alexandraerin: (Default)
alexandraerin ([personal profile] alexandraerin) wrote2011-02-11 04:18 am

Gift of the Bad Guy: Previews And Pre-Sale

At the current time, the sample is only available in PDF. I have a working EPUB conversion, but EPUB both has more for me to learn and less to worry about in the finished product.

As mentioned in my previous post, I have also set up the pre-sale for the finished book, coming out March 14th (Edit: Address corrected). I'm not going to do much to publicize the previews or the sales at this point... those of you who are lurking my blog in the wee hours of the western hemisphere's morning are getting the earliest glimpse and the first crack at the Author Appreciation Editions. This will also give me a chance to tweak the format (font, margins, line spacing, etc.) if there are any real widespread problems reported. I can read it just on the three devices I've tested it on, but I know experiences can vary widely.

The next wave of attention will come when I update Tales of MU later today (tonight, probably). I'm not going to make any real attempt to let the world outside my usual audience, blog followers, and friends know about this until Monday, so you folks will have the weekend to snatch up the low numbered AAEs.

Feel free to leave feedback on the formatting on this post. I'm going to make a second post as a catch-all for that, later on when I start linking to the files from elsewhere. It's particularly the visual presentation and ease of reading that I'm interested in. If anything in the story itself seems off or wrong... i.e., a mistake or a confusing bit, I am very interested in knowing about that, too. I've revised this story more often and more carefully than most things that I write, and other eyes have gone over it quite carefully, but... things slip through.

I am interested in hearing what you like or don't like about the story, but that's for marketing and potential future storytelling purposes. My goal for a given story is to match it up to the people who want to read it, not to alter it to fit someone else's tastes. The long-term purpose of the free samples is going to be so that people can figure out for themselves if they want to read the whole story or not. If you are intrigued, read on. If you're bored, read off. If you're kind of on the fence, don't worry... this chapter is labeled a prelude because it serves as the foundation for what happens next, not the model for it. There's more action in the very next chapter.

Links:

Sans Serif.

Serif. Serif With Revised Spacing/Margins (Revision has been accepted, new version uploaded.)

(If you wish to download these to put them on your handheld devices and it keeps opening them in the web browser, right-click on the link and look for a "save" option.)

[identity profile] calianissene.livejournal.com 2011-02-11 05:00 pm (UTC)(link)
I didn't have any problems reading it on the computer. I am, however, notoriously unpicky about layouts and such. As long as I don't have to squint to read it and there's no major typos, it won't bug me, heh.
Got it working on my droid, as well; looks nice and clean. My only complaint is that the words are a little small when I view it vertically, and I dislike reading things viewed horizontally because I have to scroll so much. Don't know that there's much you'd be able to do about that, though.

I also preordered my AAE :D
Very excited about this. Loved the preview.

[identity profile] alexandraerin.livejournal.com 2011-02-11 08:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I'm notoriously unpicky about such things, too... Meeks is an amazing artist and probably the exact opposite of me when it comes to visual processing.

Question on your Droid: which font style were you using? Neither's markedly bigger than the other but when I tested it on my Android-powered LG phone, I found that serif felt small and hard to read vertically but the san serif one was pretty comfortable vertical, and I wonder if your experiences are similar or different.

[identity profile] meeksp.livejournal.com 2011-02-12 01:45 am (UTC)(link)
Sans-serif faces are generally considered more readable at small point sizes...probably because the shapes are simpler.

[identity profile] alexandraerin.livejournal.com 2011-02-12 02:00 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you for your insights! If it's not just me, then I think I will leave the margins smaller in the Sans edition since it may be read on more devices where the screen space is at a premium.

Of course all of this is just underscoring why the EPUB is an important format.

[identity profile] natalief.livejournal.com 2011-02-17 11:20 am (UTC)(link)
Yup! BTW, the sans looks great in Adobe Reader and Sony Reader apps on my mac. Not got as far as getting them onto the iPhone or Sony Reader Pocket as yet though - bronchitis!