A step closer to Premium?

Points to Mark at Smashwords - we promptly received a response to our distress call.

To: Sue White
From: Smashwords

Hi Sue,

When I view the book in Adobe Digital Editions, it's all red. Please see attached screen shot.  I'm also seeing inconsistent font sizes in the EPUB.

I think your document has minor corruption in it. Try the Nuclear Method, documented in the Style Guide.

Also, note that you're applying Times New Roman 12pt on screen, yet the underlying definition for your Normal style (see step 7 in Style Guide) is defining 11pt Calibri.  I this is helping to conspire to add corruption.

It's best to define the font and font size you want directly within the Normal style

Once you reformat, upload and receive the confirmation, check the book in Adobe Digital Editions and let me know what you learn.  If it looks fixed, I'll jump in there and review it for you.

best,

mark

On our way to Premium

I (Skadi) have this morning cleansed the text, cleared the formatting and built the World Yoga Festivals Guide back up. It is currently in the queue on Smashwords being converted into its various formats. Hopefully all will look good when I check it in Adobe Digital Editions later today. Surely we are now on our way to Premium.  

Smashwords + Premium = Confusion

Skadi here, Sue's assistant.  I'm in despair over Smashwords. Sue, while making sympathetic noises, is more excited that my current dilemma will make a great blog entry. So here is my premium confusion post.

A little background

Four eBooks have been published on Amazon and Smashwords. One of the attractions of publishing your eBook also on Smashwords is getting listed in their Premium Catalogue. If (!) you are listed, Smashwords will automatically distribute your eBook to major online retailers such as Apple, Barnes & Noble, Borders Australia and Angus & Robertson Australia (both powered by Kobo).

Being listed is thus very attractive and desirable.

However (!) to get Premium, you have to abide to the Smashwords style guide ensuring your document is compatible on a variety of readers and computers in a range of formats. Makes sense.

What doesn't make sense is that three out of four of eBooks got immediate premium listing, but one is being continuously rejected.

My desperation with Premium

The fabulous World Yoga Festivals Guide 2011 is the one that got rejected. Again. Three times. (Yes, I do take this more to heart than I probably should). I have dutifully revised and updated as per the reviewer's suggestions, but it appears we are now stuck on the review of 20 March. And so today we decided to email Mark of Smashwords directly to ask for his advice ...

From: Sue White 

To: Smashwords

Dear Mark,


It's great having my eBooks published on Smashwords. Three are premium listed (yey!) - but one is continuously rejected.


World Yoga Festivals Guide - http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/44783


All suggestions have been addressed - yet the same rejection of 03/20/11 is given for a resubmission of 03/29/11. I am confused.
Attached what was submitted on 03/29/2011 and (again) rejected with the 03/20/11 review. My comments on the review in italics:

If you view your book in EPUB you can see that your text is converting into a red font color.
When I view it in EPUB font is black.

Also, your book contains multiple font styles, and these styles are sending conflicting and inconsistent instructions to our converters. To see how the problem manifests, view your book through EPUB. Please fix the consistency of your font styles.
It has only one font style - Times New Roman.

#2 Please activate "show/hide" many of your paragraphs terminate with a manual line feed (the backward arrow), when they should instead be a hard paragraph return (what you create when you hit ENTER key). Please strip out all manual line feeds and replace with paragraph returns. This will ensure more consistent formatting of your ebook.
All manual returns have been removed and replaced with paragraph returns.

In addition, not all e-reading devices can handle color well. Please don't use colored fonts. When you're finished correcting your book, go to Dashboard: "upload new version" to upload the new version. Thanks.
It only has black colour font.

I'd greatly appreciate your feedback and advice as to what next. 
Thank you.

Kind regards,
Sue White

Stay tuned for Mark's response.