The First Handwritten Kindle Book - Need Help Formating

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Hello everyone, i have just finished writing the first handwritten business book for the kindle and i am having some problems converting it into an EPUB file. The book is made up of 20 A4 scans that have on them some ideas that i thought were important for people starting online businesses. (The resolution was 600 * 800 though i have rescanned with the resolution of A4 size.)

Now, i have created a document in Microsft word, saved it as a .html file, opened the .html file with Sigil and saved it as an .epub. However, when i try to read the book with Calibre ebook reader it renders only when reading the first time and when i scroll back from the last to the first page it starts slicing images.

The book is entirely made up of jpeg files and i must ensure that they render perfectly before uploading to Amazon.

I would like to request any kind warrior who is well versed in Kindle formating to please lend me a hand in this novel undertaking and I will forever be grateful.

I have no problem with anyone who may want to copy me, infact i might encourage it. I think we need to disrupt the Kindle platform and how people experience it by using more visual, rather than text-only, methods of publishing. This can be achieved by the study of mindmaps and data visualization.

Three books that i can say i consulted extensively when working on this handwritten book are:
Envisioning Information - Edward Tufte
The Mindmap book - Tony Buzan
The visual display of quantitative information - Edward Tufte


Here are a couple of pages from the book:







Thank you and may you have a creative day.


(Ps :I welcome any thoughts you may have on this concept.)
(Ps 2: Anyone willing to help me format the book can PM me or email me @ digiriffs at gmail.com)
#main internet marketing discussion forum #book #formating #handwritten #kindle
  • This is rather interesting. An eBook that's actually composed of handwritten material.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Kindle isn't formatted to use pages in the way a normal book uses them. They take content and then fit as much as they can on the screen, for the text size selected.

    You may find a way to rig this up but it clashes with the basic framework of Kindle. It also leaves Kindle users expecting a small download file and getting hundreds of images which are going to eat their hard-drive.

    I think you would benefit from rethinking this idea, as Kindle just isn't designed to work this way. Which means you won't be shaking things up, you'll be causing yourself problems.

    On the bright side though, PDFs do work in exactly the way you want. I suggest you stick with PDFs for this project.

    I don't mean to sound so negative but I can't think of a better way to lay out the truth. Kindle's basic operating system is set up to deal with re sizable text and it isn't image friendly, which is why people avoid using images on the Kindle unless they are necessary.

    Hopefully someone else will know a workaround for you. Most of my Kindle experience is based around text so it is possible, but you are still going to have the file size problem.
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • Thanks Ryan, lets see how it goes.

    Colin, i get what you mean and what i hoped for intially is to convert the jpeg scans into 600*800 resolution so for each new page/image it fills up the entire screen. Thats all i need in the formatting, that the image fills up the entire screen. I choose 600*800 because its the resolution of the cover which fits the Kindle screen perfectly.

    The file size is also quite small for all the 20 scans which adds up to around 1.5MB. I was also worried about this since the bigger the file size the lesser the royalties. I think if i am able to figure out how to get the images to fit the screen perfectly then it would work.

    Pdf i must say is wonderfully simple, i have this small software called DoPDF that prints the images into a pdf. However, the feel of the book on the kindle would be more natural and intuitive.

    The idea of publishing handwritten material is one that is ripe for Kindle. I can imagine a time when people smarter than myself will publish scans of their notebooks and best business ideas that will be in diagrams, arrows and symbols. There is a certain feeling of authenticity, depth and range of thought that one gets when you study the notebooks of others.
    Thanks Colin, i appreciate the feedback.
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  • Won't the Kindle device treat each .jpg like it would a cover picture and display a complete .jpg resized for the screen? OK for large devices but if someone is trying to view your ebook on the iPhone it may cause a few problems?
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  • Colin, you are right. What i want to do is not possible and i must confess, it breaks my heart.
    According to kindle forums via this link

    " The only image that covers the screen is the one tagged as the cover image. That's it. Everything else in your book is considered content and all content is bound by the minimum margin restriction."


    What i want is not possible though it would have been pretty cool.

    About selling as a pdf, yes i had considered it and i infact inspired by the idea launching the first handmade WSO. Now that might have worked had i been able to get into the WSO section, but i could not afford it, so i uploaded the book to JvZoo and started trying to market it. I sold only 1 copy.

    Now i must go back to plan A and sell it to a pc crowd and i hope that the full concept is not lost on them.

    Wish me luck everyone, i will keep you all posted.
  • No JustVisiting, that is what i had thought but what the kindle does is

    1. Slice off a third of the image
    2. Add margins to the image

    Only the cover page fills the screen.

    In a perfect world the kindle should do these things, or at least read pdfs which do this sort of thing pretty well(resizing).

    About the iphone, in a perfect world, the image would fit the screen as perfectly as possible but some of the writtings would be too small but that could be remedied by zooming ( which kills the experience a bit)
  • Hey Joeluka

    Have you seen this link?

    Kindle Format 8 Overview

    Comic books published for the Kindle use the technique you need to publish your handwritten book?
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • +10 for thinking outside the box with that book! Personally, I think sharpie would have looked better- but really cool idea!
    • Comics don't unfortunately. They work as giant scrolling pages, not individual pages.

      Also the KF8 format only works on the Kindle Fire, which means you limit your potential buyers considerably.
  • I would try to whack the contrast up a little, make the paper whiter and the words darker. People will get tired and lose interest if they have to strain to read it.

    You could also try converting some of the pages to grey scale so save on file size.

    Well done for pushing the envelope as they say.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Hey, what about Apple iBooks, what are the odds of publishing on there.

    And what does the marketplace there look like?


    To improve reading i could probably increase the contrast, which will make the page darker and the words sharper.

    Anyone here familiar with Edward Tufte?

    Here are some pages from his book, envisioning information.
    A map of paris - 1739


    Galileos notes when he observed 4 satellites orbiting jupiter in 1612


    A 3d flight itinerary of the czechosolavakia air transport - 1933


    More detailed itinerary


    and finally, the art of dancing, explained by reading and figures - 1724
  • First, I appreciate your efforts in doing something on your own instead of using the software to convert your eBooks.

    Second, I use eGlobus Technologies | ePublishing | ePub Conversion | Data Conversion Services | Cross Media Publishing for all my eBook conversion needs. You can send your book to them and get it converted manually and 100% quality.

    I always prefer manual conversions when compared to useless software which only will give you a totally un-formatted stuff, which will increase your work many-fold!

    Anu
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    The First Handwritten Kindle Book - Need Help Formating

    Hello everyone, i have just finished writing the first handwritten business book for the kindle and i am having some problems converting it into an EPUB file. The book is made up of 20 A4 scans that have on them some ideas that i thought were important for people starting online businesses. (The resolution was 600 * 800 though i have rescanned with the resolution of A4 size.) Now, i have created a document in Microsft word, saved it as a .html file, opened the .html file with Sigil and saved it as an .epub. However, when i try to read the book with Calibre ebook reader it renders only when reading the first time and when i scroll back from the last to the first page it starts slicing images.