No, not the whale, but the program
that creates the digital book for Amazon’s Kindle (though at the moment I’m
ready to put the great white whale’s last name to the whole evolution and refer
to it by the crude vernacular). Since readers have their accounts set up and
click a button to download their Kindle Book to their Kindle device all in a
matter of seconds, an author needs her book in the Kindle Store. To get
it there, she must create her masterpiece in .mobi format.
Getting my latest novel, Camellia Creek, a gothic
mystery/suspense set against the backdrop of
Presidential Reconstruction at the end of the War for Southern
Independence, into mobipocket, .azw format, took days, untold hours I wish I’d
actually recorded so you could more clearly understand how absolutely anal I
am. For those of you who have looked at my blog for “technical” advice, no
matter how unintentionally spurious, you know that over a year ago I blogged extensively about my creation of
the files required by MobiPocket Creator to build a mobi book. With those files—sitting
in the folder for each individual book in the “My Publications” folder
associated with MobiPocket Creator—I managed in 2011-2012 to upload my first
four books and get them in the Amazon Kindle Store. Camellia Creek, thought I, will be a piece of cake.
Wrong. Oh, I created the files
easily enough based on templates I’d created from my first four books—the .html version
of my book, the .ncx file, a proper version of the .opf (MobiPocket Creator
creates an .opf file automatically from whatever data one feeds it—if one feeds
it no extra data, it creates it from the .html file itself and it always
overrides whatever .opf file you place in the folder so you have to keep
checking and cutting and pasting your good one over the one it makes. Suffice
it to say, that evolution is time consuming and frustrating.). Then I added my
only two graphics—the cover and my logo.
For four days I tried to get
MobiPocket Creator to build my book. Now, I didn’t sit in front of my computer
uploading and re-uploading the same files over and over during that time with
the expectation of one time getting a winning result. That folks, is the
definition of stupid. I’m just sorta stupid for sticking with it all that time.
I’d make changes to the .opf and tried different renditions; I checked and
rechecked all my files, my headers, my content, my “#$!%” html. I even removed
MobiPocket Creator and reinstalled it—on both the computers I own with access
to the internet. One thing I did discover was that every time I took the “failed”
build and removed the .ncx from the mix, the book built. I knew the problem was
with the .ncx or the .opf (which references the .ncx). I went to the online
forums and studied and tried to replicate individual methods of inserting files
into MobiPocket Creator and overcoming the Creator’s frustrating habit of
messing up my .opf. At one point I created a .zip file of Camellia Creek’s files and attempted to insert that into the My
Publications folder. That didn’t work either—works for epub, but not mobi. I
kept the .zip file anyway.
Finally, on the fifth day, I
removed the publisher version of MobiPocket
Creator and downloaded the “Home/Family” version. The MobiPocket Creator
website said it was simpler to use. Personally, I didn’t see much difference
from the “use” angle, but one thing that simple little sucker did when it, too,
failed to build on my first try was point out one tiny error in the spelling in
the “content src” for chapter seventy-four in my .ncx. I’d spelled “seventy”
“seveenty”. I fixed it and Camellia Creek
build on the next try, .opf, .ncx and all.
I don’t know that the misspelling
caused all those wasted hours, not to mention stress, but the results rendered
after its fixing indicates that was the problem. So why didn’t the “publisher”
version point it out to me when the “simpleton’s” version was so quick to do so?
Maybe the publisher’s version thinks publishers should know how to spell or are
such thorough proof readers there is no way they’d let a screwball thing like
three “e”s in seventy get by—this in
a work of 79 chapters and an epilogue (Camellia
Creek is twice the length of my previous books).
Oh, and now comes the really, really good part. I start
uploading to Amazon—I get to Part 5 at the “Upload Your Book” window. The
little pinwheel is purring, there’s a window there that says “uploading your
book, this may take a few minutes” and wahlah—the KDP (Kindle Direct
Publishing) platform rejects it. The window says, simply, that I used software
other than that approved by Amazon. I’m confused—I sent them the .prc. KDP
didn’t need to build my .prc. I SENT it one already done, darn it! And fifteen months earlier the KDP
platform had accepted four of my .prc books built the same way—ok, this one was
built with the “simpleton’s” Creator, but what the heck.
I go to the “formatting guide”
offered in the rejection window. Sure enough, .prc’s aren’t listed. I go to the
Amazon “techies”. “Yes they are,” the “techies” say. Two day’s later the
“techies” have it figured out—I needed to use KindleGen to build my .prc, not
MobiPocket Creator.
During that two-day interim, I
went back to that “zipped” file I’d fortuitously saved during my nightmare of
working with the publishers version of MobiPocket Creator and uploaded it at
Part 5 of the Upload Your Book window. It uploaded fine. Camellia Creek is at the Kindle Store.
Next, my pathetic adventures using
KindleGen.
