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You are here: Home / Archives for Quality Control

5 Tips for Editing within a Budget (Before Design and Layout Begins)

September 29, 2017 By David Wogahn 1 Comment

5 Tips for Editing within a Budget (Before Design and Layout Begins)

The word editing can mean different things to different people. Recently we’ve had several projects where the authors used terms like proofing, copyediting and “light edit” to describe that final manuscript review necessary before a book moves into the design and layout phase. These are things like spelling, word usage and punctuation, but also consistent application of terms, formatting, etc. This article addresses what an author can do to minimize this type of editing expense, and reach … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Writing and Editing Tagged With: Editing, Legal Matters, Quality Control

Is Your Book Ready To Self-Publish?

December 1, 2016 By David Wogahn 3 Comments

Leslie Lehr-Is Your Book Ready to Self-Publish?

There is no step in the self-publishing process more important than writing a book worthy of reading. It’s the “product”, of course, and all other steps in the publishing journey begin with your words. In traditional publishing the author has a team, or at least an editor, to shape the book into the masterpiece you hope it can become. But what happens when you self-publish? In this guest post, Leslie Lehr shares a 12-step checklist every author should follow. Leslie is an award-winning … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Topics and Publishing Strategy Tagged With: Editing, Publishing Strategy, Quality Control

Sideloading Large Kindle Mobi Files Using iTunes When Files are Too Big to Email

July 30, 2014 By David Wogahn Leave a Comment

Sideload Large Kindle Files Using iTunes

One of our specialties is programming complex eBooks and that can often mean that the final file can be quite large (here’s why*). If you are uploading the files into the stores then as long as the file size meets the requirements of the store, a large file won’t be a problem. But what happens if you want to have someone help you proof the eBook? Or you wish to share it with a colleague? The procedure is called sideloading and there are two steps. Sending the file(s) and loading them on the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ebook Development Tagged With: Apple, Quality Control, Selling Direct to Readers

Slow down! 4 Questions Before You Set Your Book’s Release Date

November 1, 2013 By David Wogahn Leave a Comment

Not so fast! 4 Questions Before You Set Your Book’s Release Date

Surely you must have a date in mind for releasing your book or eBook, or at least an approximate timeframe. As you’ve probably heard from others, this is critical to your marketing program. Unfortunately most self-publishers are so wrapped up in the writing and production details that they have little time to devote to marketing matters and instead intentionally, or unintentionally, focus on marketing after the release of their book. Rather than try to change this reality I want to ask four … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Marketing and Promotion Tagged With: Legal Matters, Publishing Strategy, Quality Control

Amazon Blocked from Bookstores but the Door is Open to Professional Self-Publishers

October 29, 2013 By David Wogahn Leave a Comment

Amazon Blocked from Bookstores But the Door is Open to Professional Self-Publishers

One of the bigger industry stories to break this past weekend was Amazon’s so called retreat from traditional book publishing presumably because they can’t get their author’s books into bookstores. Amazon’s strategy seems to have run into 3 problems: Distribution to physical bookstores is still critical if you want mega-sales (70% of book sales are print books). The ranks of physical bookstores are decreasing (ironically, thanks to Amazon) giving existing bookstores more leverage. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Newsroom Tagged With: Benchmarking & Measurement, Distribution, Publicity, Publishing Strategy, Quality Control

How to Handle Consumable Content During eBook Conversion

September 10, 2013 By David Wogahn Leave a Comment

How to Handle Consumable Content During eBook Conversion

Perhaps you’ve experienced this: you’re reading an eBook and click to a page that asks you to fill in information or answer questions. This is called consumable content in eBook publishing and examples include workbooks, forms, quizzes, questionnaires, check lists, etc. What got me thinking about this was some feedback I received regarding our recently launched eBook self-publisher survey. The writer was frustrated that we were not asking any questions that applied to PDF eBooks. For this … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ebook Development Tagged With: eBook Conversion, eBook Design, PDF, Quality Control, Repurposing Content

eBook Quality and How to Avoid a Kindle Refund

August 13, 2013 By David Wogahn Leave a Comment

eBook Quality

Whether you program your eBook yourself, or hire an eBook conversion firm like AuthorImprints to help you, you are ultimately responsible for making sure your book looks and reads well for your readers. Did you know that Amazon offers eBook refunds within one week of purchase? Poor eBook quality is one of the reasons people return eBooks. Poor quality is not limited to Kindle eBooks In this article from The Guardian the author (and commenters) talks about their experience reading Kindle eBooks … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ebook Development Tagged With: eBook Conversion, eBook Design, Quality Control

Amazon KDP Spell Checker Catches Errors on Upload

May 23, 2013 By David Wogahn Leave a Comment

Amazon KDP Spell Checker Catches Errors on Upload

I was uploading a client's mobi file into their KDP account the other day and discovered Amazon had implemented a handy spell check routine that runs as part of the upload process. It's a great idea and should address one of the more annoying issues we see in eBooks (not to mention apps for political campaigns). Before I go on I should add that the messages boards on KDP report this feature as far back as February (2013) but some people say it doesn't always seem to be active. Perhaps Amazon … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ebook Development Tagged With: KDP, Quality Control

Save Time Using a Text File to Organize Your Book’s Vitals

April 12, 2013 By David Wogahn Leave a Comment

Save Time Using a Text File to Organize Your Book’s Vitals

Do you find yourself writing a new book description or bio each time you fill out a book promotion? Do you have your ISBN and ASIN numbers memorized? What about sending someone a link to buy your book? These occasional, but important, needs were taking a lot of my time so I came up with a format and system to log my book's vitals. First of all I use a text file, not a Word document or Excel spreadsheet (although if I had lots of books, or needed to produce reports, I'd probably use Excel). … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Selling and Distributing Books Tagged With: Quality Control

Kindle Quality Notices from Amazon-Unreadable Text When Viewing eBooks with a Black Background

February 5, 2013 By David Wogahn 2 Comments

Keep your font color set as Automatic

One of our authors received an email from the Amazon Kindle support team informing her that they had received a complaint from someone trying to read the author's book using the black background for reading (very useful at night, just ask my wife). Here is the message:  "Text in your book is unreadable for readers using color devices and reading on a black background.  This may have occurred due to forcing the font color to black in your source file. To correct this issue, please remove all … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ebook Development Tagged With: Quality Control

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