Category: General

Bookworm will not reject valid ePub – but are you valid?

Liza Daly from threepress.org has just released an article outlining problems she is having with users uploading invalid ePub formatted documents to Bookworm; an online ePub book reader. It’s very important for anyone developing ePub eBooks to produce valid markup. Not only will Bookworm give desirable results when rendering, but you’ll also be covering yourself for any future rendering engines and conversions you might need to do.

It’s actually quite surprising how many errors are showing up from files submitted to Bookworm. You should go over to the threepress blog for a full explanation, but here’s a list of the main errors;

  1. Missing required attributes in the metadata
  2. Metadata that hasn’t been proofread
  3. Improper nesting of the ePub zip file
  4. Items declared in the OPF file that are missing from the archive
  5. Invalid XHTML

Points 1 to 4 are really quite vital, although it is understanable for many documents to have invalid XHTML. Still, if it is within your means, I would try to control this the best you can.

I have plans to write some detailed articles regarding the creation of both the NCX and OPF files found in an ePub document, so keep a lookout for those.

epubBooks Project Part 3: ePub conversion and epubBooks.com development

In October 2007 the IDPF elevated OPS 2.0 to an official standard and it was from this point I realised that we might well see the ePub format adopted worldwide as an eBook standard.

Planning started on how I would go about converting my TEI eBooks to the ePub format. After plenty of research I decided the best solution would be to utilise XSLT.

Okay, so I’d never actually used XSLT before, but how hard could it be?

TEI to XTHML Conversion using XSLT

In June 2008 I set to work on teaching myself this new language, XSLT, getting thoroughly confused in the process. So after a few weeks I decided I needed help and while on a trip to London, I popped into Waterstones and bought the book XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0 by Michael Kay – only the paper edition though ;-)

This gave a big boost to my skills and from this point on I made quick progress…well, quick by my standards.

Continue reading “epubBooks Project Part 3: ePub conversion and epubBooks.com development”

ePub Books Project Part 2: A Little History

My first suspicions that eBooks were going to be the future was way back in the day when all those CD’s were coming out and taking over our beloved Vinyl LP, but the real light-bulb moment was when I first discovered Project Gutenberg sometime at the end of the 1990’s.

If memory serves me correctly, I even considered trying to set up an eBook site back then. I believe what stopped me was that there were just not yet any decent reading devices available – reading from a computer monitor was, and still is, the most uncomfortable experience ever.

And so the years rolled by…

Then in 2004/05 I heard about the Sony Librie and immediately knew that the eBooks’ time was coming…and soon!

Continue reading “ePub Books Project Part 2: A Little History”

ePub Books Project Part 1: An Introduction

In this three part series I am going to introduce the ePub Books Project; a project to convert the Project Gutenberg Plain Vanilla .txt eBooks to the .epub format and make them available to download for free. In these articles I’ll be talking about how the project came into being, the current status, and how I hope to develop it in the future.

When I first setup the ePub Books blog the sole intention was for it to be a platform where I could discuss my experiences as I learn to produce .epub formatted documents from a ‘Master Format’, and with the hope that others may also find the information useful.

The world of ePub has taken off considerably quicker than I, and many other people would have thought and as a result the objectives of both my eBook project and that of the of the ePub Books website have changed.

As I work through and learn about the epub conversion process I will also start work on setting up ePubBooks.com as a repository. This will be a place where anyone can come along and download ePub formatted eBooks (no DRM) for use on whatever epub compatible reading platform they may have.

Feedbooks: One Million ePub downloads and counting!

Feedbooks have announced on their Blog that they have now surpassed 1,000,000 downloads of ePub files – this is a serious achievement!

The release of the Stanza eBook reader on the iPhone and the ePub update to the Sony Reader have of course helped greatly, but this is still impressive as they have managed this milestone in just short of 2 months.

It must be noted though that this is not necessarily the number of ePub books, I would imagine the Feed count will far exceed the eBook count.

UPDATE:Hadrien from Feedbooks has confirmed that at least 90% of the downloads are of actual eBooks.

This shows real indications that eBook users are wanting DRM-Free ePub formatted eBooks. Another reminder for publishers to reconsider their use of DRM on eBooks.

Penguin eBooks are live and in the ePub format!

That’s right, Penguin.co.uk have setup a webpage on their site saying that, “by the end of this year we’ll have thousands of titles available in the shiny new ePub format” – Shiny new ePub format!

Okay, so this isn’t the full launch, just an ‘eBook Taster’ but still, they have six taster titles to download and try out.

God’s Own Country by Ross Raisin
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
The Stories of English by David Crystal
King Dork by Frank Portman
King of Swords by Nick Stone
Things I Want My Daughters to Know by Elizabeth Noble

Just pop along to the Penguin.co.uk eBook Taster page and give those ePub books a test drive.

I did this myself and I have to say they look great. The only exception is the paragraph indents in one of the books are a little too large, indenting almost half way along the line.

One thing I do like about what Penguin have done, is that they have kept the original page numbers in the right hand margin. For me this is a great idea as it will help in more academic circles and will be good for referencing any particular page.

Penguin give no exact date but do say the doors will open in a few weeks.

Fictionwise to start selling ePub formatted books…soon

A few days back one of the MobileRead forum members contacted Fictionwise and asked when they will start selling ePub formatted books. As they noted in the post, BooksonBoard are currently the only online bookstore that are selling commercial ePub books.

UPDATE: We should not forget that O’Reilly have a small selection of titles that come as an eBook bundle, included in that bundle are books in the ePub format.

Fictionwise replied by stating that “We are currently making our plans for epub compliance over the coming months.”

However, it seems that one of the biggest hurdles for them is how to encrypt their titles, “each vendor is currently using their own proprietary encryption scheme for epub.” DRM isn’t going to go away anytime soon so it’s understandable that they need to work out these issues before they can move forward.

An interesting point they made was that there are still very few publisher supporting ePub at this time, yes more will follow suit, but until they do the number of available titles will be limited.

Continue reading “Fictionwise to start selling ePub formatted books…soon”

O’Reilly are now selling ePub books!

Last month O’Reilly announced that they will be starting an experimental pilot and selling selected titles in an eBook bundle. The bundle includes a PDF, Kindle-compatible Mobipocket and of course an ePub formatted version.

Today, O’Reilly announced the availability of 30 eBook titles! The cost of the bundle is a little lower than the paper version and if you wish to pay a little more you can get the print book with the eBook bundle included!

Here is the full list of those thirty titles;

ePub books finally reach mass market status

New eBook Standard Now Available For Mass Market Audience was the title from yesterdays WebWire press release on the ePub book catalogue at BooksOnBoard.com. With almost 200 eBooks in the ePub format this is the first real source for mass market books to be released in the new eBook standard.

It’s a little unclear if the ePub versions have DRM restrictions, but as the site states;

DRM Adobe ebooks can be read only on Adobe Reader 7, Adobe Acrobat 7, or Adobe Digital Editions […] We recommend Adobe Digital Editions for Adobe format eBooks, both pdf and ePub versions…

We must presume that they have DRM in place.

The market is still waiting for better ePub readers and until we get those it won’t matter how many ePub books they release. Let’s hope that the Sony Reader (PRS-505) receives its Digital Editions firmware update soon and that other dedicated readers, such as the Amazon Kindle and Cybook follow suit.

Yes, we still have a long way to go but it does look like we’re on the right track.

O’Reilly to start selling ePub Books!

Today over on the O’Reilly TOC, Andrew Savikas made an annoucment that from July 2008, O’Reilly will release a selection of their catalogue as a DRM-Free eBook bundle. This will include a PDF, Kindle-compatible Mobipocket and yes, an ePub format version! Not only are they giving you three for the price of one, but these will also be DRM-Free eBooks (they are considering a form of social DRM.)

Although they are still working on the ePub versions, any PDF eBook you buy now will make you eligible for free access to the ePub version once it is released. For the moment this is only an experiment, but if It works out, they plan to release their whole catalogue in these formats (barring a few with copyright restrictions and some old ones that present at format-conversion challenge.) Continue reading “O’Reilly to start selling ePub Books!”