Computer code in Ebooks

[madfilkentist]

elf just called this community to my attention today, so hello, everyone.

I'm working on a book, with the plan of publishing it on Smashwords, called Files that Last. There's a Kickstarter campaign for it, but with time rapidly running out, its chances don't look good. If you want to throw $700 at it, though, I won't object!

Even without the Kickstarter money. I'll publish the book, though without the level of professional review I'd like. I'll still have a professionally designed cover and get proofreading in exchange for a promise of reciprocity.

But to get to my actual question, I've discovered from a trial run book that putting computer code into a Smashwords book and have it come out of the meatgrinder readable is very difficult. I solved the problem there by linking to code files. Has anyone else had experience with code or other difficult-to-format text in ebooks? Any advice would be appreciated.

Comments

[madfilkentist]

Yes, I've got Calibre and have started playing with it, and may use that for FTL rather than submitting it to Meatgrinder. The downside if I go with Smashwords is, of course, that I don't get conversion to all the other formats. I think one good-quality format, if it's as widely used as Epub, is better than bad quality in lots of formats. It's just a shame if I won't be able to deliver a PDF.

The issues of poetry are certainly similar, and any solution that can get "The Mouse's Tale" right ought to be good enough to get code right. I'll have to study that article carefully.

[elf]

You can do both--submit an epub for the epub buyers, and a Word doc for the meatgrinder for other formats. The conversion to PDF is probably the best of the options (although, ugh, PDF is tolerable as an archive format and lousy as an ebook format).

You may want a mobi version or KF8 version (which is epub in an Amazon-flavored wrapper) for sale at Amazon; I don't think Smashwords feeds to them. And unless you've got specific moral or business issues with Amazon, it's a bad idea to ignore the place with about 80% of the market share.

Part of how "The Mouse's Tale" works is that it's *tiny.* Each line only needs a few words of text at most. It can allow for heavy empty-space padding on each side and still fit in a small window. It won't work on e.e. cummings' Buffalo Bill's.

[madfilkentist]

Being able to do both may be new since the last time I checked. Thanks for calling that to my attention. If I provide only an Epub file, Smashwords won't provide a preview, which would hurt sales, so it looks as if I need to do both even though it's more work.