One Man's Adventure Into eBook Land

Bob Goodenough, who with Henry McGilton, wrote Invest in Company Evolution: Picture Company Finances, ventured into the land of digital literature when they turned their nonfiction book into an eBook.

While they could have gone through an eBook publisher like ePress-Online, Bob and Henry did the job themselves by converting their book into what's called portable document format, or PDF, a format created by Adobe systems in 1993. The format is fixed layout, which means viewers can't change the text as they could if given a Word document.

Here's what Bob has to say about the process:

My one experience is that, in our case, conversion to PDF was easy, quick, and cheap... I suggest you convert to PDF by a means available to you and see if you like it. If you do, then don't chase after fancier quality issues.

Bob said the challenge was to preserve the attributes that make the hard copy of the book high quality, such as the many high-resolution color illustrations. Bob and Henry worked with Todd Sterling, a web developer from onetreeDesign.com.

Together they made quick adjustments to the page numbering settings. In the case of the hardback, they used traditional page numbering of lowercase Roman numerals for the front pages followed by integers for the remainder of the book. The book referencing system depended on this page numbering scheme. For the PDF version, Acrobat Professional offers them a special setting to preserve the numbering scheme. However, Bob said, "If you are using a Roman numeral and integer page numbering scheme and you don't choose that special setting, Acrobat Pro will replace your Roman numerals with integers, which fouls your referencing in your PDF. Your PDF book page numbering scheme should match your hardcover or softcover book page numbering scheme, and all references should be correct."

Also, they used the low res setting, which has no affect on the quality of printing on a desk-top color laser jet printer. However, if someone tries to run the PDF through an offset printer intending high resolution mass production, low res causes the resolution to be very poor, thus discouraging mass production theft. To view a sample of the electronic book, go to Bob and Henry's website, Seroia.com, and click "Sample."

Through this hands-on approach, Bob and Henry created a high-quality 3.4 MB electronic version of their book they now sell via their website, a system that's easy for their customers and that allows Bob and Henry to keep all the profit. The hardback and electronic version package of their book costs $50, the hardback alone is $45 and the electronic version is $30.

If you have an eBook story tell or question to ask, let me know.

Otherwise, happy writing!

Characters Within Your Family

Have you, like the thousands of writers currently working on memoirs, ever been tempted to write about the colorful characters in your family?

Uncle George who sips fine brandy though he wears clothes from the thrift store and has hair coming out his nose? Curious Cousin Emerald, who adapts her persona to whomever she's around, and so adroitly that to hear people describe her, you'd think they were referring to many different people instead of only one?

Family is an excellent place to study character up close for the following reasons: 1) you have more access to these people than you might to those you meet elsewhere, 2) that access is automatically on an intimate level — as opposed to business or casual friendship — due to a shared family history, and 3) we often grow up with these people and so see them change, or our perspectives of them — change over our lifetimes.

While portraying these people in nonfiction can be tricky, for reasons I outline in an article in a forthcoming anthology titled Women Writing on Family: Writing, Publishing and Teaching Tips by U.S. Women Writers, just studying their stated beliefs, actions, appearances and mannerisms can give us tremendous insight into learning what details we can use to make our fictional characters vibrant as those they're inspired by.

Will We See Digital Replace Paper? (WW #19)

Every generation seems to experience some major technological advance that significantly alters life. While that change is often good, the modernization is accompanied by some sacrifice, sometimes mostly sentimental, though sometimes real. While cars certainly get people farther faster, I'm sure there were those raised with horse and buggy transportation who understood, as the younger generation couldn't, that while the new machine was fun and useful, it also created a more frenetic, stressful pace. The same is true, too, of those who saw the radio replaced by TV and the typewriter replaced by the computer.

Those of us over twenty, then, have to be prepared for the fact that within our lifetime, the paper book will be replaced by a digital one. That instead of reading a paperback on the beach, people will be reading ebooks via their laptops, portable reading devices like the Kindle, or even their cell phones.

If this thought is accompanied by an ache in the heart, the reason probably stems from the fact that most of us have a fond, happy and deep relationship with paper books. Not only do we love the feel of paper and respect those who published stories we love, but print is a tangible fact that can't be erased. If our name winds up in print, the words are there and the only way to get rid of them is to throw out the book, which most of us wouldn't think of doing due to a deep respect for the printed word.

Whereas digital, while much better for the environment, has a fleeting quality. If someone doesn't like what you've written, one click and you're blipped into nonexistence without one lingering doubt or twinge of guilt.

But alas, the motto of our era — perhaps all eras — is Too bad. Change happens. Get used to it. Therefore today's writing exercise is to list the pros and cons of our culture's move toward digital literature. The purpose is to move our thinking from a sentimental morass toward seeing the advantages of changes to come. You can see my effort below.

Do you need to research or think about this one a little more? Hopefully these websites will help:

eBooks.com, a digital bookstore

Will Digital Books Replace Ink and Paper?

How to Write and Publish Your Own eBook in as Little as 7 Days, by Jim Edwards

Happy writing!