2 | Save Your Sanity

E-book production can be an incredibly detail-heavy process. For authors who haven’t done this before, the details might seem overwhelming.

To make things (maybe a little) easier, this section will address some semantics and tutorial-specific features that can help save your sanity.

Semantics

Regular Text, Headers

Regular text refers to the plain-old text that makes up the vast majority of stories.

Headers are things like chapter or part headers that label batches of regular text.

HTML: Paragraph Containers

The paragraph writers think of, vs the HTML paragraph, are basically the same thing. Paragraphs can be many sentences long, or a single word long.

However…

Now is the time to start thinking in an HTML-friendly way. In HTML, a paragraph is considered a container, sorta like a bucket or milk jug. Paragraphs contain something. Usually words, but an HTML paragraph container could also contain something like a time stamp, an image, a hyperlink, a subheader or a set of scene break characters.

Paragraphs have a beginning and an end. In HTML, we mark the beginning of a paragraph with <p>, and the end with </p>.

To put something (some text or whatever else) inside a paragraph container, we surround them with paragraph markers, like so: <p>something</p>.

Special Fonts, Special Characters, Special Text

'Special Fonts' refer to font treatments like italics or bold.

'Special Characters' refer to things like á, é, …, •, ñ, –, —, ™ and &c. I guess this means we consider anything that's not the standard English alphabet, a period, comma, exclamation point or question mark to be a special character.

'Special Text', for the purposes of this tutorial, refers to things like block quotes, hyperlinks, time stamps a/o subtitles that will require styling or other special handling.

Character Set

'Character Set' refers to which language an e-reader device or app's software is coded to accept. To make a sweeping analogy, we have to write our EPUB in Italian because the device/app software expects Italian, and will display only Italian.

Yeah, that was confusing. But for those in the know, this tutorial adheres to Latin ISO 8859-1 (which is Kindle's language of choice), except where we've had to supplement with HTML names and numbers.

Formatting or Non-Printing Characters

This involves word processors. Formatting or non-printing characters are the markers for formatting like ¶ for a paragraph or · for a space. These are only visible when users have set their word processors to show these non-printing characters.

In Section 4: Software Issues & Decisions, users will be asked to figure out how to turn them off and on.

Filetypes:

Throughout the tutorial, I will use EPUB as a catch-all final filetype. I really mean "EPUB & MOBI" because we create the MOBI from the EPUB. It's just easier and less jumbled to refer to our final product as the EPUB.

Filenames:

Throughout the tutorial, projectx refers to the content users will turn into EPUBs.

projectx appears in bold font. This is done to remind users that projectx is an optional filename.

Substituting your own title comes with some cautions, however:

• • Filenames should contain only lowercase letters, numbers or underscores.

  • Filenames should NOT contain spaces, capital letters, nor any other punctuation character.

  • In this tutorial, files are differentiated from each other by using a specific prefix to label the various stages projectx goes through. Prefixes make it easy to tell each version apart.

  • Sloppy filenames suck, and later on when we hit the actual production stage, users with long complicated file names full of spaces a/o capitalized words will find themselves in a most unsavory hell.

Fair warning: Simple filenames = good. Sloppy filenames = salty, salty tears.

Save versus Save As:

If you're not already aware, be advised the 'Save' and 'Save As' options are NOT the same thing. At all.

Generally speaking, you need to access the file menu to find the 'Save As' option. Take the time to find it now, because we'll use 'Save As' a lot.

'Save As' gives us more options than plain-old Save. 'Save As' opens a special pane where we can select where in our directory the file should be saved. We can also change the filename and filetype as we see fit.

Prefixes:

Throughout the tutorial, we will save multiple copies of projectx. To do this, we will use the 'Save As' menu option. This allows us to change the name of the file. Each time we do this, we will add a different prefix ahead of projectx. Prefixes make it easy to tell one version from another at a glance.

For instance, we'll create files like:

• • key_projectx

  • matter_projectx

  • story_projectx

Each of these files is a different version (or relates to) projectx. Each version is very different from one another.

The multiple-copy method also allows us to backtrack. If we make a mistake or something goes haywire, we always have a recent version to fall back on instead of having to start all the way over at the very beginning.

Whatever you do, don't skip these saves and prefix changes. The repetition might seem like busywork, but can prevent disaster in multiple ways.

Production Slugs

During the production process, it becomes necessary to label certain e-book content.

It also becomes necessary to minimize “OMG WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED TO ALL MY IMAGES. OH SWEET JESUS HELP MEEEE” moments.

Meet the production slug. A production slug (or just ‘slug’) is a simple string of characters used to bookmark locations in e-book text.

Slug character strings look like this: ##slugtext##

During the tutorial production process, we’ll use slugs to bookmark things like image locations, scene breaks, block quotes, and anything else that isn't considered to be regular or normal text, and therefore requires special handling.

Slugs save a ton of time. ‘##’ (or any longer, more specific version) can be used in word-processors’ and Sigil’s Find features to quickly locate content-of-interest.

Slugs are removed from the final e-book text, of course, but they are endlessly useful until then.

Tutorial Layout

The pages of this tutorial are numbered because they're meant to be followed in order.

As much as possible, I did try to keep the visual aspects of this tutorial consistent.

Action Required

Steps requiring action from users have a great big ACTION label in front of them.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material has, in some cases, been separated from the step-by-step tutorial. Links to that information can be found in the steps themselves, as well as the very bottom of each section/page listed as "subpages." That information can add a lot of value to this tutorial, but is considered optional for extreme beginners, or for vets using this tutorial as a checklist for their own projects.

Checklists:

A checklist of actions and other pertinent info follows each section (or is in the process of being added after each section). Find the links near the very bottom of section pages. (See Figure 1)

Figure 1: This graphic shows the very bottom of this page.

Tutorial Navigation

Links:

Navigation links can be found in two places:

• 1. The left sidebar

  2. The bottom of each page

Wherever possible, links to supplemental material have been included in the parent material.

TIP: Click links with your center mouse wheel. This will open the targeted content in a new tab, so you won't lose your place on the source page.

Index:

Longer sections (like this one) will include an index up top to allow users to skip to specific sections.

The First Three Steps

ACTION 1: Create A Production Folder

We create a folder to store every file created or otherwise involved in this tutorial.

Saving everything into this folder isolates everything we need into one easy-to-find location.

• • All of the files created or revised during this tutorial must be saved a/o copied into this folder.

  • This folder is required for MOBI creation.

  • DO NOT improvise on this folder name or location. If you do, I promise you will be very confused later on in the process.

ACTION LIST: Folder Creation (Short version)

• 1. Right-click anywhere on the desktop

  2. Hover mouse-pointer over New

  3. Click Folder

  4. Name the folder: production (no caps, please)

ACTION LIST: Folder Creation (Leave-No-Man-Behind version)

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Voila!

Throughout the tutorial, this file is called 'the desktop production folder'

ACTION 2: Create A Key

The next step is to create a reference file called the key. A key is a simple list that serves as a hybrid style-sheet and roadmap.

Information is added to this file throughout the pre-production process. By the time this list is complete, the key will show projectx's structural skeleton as well as features like images or block quotes that require special attention.

This tutorial shows a plain-text key, because that’s what I use, personally. Users can pick their own poison. Spreadsheets, docs, GoogleDoc… Pick a format you're comfortable using.

Whichever format users choose, follow these creation steps:

ACTION List: Key Creation

• • Open up the software of choice (Word, Notepad, TextEdit, Excel, GoogleDocs, GoogleSheets)

  • Start with a new, blank file.

  • Click Save.

  • Navigate so that this file will land in the desktop production folder. (See Figure 1 below)

  • Name the file: key_projectx. If necessary, substitute an actual title for the projectx part. What’s important is the ‘key_’ prefix that identifies this file as the key. (See Figure 2 below)

  • Click Save to close the pane

Figure 1: The Save Pane

Red text in the image below shows how to navigate within your computer's file registry to the desktop production folder. Remember, all files created for this tutorial must be saved into the desktop production folder.  The safest, fastest way to save this content in our DPF is to navigate to our desired location while in the Save As pane, shown below. (All 'save' windows show 'Save As' at the top, even when we've chosen to plain-old save.) 

The image below shows the creation process in Notepad. Other programs will have different stuff at the very bottom of the pane, but the process is still largely identical.

Figure 2: Name the file

ACTION 3: Label The Key

The first few lines of the key file are called the label. The label is probably more geared to professional productions, but it’s a good habit for everyone to get into.

A label contains information like:

• • Title

  • Subtitle (if applicable)

  • Series Name and Volume Number

  • Author(s)

This label is an important reference. Please make certain that each of these vital bits of info is accurate and spelled correctly.

Users can add whatever details befit the project.

ACTION List: Label

• • Add the label to the key_projectx file.

  • Save key_projectx.

Leave the key open; more content will be added soon.

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