Book design and Kindle, i-pad & Nook possibilities

I want to offer my books as e-books but most include pages with one-, two- and three-column mixes, not to mention Japanese font. If this seems hard to grasp, please see the many samples in chapters 2,6,14,18 and 23 of my recent book A Dolphin In the Woods(Touchstones gives me Thoreau! That's OK, I like him and got his Cape Cod translated into Japanese for the first time) 100% viewable at Google Books.

On a Mac or pc, this means that people can usually only read my books electronically if they are in the same form they are when sent to my printer, embedded pdf.

Using MS Word, even if one is Asian-language enabled, columns with, say, side by side poems, get all screwed up when they cross pages. So, when I read that font size and margins may be chosen by people using e-readers, I think to myself that I had better make all single-column versions of my books, or they will not work well.

Is this right? Or are these e-readers capable of keeping difficult things intact even while allowing for font size and marginal change? (my impression is that the AI ability of Ichitaro in Japan 15 years ago is still not available in English, so I would doubt it, but I ask).

Also, I have some wide 6 inch margin font blocks -- should I redesign to , say 4 inches?

It makes me sad to think of giving up all the wonderful design possibilities the computer enables because e-books cannot handle them. I love my composite translation and the whole idea of alternate equal possibilities. But, if e-books require a simple sequence, so be it, I will make such e-editions.

As a pauper, living in the country, I cannot test the possibilities of these various devices and as an author with many books underway would not want to use my time to do so even if I could afford to buy them.

I am counting upon your advice about how I should make my books for these devices.

"I have some wide 6 inch margin font blocks -- should I redesign to , say 4 inches?"

Come again??? You've GOT to be kidding! You're talking about margins that are wider than the entire Kindle screen.

K.I.S.S.

Keep It Simple, Sweetheart.

And what I've just said about margins is equally applicable to columnar lay-outs. Multi-column layouts take up too much screen space (except maybe on a Kindle-DX, and even there the user might have to rotate to a landscape view).

The reason Kindlers buy Kindles is for portability. If you're designing some work of art, you're going to have to stick to desktop and laptop computers with their substantially larger screen sizes.

Thank you.

Not kidding, just careless!
I meant 6" font blocks.
The margin added makes it 7.44"

I fit two and three columns within the 6" -- composite translations of haiku, etc., so it does not take more screen space, but with 4" two-columns is max.

If you can chnage font sizes and change pages will the kindle etc be smart enough not to break up poems, or should i avoid mixing single and double columns for that reason, too?

The Kindle doesn't do a very good job with anything that requires precise screen positioning. The problem with poetry is, you want a line of verse to run the entire width of the "page" without wrapping over to a second line. With the Kindle, the problem is that if the user makes the text particularly large, it's most likely that a standard iambic pentameter line or a standard Alexandrine is going to wrap to a new line, at least if the user is viewing in the standard portrait (as opposed to landscape) view.

Wrapping might be less of a problem on the Kindle-DX with its substantially larger (and hence wider) screen, but most of us have either a K-1 or a K-2 (or, in my case, both). Personally, I'd never get a K-DX because its larger size makes it too bulky to carry comfortably in the pocketbook, and I think a lot of Kindle users feel the same way.

The Kindle works best with plain-text prose. Once you start getting artsy you're better off sticking to treeware.

Dolphin in the Woods by Robin D. Gill is 2nd choice for title and 11th for author in the Touchstone lists.

Thanks CurrerBell!

and vpfluke! I must credit Horace for the phrase, but that is nice to hear, especially as not a soul has reviewed the book and it came out almost a half year ago!

It is has so many multi-column composite-translations that from what i read above, only a major re-edit/design could make it worthwhile reading as an e-book!

I love my kindle and will keep using it, because it fits my lifestyle best, but perhaps your work could be better modified for display on the iPad? At least people would have a larger screen (like the DX) and a bit more flexibility for reading. Check the iBook store. The format is epub, so the books can be read on computers (using Calibre) as well as the iDevices.

k4k

But beware of iPad's censorship of whatever offends Steve Jobs' prudishness. For all its flaws, that's just one more reason for me to stick with Windows. I have no intention of allowing some operating system manufacturer to control what I read.

I purchased a book of poetry for my Kindle and was very disappointed when I couldn't read it due to odd formatting. I now have an Ipad and was delighted to discover that I can now read my poetry book with the Kindle app. By the way, I have also noticed a lot of Japanese books in the app store in the books category, so it seems that Japanese authors are publishing books as an individual app. Good luck--I lived in Japan for three years--what a wonderful country!

9>> I found a really nicely Kindle-formatted edition of Christina Rossetti's The Goblin Market and Other Poems put out by a company called "Trillium Classics," which goes to show it can be done if publishers would make the effort. In fact, when you're using large text and the line of verse runs on to a second on-screen line, the run-on portion is indented! (Unfortunately, Trillium doesn't seem to have a very large catalog yet.)

Krazy4katz, Google books is suggesting epub format -- i went there a half year ago and must now try again. At the time, i could not make head nor tails out of the info. From your name, maybe you could be the first to review The Cat Who Thought Too Much (100% viewable at Google Books)!

As for Kindle problems with ibudonna and good experience of CurrerBell, well, Rossetti has those tiny tiny lines (i love goblin market, not just the content but the rhythm, you would think it would have been set to music by many already . . .) -- i know there are Trillium schools but never heard of the company. I'll peek. And though the percent given to the author-publisher by Amazon is much lower than what Google kindly offers, i will check back with them for maybe Amazon helps more with the conversion or something (it would be nice if they actually worked for the huge percentage they take from publishers!)

Hi Keigu,

Thank you, I will take a look at The Cat Who Thought Too Much!

By the way, the new kindle will handle Japanese, so you might be able to offer it in kindle format.

A dolphin in the Woods There, I got it to link to you -- you have to click on others to get it.

Best wishes,

k4k