Lazeez,
Do you have a preferred format for books on bookappy. I browsed some today and saw that every author had their own formatting.
One was the standard webpage formatting: no indenting, space between paragraphs.
One was like the above one except with indenting.
One was indenting with no space between paragraphs, but left justified.
One was like the last one except justified.
And so on.
So is there a preferred formatting for bookappy?
No preferred formatting. It's kind of pointless to worry about formatting considering that most ebook readers override the books' built in formatting.
I know that Apple's Books does and so does kindle.
Once the book building function (from docx) that I'm creating is done, it will have Bookapy's own stylesheet and will have guidelines how to create the docx to be compatible with the converter.
If you guys wish, I can share SOL's stylesheet used for the EPUBs built by SOL's engine.
It's kind of pointless to worry about formatting considering that most ebook readers override the books' built in formatting.
May I make a suggestion?
I access the site on my laptop. When I read a story on SOL (not bookappy) it uses the wide margins I define (so it looks like the page of a book). But when I sample a novel on bookappy, it fills the entire screen and is overpowering and hard to read.
I just checked the Amazon "Look Inside" feature which is similar to sampling a book on bookappy. They make it look like an e-reader so it's easy to read (it looks like the page of a book). You may want to consider doing that as well. Not changing the author's formatting, but adding wide left and right margins.
But when I sample a novel on bookappy, it fills the entire screen and is overpowering and hard to read.
The default maximum width for the text is 50em that means literally 50 times the width of the letter 'm' for the font and size in use or 50 x m.
I can make it smaller. However, I'm not sure I should. On SOL lots of people complain about the default (35em) — which is ideal for the human eyes — and I point them to the custom style system.
PS: Bookapy is 1 'p'.
The default maximum width for the text is 50em that means literally 50 times the width of the letter 'm' for the font and size in use or 50 x m.
I'm not sure what that means. I assume it means the text portion (between the right and left margins) is 50em wide.
I just checked my account on SOL and went to the part that says: "Text looks like this." That's the place where I set up the width of a "book page" for the way I like reading. It's a great feature.
But that setting isn't carried over from SOL to bookapy (with 1 p) for the "read sample." So when I sample a book on bookapy, the text fills up most of the screen (much smaller right and left margins than I have on SOL). That's hard on my eyes. And when the author formats it with no spaces between paragraphs it's really hard for me to read (which is why I asked if you have a preferred format).
I've never downloaded a story on SOL as an epub so I don't know what that looks like. I'm addressing the "read sample" on bookapy. I believe the Amazon KDP "Look Inside" is trying to simulate a Kindle e-reader. It's actually a little narrower than I have my SOL setting at, but both look like the page of a book rather than a monitor.
I wouldn't want you to force our formatting on bookapy. If an author wants to indent while another does not, it should be up to the author. I'm simply talking about the width of the right and left margins. If that could be carried over from what we set up on SOL, it would fix my issue.
Just a thought.
I'm simply talking about the width of the right and left margins. If that could be carried over from what we set up on SOL, it would fix my issue.
I shrank the default a little.
One more question. Will you keep all the formatting the author did in the epub he submits? I think when I was beta testing I checked that, but since I missed the width of the print… Well, I thought I would ask.
I like to format my ebooks like a print book so I indent all but the first paragraph in a chapter or scene and do not have a blank line between paragraphs. However, I find that hard on my eyes when reading on a screen so I add a little white space between lines and a little more between paragraphs.
I set the formatting parameters in Word and Calibre puts in the appropriate code to turn it into an epub. Specifically, in Word, I define "line spacing as multiple at 1.15" (1 is single spacing so 1.15 is a little more white space than single spacing between lines). And I also have "paragraph spacing After = 6pt" to add the additional white space between paragraphs.
Will you keep all the formatting the author did in the epub he submits?
The system keeps it all, and overrides few items when necessary.
The issue that you mentioned (width) is simply because EPUBs aren't supposed to have a fixed width and it should be left to the device to decide how wide. On computers, as you've experienced, that's not always optimum, and the previewer software becomes the device.
So, I set default width, default font and font size and styles for the chrome around the ebook and the links at the bottom. The rest is from the EPUB's included CSS.
I access the site on my laptop. When I read a story on SOL (not bookappy) it uses the wide margins I define (so it looks like the page of a book). But when I sample a novel on bookappy, it fills the entire screen and is overpowering and hard to read.
I'm one of those obnoxious authors who likes to cram as many words on a page as possible, so while I maintain set margins, I don't make them as wide as you're describing, rely on indents rather than blank lines to designate new chapters, AND justify the text (which Lazeez has never been crazy about). In my defense, those publishing standards help speed reading of along tracks, but are largely useless for shorter (sub-novel length) stories.
The nice thing about the Bookapy approach is that it leaves the formatting up to the individual authors. While I don't object to readers changing their own formatting, since I put a LOT of graphic elements into my stories, his approach saves a LOT of trouble, as I'd need to butcher my books before posting them otherwise (as I've long done on SOL).
Unfortunately, you can do one or the other, taking the published book as is, or enforce your own standards, you can't do both.
If you guys wish, I can share SOL's stylesheet used for the EPUBs built by SOL's engine.
If you would, please.
The latest version:
Thanks. That's a lot more complex than what I currently use. When I get time to play around I'll have to try it and see how it goes.
When I'm reading, I prefer the stories on SOL, which (I guess), is text. I will confess to not knowing what authors (or the hosts) have to do to make that happen for me, but that "format" (if that's the right word) is easy for me to manipulate in a way that I can read the stories on the screen. It's much harder to read stories downloaded from Amazon, which are difficult to manipulate. I fear the formatting (again, if that's the right word) on Bookappy is also difficult, so I've been reluctant to use the site.
When I'm reading, I prefer the stories on SOL, which (I guess), is text. I will confess to not knowing what authors (or the hosts) have to do to make that happen for me, but that "format" (if that's the right word) is easy for me to manipulate in a way that I can read the stories on the screen. It's much harder to read stories downloaded from Amazon, which are difficult to manipulate. I fear the formatting (again, if that's the right word) on Bookappy is also difficult, so I've been reluctant to use the site.
I've always been the opposite. While I sometimes read shorter stories on SOL, I've long copied and pasted the text from SOL stories (before Lazeez offered epub downloads) and reformatted them on the fly, which also makes correcting the multiple typos in SOL stories simpler, which also makes it easier to pass on those corrections to the other authors.
Wider margins DO help with both reader retention and with speed reading, so I may finally increase my margin sizes to fit those in my print books.
