a publisher, I get my worst returns from the Apple store. I want to generate a straight ePub3 file that I can distribute anywhere or upload to KDP and convert to Kindle KF8 format. I can get that open source file by unzipping an .iBook file, but I still can’t distribute that file outside of the Apple store.

It’s true that nobody is being forced to use iBook Author. I certainly won’t be using it, but I’m disappointed; the lack of other good ePub3 tools available at any price would have forced me to become an enthusiastic customer.

Addendum: According to an article in .net, the .iBook format is more than just a wrapper for ePub3; it actually adds proprietary hooks in the code for features that can only be rendered by the iBookstore eReader software. This explains why eBooks produces with iBooks-Author can only be displayed on an iOS device, though the licensing strategy and the technology strategy are both unfortunate; Apple could have contributed their code and functionality to ePub3 while standards were being developed instead of developing a new, proprietary eBook format that won’t be welcomed by the publishing community.

Daniel Glazman, W3C CSS Working Group co-chairman, outlined the problems in a blog post and  spoke to .net about his concerns with Apple’s format, and also with the general reporting about iBooks Author.

“iBooks Author is not an EPUB3 editor as many journalists said,” he complained. “EPUB3 is a standard, and there is nothing between ‘comformant’ and ‘non-conformant’. The *.ibooks format is based on EPUB3 but it’s not a profile of it – it extends it, and so it’s not EPUB3!

“This fragments the market, places a burden on the publishing industry, and creates a trap for customers, who can be sure their purchases through the iBooks Store will never be exportable to an EPUB3 reader.”

iBooks Author – Apple Introduces Easy eBooks with One Big Condition

After organizing their bookshelf, Sean Ohlenkamp and his wife decided to take it to the next level. They spent many sleepless nights moving and stacking books at Type Bookstore in Toronto to produce this whimsical stop-motion animation.

The Joy of Books

Amazon has released early tools and documents for producing ebooks in the new KF8 format.

A more thorough tutorial on KF8 will follow in an upcoming post, but here are links to Amazon’s KF8 tools and documents along with links to relevant articles.

The Kindle Format 8 Home Page - includes links to the Previewer, KindleGen, and supporting documents.

KindleGen2 – A command-line application for creating KF8/Mobi ebooks from X/HTML and ePub, this tool is probably too technical for most self-publishers. However, the ability to convert from ePub files to KF8 files is notable. Because all other eReaders use ePub files, the most efficient workflow will likely involve exporting a single ePub or ePub3 file for distribution across eBook stores and then converting that same file into Kf8 for distribution by Amazon.

From Amazon:

KindleGen is a command line tool which enables publishers to work in an automated environment with a variety of source content including HTML, XHTML or EPUB. KindleGen converts this source content to a single file which supports both KF8 and Mobi formats enabling publishers to create great-looking books that work on all Kindle devices and apps.

KindleGen is officially supported by Amazon to convert files to the Kindle format. We recommend you use KindleGen to create content that is compatible with all Kindle devices and apps. Files created with third-party software may not work properly on current or future Kindle devices and apps.

Highlights of KindleGen functionality

• Support for all KF8 functionality
• Generates a single file supporting both KF8 and Mobi format
• Support for multiple source formats including HTML, XHTML and EPUB

Kindle Previewer – An interface for  viewing, converting, and validating KF8 ebooks. Think of this as a Kindle Fire simulator that runs on your desktop.

Kindle Previewer documentation (PDF) – Specs and Guidelines for Kindle Previewer.

From Amazon:

Kindle Previewer is a graphical user interface tool that emulates how books display across Kindle devices and apps. Kindle Previewer makes it easy for publishers to preview the layout of a book and make sure its text displays properly for any orientation or font size to ensure publishers produce and submit the highest quality Kindle books.

As a best practice we recommend you use the Kindle Previewer to review how their books look across all Kindle devices and apps.

Highlights of Kindle Previewer functionality

• Ability to preview your content across Kindle devices and apps
• Support for previewing Kindle Text Pop Ups and Kindle Panel

Views

• Accurate rendering of your content across Kindle devices and apps
• Faster previewing through features like Auto flip mode, Image flip mode
• Auto updates for future enhancements

Kindle Publishing Guidelines  (PDF) -  revised to include the KF8 format, this PDF includes general instructions on how to self-publish on Amazon

Kindle InDesign Plugin (Beta) – this update to the Kindle export plug-in for Adobe InDesign includes KF8 support but lacks support for some of the enhanced features mentioned in the original KF8 announcement. For now, Amazon recommends converting to KF8 from Microsoft Word files, something most serious self-publishers will be hesitant to do unless the final typeset version of the book is identical to an earlier MS Word manuscript. Though it seems that would logically be the case, it’s common to make changes during the final round of readings after the book has been typeset in InDesign. Because of the importance of InDesign to the publishing process for publishers of all sizes, I expect Amazon will focus their energies on updating the plug-in to support all of KF8′s features.

From Amazon:

Kindle Plugin for Adobe InDesign® (Beta) is a plug-in designed to make it easier for publishers to convert documents or books created in Adobe InDesign to Kindle Format 8. Kindle Plugin for Adobe InDesign® converts the InDesign source content to a single file which supports both KF8 and Mobi formats enabling publishers to create great-looking books that work on all Kindle devices and apps.

Kindle Plugin for Adobe InDesign® (Beta) is officially supported by Amazon to convert files to the Kindle format. We recommend you use Kindle Plugin for Adobe InDesign® (Beta) to create content that is compatible with all Kindle devices and apps. Files created with third-party software may not work properly on current or future Kindle devices and apps.

Highlights of Kindle Plugin functionality:

• Seamless integration into InDesign
• Direct conversion of InDesign file to a single file which supports both KF8 and Mobi formats
• Easy export for most InDesign text formatting
• Ability to adjust image quality
• Adding and editing of metadata for Kindle books
• Formatting for table of contents
• Auto updates for future enhancements

Kindle Plugin for Adobe InDesign documentation  (PDF) – The document explains what features are supported or not, but neglects to instruct users on how to use the plug-in. My initial explorations did not reveal an “export to KF8″ option. Apparently, the KF8 is created by the Kindle Previewer application after using the plug-in to export to an updated version of the original Kindle .mobi format. Lack of documentation of the required workflow is an unfortunate oversight.

Kindle Publishing Guide – A detailed online reference for publishing Kindle ebooks. Most of this documentation does not appear on first glance to have been updated to specifically address KF8 eBooks.

For an early technical analysis of the KF8 format, see EPub Guru Liz Castro’s article about the HTML code that drives the new format. Her conclusion: Kf8 is just a wrapper for an ePub File.

Additionally, read Liz’s article about fixed layout in KF8 eBooks . Different screen aspect ratios (the relationship between height and width) on various eReader devices and the ability to change from vertical to horizontal layouts by rotating the eReader create problems for publishers who want to create fixed layouts that maximize screen area.

These problems and limitations are not unexpected; it’s early in the eBook game. Amazon is first to offer a “rich eReader device,” but other vendors’ ePub3 eReader devices and good tools for exporting ePub3 files are still in development. Adobe has already demonstrated innovative “Liquid Layout” (video below) solutions that fit documents to multiple screen aspect ratios and orientations; they work in a web browser so we can assume they’ll work in ePub files. I suspect the eBook publishing game will change dramatically this Spring when Adobe releases an update to its Creative Suite publishing tools.

Addendum: On the heels of Amazon’s announcement come rumors that Apple will be announcing their own EPUB3 tools on Thursday, January 19. Read the Ars Technica article here.

KF8 EBook Tools and Documents Released by Amazon

WordPress is a magic web publishing tool perfect for writers and publishers who want to build attractive websites without spending a fortune and build reader communities around their work. This is the first in a series of articles that explain in non-technical terms how to get your site started and how to publish content without becoming a programmer. Search engines and marketing strategies will be discussed and I’ll steer you around common stumbling blocks.

Over 70 million WordPress sites (including the one you’re currently reading) produce over a half-billion new posts every day. Other good options are available, but WordPress offers a huge support community, thousands of add-ons (plug-ins) that extend its functionality and thousands of themes that instantly customize its appearance. WordPress is fantastically search engine friendly.

WordPress was originally developed as a blogging platform that enables writers to post articles and receive comments from readers. Eventually, WordPress expanded into a full-blown content management system. In English, this means you can post articles, create pages, embed images and publish many kinds of content with a simple Microsoft Word-style editor. Push the “Publish” button and your content magically appears on your website along with whatever links or navigation buttons are needed.

Straight Talk: Though WordPress makes web publishing easy, marketing books is hard work. Putting up a website is only the first step in a marketing expedition that requires time, effort and dedication. These articles will guide you on that journey—and it’s a great journey—but there are no magic formulas. A website is only as good as the writing and design it contains. WordPress can take care of how to publish, but what to publish is your responsibility. As with book production, there is much you can do yourself but there are places where professional input will prove immensely valuable. Too many websites and too many books bear the scars of do-it-yourself production. Building your own WordPress site will save you thousands of dollars in website expenses, but if you pocket those savings at the expense of having a professional designer create (at least) your site’s header graphic, you will likely get what you pay for. Self-published books are universally derided as poorly edited and poorly produced; as you aspire to write the world’s greatest book, strive also to create the world’s greatest website. Elevate your standards and those of the self-publishing profession.

This introductory article covers how to install WordPress and adjust its settings to suit your purposes. Though the settings section is long, understanding the purpose of each option will broaden your knowledge of what WordPress can do. Everything is explained in plain, non-technical English.

Section 1 – Getting Started with WordPress

There are two flavors of WordPress: WordPress.COM and WordPress.ORG; both are free. WordPress.com is easier to get started with, but WordPress.org offers greater flexibility, a broader range of add-ons and themes, and more marketing power when it comes to pushing your content out to search engines and discussion forums. If your budget is zero, start with WordPress.com. Sign up and start writing. WordPress.com will host your blog at no cost and give you a very capable platform for sharing and promoting your work.

WordPress.ORG provides a downloadable version of the WordPress software which you must install on a web server with a domain name (your own dot-com or dot-net, etc.). Invest in a domain name (about $10/year) and a web hosting account ($5-$15/month) to run and customize your own copy of WordPress; there are many advantages. Most web hosting companies offer a package deal that contains both hosting and domain name registration. Many provide a one-click installation tool for WordPress that spares technophobes the terror of setting up databases and copying files to a server. Though these skills are not difficult to learn, what’s “difficult” is subjective. If your goal is to get up and running with minimal digital anxiety, choose a hosting company that offers great support, a domain/hosting package and a WordPress installer. I use Liquid Web for my hosting and have been more than satisfied with their support and reliability. Their cheapest “shared hosting” package will be more than sufficient for the average writer or publisher. There are many options out there; some are better than others. In general, you get what you pay for. (A favor please: don’t turn discussions of this article into a list of hosting company endorsements; there are hundreds of web hosts out there and dozens of sites offering reviews and recommendations).

WARNING: Beware of notices you may receive about renewing your domain name from scam companies like Domain Registry of America. These companies trick you into transferring your domain name to them so they can sell it back to you at a profit. Keep track of where your domain name is registered. Call your hosting company if you are unsure whether to respond to a renewal notice.

Your web hosting company will send you a username and password and a link to your website’s control panel. The technical details of installing WordPress are covered in the video below. For those who understand the basics of technology, WordPress boasts a “famous 5-Minute Installation.” If technology scares you, be sure your web host offers a good support team to pick up the slack. You only have to install WordPress once; then you can start publishing.

The following video shows you how to install WordPress manually. Though it shows a previous version of WordPress, the process is the same. If your web host offers a WordPress installer, skip the video, run the installer and move on to adjusting the settings. If after running the installer, you are prompted to upgrade your WordPress installation, just click the “upgrade” link; it’s that easy.

Once WordPress is installed on your server, your site will look something like this:

Click the link at the bottom right that says “site admin.” Log in to get started using the username and password you selected during the setup process to access the WordPress Dashboard. Here, you’ll  create pages, write blog posts, change the appearance of your site, upgrade WordPress when new versions are available, add plug-ins to enhance your site’s functionality, monitor traffic statistics and control the site settings.

Feel free to explore the tabs on the left side of the dashboard; you won’t break anything. Click the screen images in this article to enlarge them.

Section 2 – WordPress Settings

This section will make more sense after you have WordPress installed and running. Take a short break. Set up a domain name and a hosting account and get started on your new website. You can be ready to proceed in less than half an hour.

Before you start writing content, there are are a number of Settings to adjust in the tab at the bottom left. Why so many? WordPress accomplishes many different things for many types of publisher; the Settings tailor it to your needs and preferences. (The bottom “SEO” tab in my examples won’t be visible on your site until later when we add a certain very powerful search engine plug-in.) Click on Settings and a selection of setting types will open up. We’ll walk through them screen-by-screen. Most options can be set once and then left alone.

Be sure to click the “Save Changes” button after making adjustments in each settings screen.

WordPress Settings: The General Settings Tab

• Set the Title and Tagline of your site. Search engines will look at these options for the name and description of your website.
• The WordPress Address and Site Address will probably contain your domain name, but if you haven’t made your site live yet, you may wish to plug in the “secret address” to your site provided by your server. It probably looks something like http://host.myHostingCompany.com/~myUserName Change these settings to your domain name now, or later when you’re ready to connect the domain name to the live site. These were probably already set when you installed WordPress so chances are good you can leave them as-is.
• Enter the email address WordPress should use to notify you of comments, new subscribers, etc.
• The New User Default Role should be left as “Subscriber.” In larger sites, administrators, editors and subscribers have permission to view and edit different kinds of content. For sites managed by one person, new users will be “Subscribers” and you will be the “Administrator.”
• Choose your time zone, and set a date format and time format that match your personal tastes.
• If you add a calendar to your website to display things like author events and speaking engagements, the calendar will display weeks that start on whatever day you set in the Week Starts On: menu. In other words, you can have a calendar with weeks running from Sunday to Saturday or start your week on Monday and have Saturday and Sunday clustered together at the end of the week. Weekly web traffic reports also rely on this setting to define where a week starts and ends.

WordPress Settings: The Writing Tab

• The Size of the Post Box setting controls the height of the content writing window. You may prefer to keep it small if you work on a laptop, but if you have room on your screen, consider setting this to 30 or more lines so you can see more of your text without scrolling.
• The Formatting checkboxes control Emoticons—e.g. if you want : ) to be converted to a smiley-face graphic, and whether or not you want WordPress to try to fix any invalid code. If you won’t be writing HTML code and you don’t put emoticons in your text (perhaps because you’re a professional writer), you can turn both of these off.
• The Default Post Category will be set to “Uncategorized” because you haven’t created any content categories yet. You’ll do that later and come back here to set the default. Leave the setting as-is for now.
• The Default Link Category works the same way. You can create link categories later and set the default here. “Blogroll” is just blogspeak for the list of links you can optionally post on your site.
• Skip Press This for now and leave Post Via Email, Remote Publishing and Update Services as they are. These are optional tools for more advanced users; you won’t need them to get started.

WordPress Settings: Reading

• The Front Page Displays setting determines what shows up when visitors first enter your site and where they’ll go when they hit the “Home” button. If you intend to use your site as a blog where you post regular articles and updates, you may wish to have the “latest posts” show up first. If you want to build a more traditional website with static pages and no blog posts, or if you prefer a custom home page with your blog accessible through a link, here’s where you’ll set those preferences. This is another chicken-and-egg situation at the moment. Until you create pages or posts (which we’ll cover later), you won’t be able to select them in the menus here.
• The Blog Pages Show at Most setting controls how many posts appear on your blog page. Though you may be tempted to set this at a high number to keep all your posts visible, remember that more posts take more time to load. Ten is a good setting to start with.
• Leave Syndication Feeds and the other settings as-is. WordPress allows you to generate a “feed” that readers can subscribe to with services like Google Reader. Instead of visiting your blog directly, your content will be “syndicated” or pushed directly to subscribers.

WordPress Settings: Discussion Settings

• The Default Article Settings control how your WordPress site communicates with other sites. Turn these options on. 

1. Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the article means if you write a post and link to another blog, the owner of that blog will receive a “pingback” alerting them of your link.
2. Allow link notifications from other blogs means you’ll be notified when someone links to your site.
3. The allow people to post comments on new articles checkbox allows you to determine whether you want visitors to be able to comment on your posts by default. You can turn this option on or off elsewhere for each post or page you create.

• Other Comment Settings have to do mostly with controlling spam. If anyone is allowed to comment anonymously, you may end up deleting comment spam all day. If commenting requires registration and validation, many visitors will decide it isn’t worth the hassle. I prefer tighter security and I’m just as happy to have the discussion happen on forums like LinkedIn where I share my posts.

1. Comment author must fill out name and email – turn this on.
2. Users must be registered and logged in to comment – turn this on.
3. Automatically close comments after ___ days – leave this off unless you wish to allow comments for only a certain number of days after you publish a post.
4. Break comments into pages – leave this off unless you get hundreds of comments to manage (a high-class problem).
5. Comments should be displayed with older/newest comments first – Older is more common but set this any way you like.

• Email Me Whenever controls notifications you’ll receive from WordPress. I prefer to be notified so I leave these turned on, but feel free to opt out.
• Before a Comment Appears

1. An administrator must always approve the comment – You’re the administrator—turn this on if you wish to approve comments before they appear on your site
2. Comment author must have a previously approved comment—after someone has posted a comment and you have approved that comment, allow that person to post further comments without you having to approve each one. This is safe as long as you don’t get duped into approving a bogus comment to give a spammer a “free pass.” We’ll install excellent tools for filtering out comment spammers, but don’t approve comments that offer praise for your blog while mentioning nothing specific about your content.

• Comment Moderation provides other ways of filtering comments to control spam without having to manually approve each one. I suggest leaving these blank unless you find you have comment management problems down the road. After two years of regular blogging, I haven’t touched these.
• Avatars are fairly trivial. You can turn them off, show “Gravatar Logos” for people who register one at Gravatar.com and want their face or a graphic to appear next to their comment or select one of the other avatar options that range from decorative to downright goofy.

WordPress Settings: Media These settings control how images and other media are handled by your WordPress site:

• Image Sizes

1. The Thumbnail Size Settings control how the thumbnail images that are generated for each article appear. The 150×150 pixel setting (about 2 inches square) is fine. Check the box that crops the thumbnails.
2. The Medium Size and Large Size image settings control the options WordPress offers for embedded images in your posts. Leave them as they are unless you have specific image size requirements

• Embeds controls graphics and other media embedded in posts and pages
  

1. When possible, embed the media content from a URL directly onto the page – this means if you type a link to (for example) a YouTube video, WordPress will attempt to display the video and not just the link. Turn this on unless you prefer links instead of the actual media.
2. Maximum Embed Size – leave this blank for now. After you customize your site’s appearance later, you can adjust this setting if embedded graphics exceed the margins of your content area.

• Uploading Files controls where uploaded images and other media are stored on your server.
  

1. Store uploads in this folder – leave this blank unless you have a specific directory other than the WordPress default where you want to store images
2. Full URL Path to Files – leave this blank unless you have a specific directory other than the WordPress default where you want to store images
3. Organize my Uploads into Month and year based folders – this will be invisible to you, but if you or a technician ever has to poke around in the site files, having images organized can be helpful. Turn this checkbox on.

WordPress Settings: Privacy

Controls whether search engines index your WordPress site. I like to turn indexing off and then turn it on later after my site is ready to be seen. That way, I avoid having draft or test content accidentally indexed by search engines.

WordPress Settings: Permalinks

Permalinks are permanent addresses WordPress assigns to each post or page in your site. By default, WordPress assigns an identification number that’s functional but not useful for search engine optimization or memorable for users. There is only one important setting to change on this page. Select “Custom Structure” and type /%postname%/ in the box next to it. We’ll work with permalinks later, but this setting will change your site links from technobabble to English.

WordPress Setup: Jetpack

You may have noticed a “Jetpack” banner at the top of every page. “Jetpack” is a suite of useful add-ons provided by WordPress.com to users of WordPress software downloaded from WordPress.org. To set up Jetpack (and get rid of the nagging banner), select the “Connect to WordPress.com” button at the top.

You’ll be taken to a page where you can register your site with WordPress. Your registration allows the WordPress developer community to track how many WordPress sites are out there and what kind of traffic they receive in exchange for a selection of useful tools. Registering with WordPress.com requires you to fill out a form and respond to an email confirmation request.

Once your site is connected, you’ll be taken to the following screen:

Click to explore as the banner suggests. We’ll set up these tools in an upcoming article.

Now you have a working WordPress site. You’re ready to start publishing content. Part 2 of Websites for Writers and Publishers will cover posts, pages and how to organize your main menu bar. Subscribe to my newsletter (the subscription form is in the sidebar of this page) to receive future articles in your email box.

WordPress – Websites for Writers and Publishers Part 1