Lessons learned in eBook formatting

[Dave Zeltserman]

I thought I'd start this post on things people might encountering while formatting their eBooks that could help others.

I've been using Smashword to create my eBook files and distribute the eBooks to bn.com, etc. What I've discovered with 2 of my eBooks, whose formatting looked good using Smashwords's html viewer and their javascript viewer, is that the formatting got screwed up within the epub files that were produced, which is what B&N's Nook uses. The reason for this seems to that the Normal style that I set all my paragraphs to was configured for 10 pt font, while I was forcing the font in all the paragraphs to 12 pt. This showed up with every few pages a paragraph slipping to the 10 pt. font. What I learned from this is to use the free Nook eReader for PC to validate the epub file that Smashwords creates and not assume things worked because of the other eBook formats look good. I want to add that Smashwords was great in helping me figure out what the problem was.

[Benjamin Sobieck]

The Smashwords Style Guide is gold for anyone looking to publish an ebook (and not just on Smashwords). Read it free here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52