ScreenWriter Wanted
I am currently looking for a ScreenWriter who is willing to turn my first novel, The Bonds that Bind, into a screenplay. If I can sell the screenplay into a movie, I'll need screenplays with the other books, but let's not get ahead of ourselves yet. The goal at present is a screenplay for Book 1. If you're interested, contact me and let me know what your asking price might be. The novel's over 300 pages, and it would make a good movie.
P.O.D.
The novels and books I publish are Printed On Demand. The novel/book won't exist until it's ordered and paid for. At that point, it will be created and sent to you. I like this feature since there are a lot of books on shelves out there, as great as they are, that will not be bought. In this age when we're properly learning how to appreciate and care for this earth, I like knowing that there won't be numerous Bonds that Binds out there unread, that no trees died in vain. This does mean that the reader needs patience in a world where we're learning to expect results in seconds. I think you'll like the books, the world, and the people in this series. I hope waiting for the book to reach you won't spoil the moment. It never takes that long to get to your door anyway. At most, what I order gets to me in, on average, six days. That's pretty good service.
Looking for Help
I'm looking for someone who can write flash, C++, or similar computer game programs.
I have a game to be turned into a board game at one point, sooner than later hopefully. The alternative, in the immediate, is to have said game turned into a video game that can drum up interest. With any luck, a board game company will then come to find me and save me a lot of work. The programmer who helped make the video game version would get a cut of the board game sales of course. They'd get a share of the video game sales as well though I'm not sure how they'd be sold yet. I'm working on that.
Right, details. Well, I'm thinking of a game that can be played on a computer. It would be cool if it could be on xbox or other, but hey, that's a future dream, and it's a strategy game. They work better on computer or board game platforms. Anyway, if you've any ideas, send me an email. I'm open to any ideas you might have.
I also have an interest in having my animals rendered in 3D graphics. If someone knows how to and has the programs to take a 2D image and computer model it into a 3D image, that would be great. The animal pictures would then be workable for supporting the computer game mentioned above. They would also be applicable to helping sell the board game idea to a company that would hopefully be interested.
Thanks. Looking forward to working with you.
I have a game to be turned into a board game at one point, sooner than later hopefully. The alternative, in the immediate, is to have said game turned into a video game that can drum up interest. With any luck, a board game company will then come to find me and save me a lot of work. The programmer who helped make the video game version would get a cut of the board game sales of course. They'd get a share of the video game sales as well though I'm not sure how they'd be sold yet. I'm working on that.
Right, details. Well, I'm thinking of a game that can be played on a computer. It would be cool if it could be on xbox or other, but hey, that's a future dream, and it's a strategy game. They work better on computer or board game platforms. Anyway, if you've any ideas, send me an email. I'm open to any ideas you might have.
I also have an interest in having my animals rendered in 3D graphics. If someone knows how to and has the programs to take a 2D image and computer model it into a 3D image, that would be great. The animal pictures would then be workable for supporting the computer game mentioned above. They would also be applicable to helping sell the board game idea to a company that would hopefully be interested.
Thanks. Looking forward to working with you.
eBook Converter Points in Publishing
In the rise of options like Wattpad and Inkitt where an author can write and publish their books for free, I see an issue brewing: no one's getting paid. It's popular for the readers because they dont' want to pay money for things, but the authors need to eat, and they can't just keep giving their books away. As such, I see epub and ebook conversions as a continuing interest for people. In the same sense and as such, I'm going to take this chance to share my bits of learned wisdom regarding eBook editing and publishing with anyone who cares to read this note. Maybe reading what follows will help you avoid the pitfalls and irritations I’ve encountered.
The following process can now be done with programs like Scrivener as an all in one. You type your story into their interface, type publish, picking output first, and the program will create the epub file, kindle version, iBooks version, et cetera. Programs like Scrivener are still new enough at this point that I'm not getting into them. There are still a lot of bugs with their output as I see it. When the time comes and they've proven to me they'll be around for the long run and figure out their bugs, I'll make use of them and mention them in this notes section. Until then, I'm not really including them. This doesn't mean they're aren't good. They might be really grand. They just have to prove themselves first. Even with their faults, the following two programs that I do cover and use have proven themselves good enough and productive enough to be covered. So here they are.
To begin with, you can write your eBook directly in Sigil. You can start your text and import images as you need them. It would actually produce a more seamless and better compiled end result, but I personally like the tools and ease of use working through Word or some other word processing platform first. The layouts and font options are comfortable, and editing and working through the writing process is easier that way. Maybe you’re publishing your book/novel in both paperback and eBook. If you start using Word or its like, you can submit the book for paperback, then, convert the word file into an epub and go after the eBook version.
Either way, authors often start with the Word versions, then, convert those finalized documents into epubs and start that next stage of the publishing adventure. I do suggest you remove your images from the word file before converting. Text comes over well enough, but images don’t always come across as images. This is all explained in what follows. Basically, at this point, let’s just say it’s easily to make placers (“image3 goes here” and that sort of note) in your document. Then add the images later.
Things are rarely ever complete when you convert a word document. You’ll need to edit text or configure images whether you’ve added them before or after the conversion. There are a lot of fiddly things that you’ll have to do because what works in a word document doesn’t necessarily work in an epub. There are several different word document to epub converters you can use. Calibur and Sigil seem to be the two main choices, and they work well. I use both of them for different parts of my conversion process. They’re referenced throughout.
I use Calibur for my initial conversion. Sigil doesn’t seem (in the least, I haven’t figured out how to) be able to bring a word document in directly. Sigil tends to display the word document with odd symbols, as basic Unicode-type gibberish. Calibur takes in the word document and converts it into a recognizable epub. I add basic conforming details with Calibur. This includes line spacing, indents, cover choice and settings, et cetera. There are a lot more details you can control, but I like to do most of my work in Sigil.
I use Sigil to edit the epub that’s been created. Calibur doesn’t add a Date of Creation and other necessary bits that online eBook publishers require, and Sigil is more user friendly. Calibur looks and is a lot more complex. Sigil is easier to manage and move around through. Publishing is a confusing process to begin with. I personally don’t need the program I’m using to add to that frustration. I tend to control and create the Table of Contents for my epubs in Sigil as well. I find that process a lot easier with Sigil’s interface.
Here are some more important points about each converter (Calibur and Sigil). There is a little bit of repetition. It never hurts to allot reminders as long as the effort isn’t overdone.
Calibur:
Sigil:
There are, of course, a host of general issues that relate to eBook converting. Most of them relate to issues you might come across when publishing.
Word to ePub conversion issues (possibly due to Sigil and Calibur in particular but possibly true for other converters)
Images directly
There are a lot of things to think about when choosing the format and layout of your eBook. What is your target reader and audience? How will you publish it? How will you truly sell it? Here are a few more points/questions that I think need to be considered by anyone publishing an eBook.
PDF points (PDF’s were pretty much the first form of eBook formats)
ePub points (still a popular form of eBook formatting today)
The following process can now be done with programs like Scrivener as an all in one. You type your story into their interface, type publish, picking output first, and the program will create the epub file, kindle version, iBooks version, et cetera. Programs like Scrivener are still new enough at this point that I'm not getting into them. There are still a lot of bugs with their output as I see it. When the time comes and they've proven to me they'll be around for the long run and figure out their bugs, I'll make use of them and mention them in this notes section. Until then, I'm not really including them. This doesn't mean they're aren't good. They might be really grand. They just have to prove themselves first. Even with their faults, the following two programs that I do cover and use have proven themselves good enough and productive enough to be covered. So here they are.
To begin with, you can write your eBook directly in Sigil. You can start your text and import images as you need them. It would actually produce a more seamless and better compiled end result, but I personally like the tools and ease of use working through Word or some other word processing platform first. The layouts and font options are comfortable, and editing and working through the writing process is easier that way. Maybe you’re publishing your book/novel in both paperback and eBook. If you start using Word or its like, you can submit the book for paperback, then, convert the word file into an epub and go after the eBook version.
Either way, authors often start with the Word versions, then, convert those finalized documents into epubs and start that next stage of the publishing adventure. I do suggest you remove your images from the word file before converting. Text comes over well enough, but images don’t always come across as images. This is all explained in what follows. Basically, at this point, let’s just say it’s easily to make placers (“image3 goes here” and that sort of note) in your document. Then add the images later.
Things are rarely ever complete when you convert a word document. You’ll need to edit text or configure images whether you’ve added them before or after the conversion. There are a lot of fiddly things that you’ll have to do because what works in a word document doesn’t necessarily work in an epub. There are several different word document to epub converters you can use. Calibur and Sigil seem to be the two main choices, and they work well. I use both of them for different parts of my conversion process. They’re referenced throughout.
I use Calibur for my initial conversion. Sigil doesn’t seem (in the least, I haven’t figured out how to) be able to bring a word document in directly. Sigil tends to display the word document with odd symbols, as basic Unicode-type gibberish. Calibur takes in the word document and converts it into a recognizable epub. I add basic conforming details with Calibur. This includes line spacing, indents, cover choice and settings, et cetera. There are a lot more details you can control, but I like to do most of my work in Sigil.
I use Sigil to edit the epub that’s been created. Calibur doesn’t add a Date of Creation and other necessary bits that online eBook publishers require, and Sigil is more user friendly. Calibur looks and is a lot more complex. Sigil is easier to manage and move around through. Publishing is a confusing process to begin with. I personally don’t need the program I’m using to add to that frustration. I tend to control and create the Table of Contents for my epubs in Sigil as well. I find that process a lot easier with Sigil’s interface.
Here are some more important points about each converter (Calibur and Sigil). There is a little bit of repetition. It never hurts to allot reminders as long as the effort isn’t overdone.
Calibur:
- It involves a lot of technical choices regarding your word to epub conversion; that's all necessary enough but more technical than most people can or care to process.
- The most recent update that I've received improves the program. It responds to modern documents and recognizes images and current coding expectations more fluidly now.
- From my experience, it isn’t really designed for the fine tuning of your converted epub file.
- Free and easy to download.
- Does take a while to start up (depending on your RAM of course), but it’s pretty smooth and quick-responding when it’s going. I’ve also never had Calibur crash on me, so the program’s pretty stable.
Sigil:
- I haven’t figured out how to convert a text/Word file into an epub with Sigil; it always comes in garbled and displayed in strange symbols, but it will open an existing epub file and let you doctor it in a more user friendly set up.
- It’s almost DOS designed – basic command screen layout, simple, not so many gadgets and fancy layouts for the user that Word has gotten many people accustomed to, but it works well enough as long as you’re aware of its quirks. It's still more DOS than not, just better all the time.
- As with most other programs, the larger your file size, the more Sigil is apt to become unstable and crash while working with it.
- As with other programs, the more unstable your file, the more Sigil is apt to uncentre that one image three pages back. When you’re fixing the text on page 10; the title on page 5 might forget it’s centered during your next edit. I've had this happen many times. Just when I think the book's ready, I check it again, and something that was fine twenty minutes ago is now off. Lovely.
- Lulu.com (online self-publisher) likes it when you use images with no spaces in their names. The images might not load or be referenced properly if there’re spaces. When working through Sigil, I’ve gotten the feeling Sigil doesn’t like the spaces either, but I’ve no empirical data to support that one.
- Sigil stores your images in an images folder. When you change your mind and delete imageA, you might put in imageB, maybe replace it later with imageC even. You’re feeling satisfied and smart. But Sigil still has imageA and imageB stored in its folder along with imageC. You’re deleting images while adding them, but your file is becoming steadily larger (and more unstable). You need to physically go in and delete the now unnecessary images from your images folder ongoing. The better alternative is, of course, to add the right image in the first time, so you don’t need to replace it. This issue would then be moot. I've ended up with a 65 MB epub file. It wasn't 'til I checked online before I learned what Sigil was doing with my image files and how come my epub was getting so large. Suddenly, things made sense.
- Free and easy to download.
There are, of course, a host of general issues that relate to eBook converting. Most of them relate to issues you might come across when publishing.
Word to ePub conversion issues (possibly due to Sigil and Calibur in particular but possibly true for other converters)
- There was a time when images weren’t images anymore when you convert a Word document into an epub (they didn’t show up in your images folder and couldn’t be centred or aligned left or right). They were just converted more as, essentially, ghosts: they were there and text wrapped around them, but they couldn’t be manipulated; this was likely done to make the file smaller as Word documents can be quite large, but it was still annoying. The latest updates to Calibur and Sigil changed this part of the process. The images are now transferred over into an epub as image01, image02, and so on. This way, the images have names, and they can be centred post conversion allowing the writer necessary control over the final product. The coding is done right now, and the epub passes the current requirements for Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and the other publishers. That's all good because the coding was at times written wrong before. The issue might still be (for some writers) that your images don't have names, so you'll have a longer time identifying which pic is which. If that's an issue for you, then it's still better to remove your images before converting to epub; then, add the images back in with Sigil to work with as you like at that point.
- Text size once converted cannot be changed beyond regular text and Headings 1 through 5 (when moved from Headings down, text becomes a small size, and that’s where it ends).
- Text formatting is uninventive in an epub. You’ve got tabs; left, right, center aligns; and hard returns; a list option maybe – that’s it. Any extra/other paragraph formatting that comes across from Word is adored (may not be recognized in the epub, but often, it does translate over). Just don’t go and change the formatting once in the epub editing, or it’s lost.
- Delete extra space to avoid shifting pages (true for most converters?). Remove the extra space at the bottom of each page in the epub; just run your cursor downwards from after your last letter or period, and you’ll likely find five or six lines of nothing – delete them; the eReader will recognize the blank space as space that’s used up. Instead of ending your page at your last period, your page might continue on and overlap in the final product. You’ll end up with a blank page in the middle of your book (which most people try to avoid).
Images directly
- Size – get to know the size of the eReader screen your epub will be read on; make sure your images fit that screen well, or they’ll overlap (which will have them taking up two pages or only partly showing); they also won’t centre or align well when they’re too large (not to mention smaller images keep your file size down, so the file will be more manageable with more properly managed images. If you don't go into working with images prepared, you might find yourself resizing, then re-resizing; then, opening the files again. I might have come across that pitfall too.
- Darkness - the images need to be dark enough to show up well on a lit screen. Your computer will show images just fine because the Word program is designed with white backgrounds and such to keep images crisp, but an eReader has a lit screen that brightens those images. It essentially shines through any image not properly darkened/redesigned. Your images might need to be made darker to show well on that eReader screen. Trial and error?
- Coding expectations have increased since lulu is now sharing the writer’s epubs with Nook, Amazon and such; those external servicers are demanding a more professional product, so lulu is demanding the code be cleaner and stronger – the problem is that their warning and error reports telling the author what they need to do to ‘fix’ their book and make it able for publishing are written in code that only a game/computer/web coder would understand for what they’re saying. It makes life fun if you don’t know what the code lingo means.
- Font – lulu recognizes most font, but not all; if that’s the case, your document won’t be permitted to be published (may only be an issue if you’re publishing with PDFs. Most epub converters are better at embedding accessed fonts. Either way, it’s good to be conscious of which fonts you’re embedding and which fonts might not be the best to use).
- Following along with PDF publishing issues, using Signatures in a PDF accesses one of those fonts lulu doesn’t like, and it’s pretty much impossible to embed that selected/used font (which seems to be automatic). This might just be my experience, but I tried six ways including four of their suggestions to get Word to embed that one font, and it wouldn’t work. The PDF couldn’t embed it either on its end.
- You can’t have your PDF secured when publishing that format; if you made it secure, lulu couldn’t check it for consistency and coding, so it makes sense they’d put this restriction on the publishing, but it means you’re offering up an unsecure document to the general buying public. That tends to make an author quiver.
There are a lot of things to think about when choosing the format and layout of your eBook. What is your target reader and audience? How will you publish it? How will you truly sell it? Here are a few more points/questions that I think need to be considered by anyone publishing an eBook.
PDF points (PDF’s were pretty much the first form of eBook formats)
- They’ve an ease of use that an epub does not. They’ve bookmarks for navigation during and after you’re done, not just after. They also give you the ability to see your pages and the general layout of your book without clicking slowly from one page to another (which Sigil forces upon the author).
- They allow more tool options to manipulate your final product.
- However, PDF’s create a more static a final product – it is what it is no matter what eReader or computer opens it; as this is reassuring in the sense that you know words and images will remain in proportion and place no matter what, but not all pages will look right and adapt to all screens. Your final product might load horribly and be just plain awful for some eReaders
- The final PDF product can’t be made secure when uploaded and sold if you’re using online publishers like lulu (which is a nice self-publisher in general); if you’re publishing online yourself, you can sell it secured and signed, but you’ll have to really sell it and do all the publicity and money work yourself that lulu and other self-publishers would otherwise do for you.
ePub points (still a popular form of eBook formatting today)
- They’re more easily accessed by the world of eReaders out there, so the public will find and possibly buy your final book more often.
- ePubs are more adaptable to the average screen. Pages including words and images will switch from large to small font and move over to new pages as necessary, centre for each screen, become longer or shorter as needed; in this fashion, your document will be viewed in its entirety, not just a portion of the static presentation a PDF might allow
- T hey can also be sold with more securities than a PDF.
- But you’re working from one page to the next piece-meal when editing; it makes the process monotonous and frustrating when you’d like to see what the whole looks like from time to time. In that case, you’d have to save, transfer to the eReader, check it out, open epub up again, then, plod on with changes. The process is very irritating and limited after a few hours/days of work. It’ll likely be weeks of work on more serious novel, certainly when publishing books with a good number of images.
- Also, since your final product is adaptable, your image might not end up on the same page as your connected text. The PDF’s static layout keeps connected items together, but as a readers change their font settings with your epub, the increased font might push the related image to the next page, so your desired epub layout after those weeks of work was just wasted, and how large is your targeted eReader screen? If someone opens your epub on a smaller screen, how badly will the layout you’ve spent weeks perfecting be displayed?
- If you tailor your book for the iPad, you’re ignoring the smalle readers, but your final product can be designed to appear just right for that target screen. Then again, what if someone opens your epub on an iPad Mini or a newer iPad with a larger or wider screen?