This week's blogging questions hits home for me on a personal level. When I published my first novel through Amazon a bright line of text popped up on my screen asking whether I would like to publish Kindle editions of my book. 'Wonderful!' I thought. 'I'll be able to upload my pdf text file and submit it for the ePub format.'
How naive I was.
The initial upload sent waves of shock through me.
Everything was scattered about. The text was askew. The title wasn't aligned properly. The paragraphs were indented incorrectly. The sentences began and ended at different parts of the page. It was a digital mess rife with glitches. Even thinking about it makes me cringe.
When I attempted to brave the torrential seas of editing, I came out wearier and wearier. It was almost impossible to upload the format for the Kindle edition as seamlessly as I had uploaded the adobe version of the paperback edition of my book.
This is the primary reason why my books are strictly paperback and not offered as e-books. The disruption of text and form is too much of an aesthetic blow to how I envisioned my e-book to look and I have yet to find the time (and patience) to pore over every line, indent, paragraph, full stop etc. with a fine tooth comb and present it how it ought to be presented.
How things ought to be presented and how they actually are presented is the fine line digital textual productions dance precariously upon.
I have emerged from this experience with a greater appreciation for digital texts that remain true to their paperback forms with every form of punctuation perfectly in place.
~ Fareh
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ReplyDeleteThanks for your post Fareh! Congrats on your book! Would you mind sharing the topic or title?
ReplyDeleteI commented yesterday about the similar experience I had last summer working with Google Docs. I had my resume and cover letter saved in there and while I was away volunteering in South America last summer, I heard about a job posting here in Toronto with a quickly approaching deadline.
Since I didn't have my laptop or any clear wifi connection for my mobile device, I went to a local internet cafe and logged in to my Google Doc to fix up my resume and send in my application. Once I downloaded it onto the desktop I was shocked. What was once a beautiful one page resume with carefully placed line images dividing content, font replacements, italicizations, margin alternations was now a 4 page mess. I spent the next 2 hours reformatting and trying to recreate what my resume initially looked like. It was the worst experience and just comments on the digitization or re-digitization of texts (especially ones with detailed formatting).
What happens when something is saved as a .doc document but through Google vs. MS? What about Apple's Pages? After this horrific experience I didn't try out anything else and instead, created a folder in my email to store a MS Word and .pdf copy of my resume. This way, I'm not leaving my fate in the hands of some digital application to poorly reassemble my hard work.
Madiha Zahra