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CHAPTER 26: UNDERSTANDING EBOOK FORMATS AND PLATFORMS
needs to have opf:event set to ‘publication’, or Lulu will compain. This is done automatically if
they are not already set, but you can adjust these values using the ‘...’ buttons next to each item
of metadata.
Smashwords
Smashwords is very popular with authors, especially as it has distribution deals with other major ebook
platforms in addition to selling them directly from the Smashwords site in multiple formats. So if you
want to be listed on sites that you can’t upload to on your own, and/or want to save yourself the hassle
of submitting to multiple sites, this is great.
You submit a file in Microsoft Word format, so you need to do that extra conversion step in
OpenOffice.org Writer or Microsoft Word after generating an OpenDocument file destined for
Smashwords. Note that Microsoft Word creates a more compact file.
Smashwords will take your Word file and pass it through their ‘Meatgrinder’ program to convert it into
the various formats supported by Smashwords (Epub, Mobipocket, HTML, PDF and more). The
conversion is pretty good most of the time, but you may find that the output is not quite as good as if
you generated the file directly using a program such as Jutoh.
When you create a Jutoh project, a ‘Smashwords OpenDocument’ configuration is added in addition to
‘OpenDocument’. The only difference between these is that the Smashwords variant has the Special
index formatting and Special footnote formatting properties disabled, since Meatgrinder doesn’t like the
special formatting associated with these options. So instead of using special fields, Jutoh will generate
the index and footnote text in full.
There are two methods for helping Meatgrinder create a NavMap from the word processor document:
1. Create a linked table of contents page, which Jutoh will do automatically, or you can build your
own. Don’t use Word or OpenOffice’s automatic table of contents generation facility since
Meatgrinder doesn’t like field codes.
2. Start each section with the word ‘Chapter’.
Please see the Smashwords Style Guide at www.smashwords.com; Jutoh will help you conform to
them but some aspects you will have to take care of yourself, such as careful use of text size, sparing
use of empty space and consistent heading style usage. Much of what the Smashwords Style Guide
says can be used when working with Jutoh, such as advice on use of indentation, paragraph spacing,
images, and so on.
Recently, Smashwords has started allowing authors to upload Epub files. However, this is only used for
delivery of the Epub format and you still need to upload Word files for the other formats.
See also Chapter 25: Troubleshooting Your Book for tips on dealing with Smashwords submission
problems.
Your own web site
Of course, there’s nothing to stop you uploading Jutoh-generated files to your own web site using an
FTP client such as FileZilla. If you’re making them available for free, there’s not much else to do
except upload the files in different formats and add links to your web site. Or, you could simply link to
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