Friday, 29 August 2014

Formatting from Word 'doc' to EPUB



I have finished formatting the manuscript of ‘For Rapture of Ravens’. As e-readers use the ‘EPUB’ file format I decided to invest some time in using the ‘Sigil’ program. Previously I had simply loaded a Word copy of my manuscript but after I revised the original draft and loaded up a new version I was alerted to a significant number of errors and formatting problems appearing in the finished text. It seems that in crossing from .doc to EPUB some convertors are capable of giving rise to such problems.
The obvious answer is to do the conversion yourself, hence the investment in ‘Sigil’. Although it takes more time it also gives me another chance to review the manuscript and make one or two last minute changes and, if I am honest, corrections.
Using ‘Sigil’ turned out to be a lot less work than I had expected so now that the second instalment of ‘The Sorrow Song Trilogy’ has been submitted I have turned my attention to carrying out the same exercise for the first book; ‘The War Wolf’. There’s a part of me that really chafes at the knowledge that the e-reader version is not as good as it should be so for that fact alone this is a worthwhile undertaking. Also, I want to submit this book to other platforms such as i-Tunes and I want it to be right. I don’t want readers to think that I do not care; I do!
I also think that this is a good use of time while I wait for the second book to make its appearance. I have another writing project on the back burner at the moment, well actually the gas is a little higher than that, and I will be giving it my full attention once I have finished re-formatting ‘The War Wolf’. I wish I did this writing thing as a full time job, not just because I love it but because I have a serious shortage of time! I have so many ideas for so many different projects knocking about my head, all I need is a device that will allow me to write telepathically because as fast as I can type it still seems too slow!


No comments:

Post a Comment