Hi. Has anyone got any suggestions for the best workflow for how to have a story release on timed releases along with the simultaneous full version available on Bookapy? Also, best free software for creating downloads for Bookapy on Mac? I have got all my writing in Google docs.
Easiest way to create a document for Bookapy is to download your book from google docs as EPUB, then use Calibre (free) on your Mac to add the necessary info to the EPUB.
Google docs doesn't populate enough fields in the EPUB's meta data for proper publishing. You need to make sure the title and author name are correct. As well as add the cover to the book.
As for timed release, well, you can simply submit the book to bookapy, then submit the first chapter (or whole book with gradual release code in it) to SOL and put in the moderators note a mention of the book on Bookapy and that they should be released simultaneously.
you can simply submit the book to bookapy, then submit the first chapter (or whole book with gradual release code in it) to SOL
It depends how it's formatted on Bookapy.
If on Bookapy there's a blank line between paragraphs, that should work. But if on Bookapy paragraphs are indented with no blank lines between them, wouldn't the chapter come out on SOL as one large paragraph?
I manually add the blank line between paragraphs before submitting to SOL. I don't bother getting rid of the indent because the Wizard takes care of that, but I do add the blank lines.
Thanks for the tip - i will probably edit the SOL version to have the gradual release code, so no trouble to tidy up that upload.
Apart from ePub, what other formats should I upload to Bookapy? Is there a preferred range of formats?
Apart from ePub, what other formats should I upload to Bookapy?
EPUB is mandatory.
.mobi or .azw3 is optional and the format will go away when I implement the mail-to-kindle like on SOL as Amazon doesn't support .mobi nor .azw3 anymore on the kindles.
As for the optional PDF, that's going away too as it's rarely used and a waste of space.
i will probably edit the SOL version
I don't know anything about Google docs, but Word has an advanced Find and Replace where you can choose a special character. I choose the paragraph mark and put one in the Find field and two in the Replace field and then do a replace all to get the blank line between paragraphs.
When I submit a chapter to SOL for posting, I always start it with:
story title
my author name
chapter name
I always did it that way so if it's not required now it must have been in the past.
I manually add the blank line between paragraphs before submitting to SOL.
Usually, no need. The system works with two blank lines between paragraphs, however, if the text is formatted in a uniform manner, we can see if there is online one return and run a small script to add another.
What screws up the system is if the author puts one return between some paragraphs and two between others.
What screws up the system is if the author puts one return between some paragraphs and two between others.
Oops! 😬
I have been putting 1 Line between paragraphs... and 2 Lines between sub-chapter breaks!
Has that been causing a problem?
I have noticed a few issues with posted chapters, but nothing I would have specifically thought was the result of 2 Lines between sub-chapters 🤔