The Bank Holiday Murders by Tom Wescott (2014)

[GUT]

G'Day Ozzy

Not all ebooks come with a proper TOC (table of contents). By proper I mean you look at an ebook's TOC and decide you want to go to let's say chapter 4. A proper TOC will let you jump to chapter 4 straight away. Gutenberg's kindle books don't have proper TOCs. At least in my experience. You'll still be able to read the TOC. It's there. But it's just plain text rather than interactive like it is with a properly formatted TOC.

Isn't that more to do with the age of the eBook, with hyperlinks, in TOC's only being a relatively modern development.

[GUT]

Ozzy

One thing that I do find with about 90% of kindle owners I talk to is that they thought they could only use books purchased on Amazon with it. I say to them get some decent ebook software like calibre for organising your ebook collections. Then go to Gutenberg.

Please do tell me more. How do get calibre and how do I get it onto a Kindle, the Amazon limitation has been another of my big reservations.

[GUT]

Speaking of public domain (PD). I think in the UK a work is/can become PD once 70 years have passed since the author's death. I'm still hoping to read Leonard Matters book one day. He died in 1951. Fingers crossed for 2021 then!

US Supreme Court last week refused an application by the Conan Doyle family to extend copyright on ACD'd work.

[Tom_Wescott]

What exactly is an Amazon 'limitation'? What books coming out aren't available on Amazon?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Ozzy]

Hello Tom and GUT
Let me first say at this stage I cannot make a proper TOC (must be a proper word for it?!). I have thought about learning how a few times. I think it is possible with Calibre.

For your question about old and new ebooks with proper TOCs GUT I'm not sure. I know I come across a lot of old ebooks without a proper TOC. The kindle was my first ebook reader. I know ebook readers existed before the kindle. I think Sony were making them earlier than Amazon. But obviously I could release a new ebook and not make a proper TOC. In other words a new ebook without a proper TOC. It's not a clear case of all new ebooks have a proper TOC. Computing just doesn't work that way.

I'm no programmer but have been using computers since 1981. I think I could probably get to grips with understanding how to format a proper TOC fairly quickly. I don't know but it can't be much different to HTML. If you know HTML you tend to avoid using things like the icons for HTML tags for stuff like links, quotes, bold, italic. Instead I just type the whole thing out.

Onto Calibre.
Calibre is software that you install on your computer. I'll put a link somewhere in this post. I only ever use the site to download the latest version. It's a little annoying in that I find it seems to need updating every time I start the software. Calibre is generally regarded as the best software to use for ebook management. It does have a built-in ebook reader as well although I don't use it. You can convert between formats. It added recently the ability to work with pdf files. PDF is quite a singular type of file in the ways that they are constructed and do not lend themselves to easy conversion. I did try a pdf once myself which didn't work out to well. But I've converted between other ebook formats and they have all turned out fine.

You can download Calibre for Windows, Mac and Linux flavours. I use Linux and have no experience with the others. I do have a Windows PC so I might be able to help out if any Windows users reading this has a question. I'll have to install it first.

http://calibre-ebook.com

If the idea of updating every time you use Calibre doesn't appeal let me add I use Calibre about once a week only. Also I don't know how the update system works. It could be that the Windows version doesn't need updating as much as the Linux version.

Thanks for that about Conan Doyle GUT. I missed that in the news.

I'll quickly try to go through what I do to get a dissertation on my kindle. This doesn't even need calibre.
With Windows the most basic method for making a txt file is to use what comes with Windows - Notepad. it should be in your list of programs. There's also Wordpad which you could use. Wordpad is generally associated with the rtf format but you can make txt files as well with it. I'd go for Notepad as it keeps it simple.

To help me here I just checked the dissertations to see if there was one I could use here. It would be handy to show what I do but I can't just re-produce somebody's dissertation in full here. Maybe I can though if Tom lets me use one. For example THE SILENCE OF VIOLENCE: A WITNESS TO THE MARTHA TABRAM MURDER EXPOSED. (sorry about the caps - it was a copy and paste)

Basically it's get the text from the dissertation (diss.) first. With Tom's diss it's small and compact enough to copy the lot and then paste it into a Notepad txt file all in one. You copy the text by highlighting it first. Then right-click or ctrl+c together (I think copy is ctrl+c on Windows) to copy the highlighted text. That text is now in your clipboard. In Notepad either use the menu to paste it in or just right-click anywhere in the text area and select paste. I think ctrl+v is paste in Windows if you do it that way.

With long dissertations what usually happens is I have to build up the txt file a bit myself first. Long dissertations sometimes have photos. You can't put photos in txt files. So I just grab as much text as I can. Sometimes you can copy a number of paragraphs before there's a photo break. Sometimes I have to do it one paragraph at a time.

OK once the Notepad file is looking nice, eg I put a full line space between paragraphs, you can save the file. Does Windows by default still keep file extensions hidden? I think it does. It's no wonder people don't learn much about computing by using Windows. Anyway save your file. I usually name it after the dissertation and make sure it has the .txt extension. And, of course, make a note of where you're saving the file to.

Final step onto the kindle. Connect the kindle to your computer with the USB cable that comes with it. If you've never done this it will mount just like a USB stick. This will let you browse the files on the kindle. My kindle has two main folders - 'documents' and 'system'. I copy the txt file into the documents folder. That usually takes all but a few seconds. Once copied unmount (Safely remove drive I think in Windows) the kindle. Check the kindle's list of books and you should see the txt file of the dissertation. Select it to read it.

I delete the txt files I make once I've read them. So no I don't have copies! I have thought in the past that it would be an interesting project to get all the dissertations in one ebook. I'd learn something in the process. Instead of making txt file versions of the dissertations it would be better to make something like the kindle format where it would be possible to use the photos as well. I think a number of people would be interested in this. Of course there's one main problem in this - none of the work is mine.

I'm not sure what an Amazon limitation is. Also Tom I don't know how it works with Amazon self publishing. What I mean is I don't know if Amazon add a proper TOC themselves or not. Maybe they have some software that one is meant to use to construct an ebook. Maybe Neal or Jennifer Shelden could help?

I think I've covered everything. Regardless I'm going to give my fingers a rest!

[GUT]

Thanks Ozzy

[Ally]

Hi all,

Yes, it will be available in paperback and Kindle. Possibly Nook in the future, if it's necessary. Not sure if there are actually people who have a Nook who don't have a Kindle. It will be simultaneously available on Amazon.com and co.uk. Not sure where else, but hopefully at least .au as well.

I do not have a Kindle and only have a Nook. I don't like reading on Kindles and prefer the e-ink experience and size of the Nook to the "smaller computer screen" reading and size of the Kindle so I will never have a Kindle. I am starting to miss out on a lot of the new books, I realize, but if you have the option of publishing in Nook format, it would be good.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Ally,

I'm not sure if that'll be possible for a while. Can you read PDFs on Nook? You're the only person I know with a Nook.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[GUT]

G'Day Ally

I don't even know what a Nook is, can you elaborate, maybe they're not even sold here. I take it to be a bit like a Kindle, but what do you read on it.

[Tom_Wescott]

G'Day Ally

I don't even know what a Nook is, can you elaborate, maybe they're not even sold here. I take it to be a bit like a Kindle, but what do you read on it.

It's Barnes and Noble's answer to the Kindle.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[GUT]

G'Day Tom

Thanks.

Barnes and Noble don't exist here, so that probably explains my ignorance, do I then buy my books from them?

[Tom_Wescott]

G'Day Tom

Thanks.

Barnes and Noble don't exist here, so that probably explains my ignorance, do I then buy my books from them?

If you get a Nook I think you can only get books from B&N.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Ginger]

If you've an android tablet, you can get emulators for both Nook and Kindle. I've got both, and frankly, beyond poking at it a bit to see what it would do, I've never used the Nook. B&N got to the party way late, with what amounted to a kludged version of a Kindle. Their application and book selection has never caught up, so they finally resorted to trying to make it into a social-networking experience, with add-ons that allow your friends to see what book you're reading. I keep expecting it to die out altogether, but B&N keeps shoveling more money down the hole, and shorting their brick and mortar business to finance a battle that they're not going to win. It's really a pity, because there was a time, not that long ago, when B&N was my first resource for books.

[GUT]

G'Day Ginger

Thanks.

[Tom_Wescott]

I now have a facebook page for the book at The Bank Holiday Murders and am also on Twitter (still not really sure how it works) @Ripperbook. Made a 30 second trailer for the book which is on the FB page and at www.ripperbook.com.

Yes, that sweet domain name was still available.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott