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Thread: Fixed Format Children's Book on Kindle iPad App?


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huanman

Posts: 9
Registered: 07/11/12
Re: Fixed Format Children's Book on Kindle iPad App?
Posted: Jul 20, 2012 12:58 AM   in response to: jonaslan in response to: jonaslan
 
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@jonaslan

NP, glad you found it useful. The community helped me so I'm just returning the favor. Thanks for the compliments re: my book. Drop a line when your book is live. Would love to check it.

best,
Huan
Hugo Costa

Posts: 1
Registered: 12/01/12
Re: Fixed Format Children's Book on Kindle iPad App?
Posted: Dec 3, 2012 4:25 AM   in response to: huanman in response to: huanman
 
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@huanman

I've been pulling my hairs out, crazy with this issue. Sideloading my fixed-layout book in Kindle for iPad and... no images, although it would work on Kindle Previewer.
Thank you very much for your findings! :)

I can now work on what i'm supposed to work, my book. This issue should be clearly and prominently viewable on the various KDP guidelines.
Branyon

Posts: 4
Registered: 12/28/12
Re: Fixed Format Children's Book on Kindle iPad App?
Posted: Dec 29, 2012 9:33 PM   in response to: huanman in response to: huanman
 
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@huanman

Your follow-up about your experiences with your book "Don B Scared" is reassuring, since I have experienced exactly what you described in the testing phase with Kindle Previewer. I have a couple of questions though.
1. How long after publishing did your book show as available for Kindle for iPad (and cloud reader), My book has been live for a couple of days and it only shows Fire, FIre HD, and K for Android (http://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Like-Paint-ebook/dp/B00ATVXTT4)

2. I was curious the meta settings you used. What type of fixed layout book is yours, "children" or "comic"? For example here is the meta tags from my content.opf file:
<meta content="comic" name="book-type"/>
<meta content="true" name="fixed-layout"/>
<meta content="landscape" name="orientation-lock"/>
<meta content="1600x800" name="original-resolution"/>
<meta content="true" name="RegionMagnification"/>
What were your settings for these tags?

Also @booknookbiz, if your still watching this thread, the two books you mentioned look great. Can you tell me what your settings were for the above tags?
Thanks everyone.
cjeasyaspie

Posts: 2,655
Registered: 05/28/09
Re: Fixed Format Children's Book on Kindle iPad App?
Posted: Dec 30, 2012 6:45 AM   in response to: Branyon in response to: Branyon
 
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1. How long after publishing did your book show as available for Kindle for iPad (and cloud reader), My book has been live for a couple of days and it only shows Fire, FIre HD, and K for Android (http://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Like-Paint-ebook/dp/B00ATVXTT4)

Branyon,

I downloaded the Sample of your book to my Android cellphone, and, captivated by it, purchased it, then went back online to have it downloaded to my Fire.

Congratulations to you and your wife... you have created a thing of beauty! It looks fantastic on my tiny cellphone as well as on my Fire. (I also like your little navigation tutorial at the beginning.)

But... to your question...

If you are judging its availability for different devices by what shows up on the sales page, at the download menu...

I think that drop-down list shows only your own devices.... what is actually registered to you... at least it does for me.

BTW... I think it's likely that Huan will not see your post, as he has not posted again since July.

Happy Kindling,

CJ, at CJ's Easy as Pie Kindle Tutorials
http://www.cjs-easy-as-pie.com/
Branyon

Posts: 4
Registered: 12/28/12
Re: Fixed Format Children's Book on Kindle iPad App?
Posted: Dec 30, 2012 2:22 PM   in response to: cjeasyaspie in response to: cjeasyaspie
 
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@cjeasyaspie
Thank you for your kind words about our book, and for being one of the first to purchase it! I am glad that someone with e-book and Kindle experience thought it was workable (I was especially worried about the navigation tutorial, since most Kindle owners will know what to do, but seeing some of my friends and family test the book for the first time, they were hesitant at where to start.) I have bookmarked your website (http://www.cjs-easy-as-pie.com) as a good resource for me on a variety of Kindle formatting issues.

About my question (poorly worded) and your response regarding the available devices, I was referring to the bullet-point item that is in the block below the book price, usually the bullet point immediately below "length." I believe it is titled "Available only on these devices" and has an arrow icon for a drop-down list. This list shows a set of devices which is different than the drop-down lists on the far right for where you want the ebook delivered. Have you ever experienced this list changing or what influences this list?

@huanman
If you are out there still, I would be very interested in the specs for your "Don B Scared" book. The fixed-format and locked landscape orientation are what I was looking to do as well. If you could post some of the <meta tag parameters that you used in Sigil. At the moment, my book has only been live for a few days, so I am still holding out hope that it will become available for the K for iPad and Cloud Reader apps.

I followed the same workflow that you mentioned: editing HTML in Sigil and using only images with embedded text. So I am curious as to how well yours looks.

Edited by: Branyon on Dec 30, 2012 2:23 PM
booknookbiz

Posts: 3,725
Registered: 03/04/10
Re: Fixed Format Children's Book on Kindle iPad App?
Posted: Dec 31, 2012 11:44 AM   in response to: Branyon in response to: Branyon
 
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Hi, Branyon:

Oh, yes, I'm here. Would that I were not, but...

I'm glad you liked those two books, Big Galoot and Fox and the Fawn. We've since done a major series (24 books) for children, the "Fergus the Ferry" series from Oz, all in fixed-format, on Kindle, Nook and iBooks. For Fergus, the settings were very similar to Fox and Fawn.

The problem with your question is that the settings you are asking about are different for every book, depending on the orientation, etc.

For Fergus, the settings looked like this (here's hoping this comes out correctly):

<meta name="fixed-layout" content="true"/>
<meta name="orientation-lock" content="landscape"/>
<meta name="original-resolution" content="1024x600"/>
<meta name="book-type" content="children"/>
<meta name="RegionMagnification" content="true"/>

But that only helps you if you have a book that's laid out like the Fergus books were.

Hitch
We produce ebooks
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cjeasyaspie

Posts: 2,655
Registered: 05/28/09
Re: Fixed Format Children's Book on Kindle iPad App?
Posted: Dec 31, 2012 1:59 PM   in response to: Branyon in response to: Branyon
 
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@Branyon

Ok, Branyon, I see what you are talking about now.

Even though I do write tutorials, I've decided to stay away from Format 8... at least for the time being... and just concentrate on helping people format their manuscripts correctly... which is the first step, regardless of what they do next.

When asked by my readers, I always tell them that a clean file is the first step... and to go to Hitch (who has also posted in this thread) if they need anything more than basic formatting.

However, Man2010 has written some tutorials and prepared some templates and may be able to answer your specific questions.

You might contact him in this thread that he started a few weeks ago:

https://kdp.amazon.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=70446&tstart=120

Good luck, and...

Happy Kindling,

CJ, at CJ's Easy as Pie Kindle Tutorials
http://www.cjs-easy-as-pie.com/
Branyon

Posts: 4
Registered: 12/28/12
Re: Fixed Format Children's Book on Kindle iPad App?
Posted: Jan 4, 2013 5:38 AM   in response to: booknookbiz in response to: booknookbiz
 
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Hitch...
First, "Thank you" for posting those settings. Sometimes you find good books and examples, but until you truly know how they were setup it can be hard to produce the same effect. The "Fergus Ferry" books are great, both from a fixed-layout developer viewpoint, and from a father of young children standpoint. I think my kids will enjoy them. Also, the format seems almost exactly what I have done (and trying to achieve) with my book, "Does God Like... to Paint?"

I have a follow-up question though, can you tell me how the full-page images in Fergus are coded. Are they coded through the CSS "background-image" parameter, or are they included as HTML "img" tags? I'm interested because if you look at the Fergus book on a Kindle for Android, then the Kindle pop-up text feature works (which I noticed you were able to use enlarged image cut-outs), but you cannot pinch-to-zoom to explore the image. However, on the Kindle for iPad the pop-up text does not work and you can pinch-to-zoom to pan around each page.

To Hitch or anyone on the forum... In my limited testing it seems that if you set the <meta name="book-type" content="comic"/>, then your book is only available to purchase for Kindle Fire, Fire HD, and K for Android. However, it seems that if you set the <meta name="book-type" content="children"/>, then it can also be available for K for iPad and Cloud Reader. Has anyone experienced this or not?

Branyon
http://amazon.com/author/branyonmay
man2010

Posts: 2,047
Registered: 01/01/10
Re: Fixed Format Children's Book on Kindle iPad App?
Posted: Jan 4, 2013 7:10 AM   in response to: cjeasyaspie in response to: cjeasyaspie
 
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@CJ
thanks for citing my tutorial ;-)

@Branyon
the book type "comic" will also become available on those other devices, give it some time, a week or two. In my experience both book types gradually become available on all eligible devices. For example, see this comic book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009POHJUG (you can tell that the book type is "comic" because the average size of pages is 450KB, greater than the 256KB limit for "children"). You can also ask KDP support to accelerate the process.
Branyon

Posts: 4
Registered: 12/28/12
Re: Fixed Format Children's Book on Kindle iPad App?
Posted: Jan 4, 2013 7:25 AM   in response to: man2010 in response to: man2010
 
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@man2010 - Thanks for the quick answer and example. I had seen others mentioning that sometimes it took some time for books to become available on different devices, but didn't have any ballpark for how long that might be (also probably just being impatient).

For the example that you listed, did you get the average page size of 450kb by dividing the total size by the number of pages, or were you able to check another way?

How do you ask for accelerating the process?

@CJ - Yes, I meant to also thank you for the tutorial reference, which I had found before but needed the reminder about it.

Branyon
http://amazon.com/author/branyonmay
man2010

Posts: 2,047
Registered: 01/01/10
Re: Fixed Format Children's Book on Kindle iPad App?
Posted: Jan 4, 2013 8:07 AM   in response to: Branyon in response to: Branyon
 
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in that example, I divided the file size by the number of pages. You can ask KDP when your comic book will become available on all relevant devices and if they could do it sooner rather than later.
Michael

Posts: 111
Registered: 08/27/13
Re: Fixed Format Children's Book on Kindle iPad App?
Posted: Sep 4, 2013 1:18 AM   in response to: huanman in response to: huanman
 
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Hi there :)

My problem is that my fixed layout book "says" its only available on kindle fire, hd and paperwhite...inline with what my kindle previewer shows...
I am not sure if it will work on Ipad or Iphone, or older b&w kindles when LIVE...it certainly does not mention them on the availability list...Is the
"available on" list 100% accurate?

I also have this question:
Why/When do some books have the "optimised for larger screens" dropdown bar, and others don't? My own book is
certainly "quality and optimised images" and will work on larger kindles...anyone have experience on why this is so?

Edited by: Michael on Sep 4, 2013 1:19 AM
Michael

Posts: 111
Registered: 08/27/13
Re: Fixed Format Children's Book on Kindle iPad App?
Posted: Sep 4, 2013 1:23 AM   in response to: huanman in response to: huanman
 
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huanman wrote:
My children's book is live:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008KGP4K2/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=huanmanstudio-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B008KGP4K2

So just proof that fixed format layout (KF8) DOES work on Kindle for iPad. It took a bit of digging with current information but it's valid and doable. Best wishes to fellow authors.

Hi there :)

My problem is that my fixed layout book "says" its only available on kindle fire, hd and paperwhite...inline with what my kindle previewer shows...
I am not sure if it will work on Ipad or Iphone, or older b&w kindles when LIVE...it certainly does not mention them on the availability list...Is the
"available on" list 100% accurate?

I also have this question:
Why/When do some books have the "optimised for larger screens" dropdown bar, and others don't? My own book is
certainly "quality and optimised images" and will work on larger kindles...anyone have experience on why this is so?

man2010

Posts: 2,047
Registered: 01/01/10
Re: Fixed Format Children's Book on Kindle iPad App?
Posted: Sep 4, 2013 9:59 AM   in response to: Michael in response to: Michael
 
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Hey,

I am sure the man himself will answer, but here are my two cents:

I am not sure if it will work on Ipad or Iphone, or older b&w kindles when LIVE...it certainly does not mention them on the availability list...Is the "available on" list 100% accurate?

It will be available for sale eventually for these devices (give it 2 or 3 weeks):

Kindle
Kindle Touch
Kindle Paperwhite
Kindle Fire
Kindle Fire HD
Kindle Cloud Reader
Kindle for Windows 8
Kindle Keyboard
Kindle for iPad
Kindle for Android

In the above list, “Kindle Fire HD” means both Fire HD and HD 8.9" devices. “Kindle Keyboard” means Kindle 3 (manufactured since September 2010), and “Kindle” means Kindle 4 (manufactured since September 2011) and Kindle 5 (available since September 2012).

Why/When do some books have the "optimised for larger screens" dropdown bar, and others don't?

In my experience, if at least one of your images is bigger than 500 x 700 pixels (width x height) in a regular Kindle book (not fixed layout), which is the approximate limit for images within the screen of most eInk Kindles, then your ebook is likely to get this label. This label is actually a bad thing because it is a euphemism for "pictures will be illegible on most Kindles".
Michael

Posts: 111
Registered: 08/27/13
Re: Fixed Format Children's Book on Kindle iPad App?
Posted: Sep 5, 2013 4:51 AM   in response to: man2010 in response to: man2010
 
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man2010 wrote:
Hey,

I am sure the man himself will answer, but here are my two cents:

I am not sure if it will work on Ipad or Iphone, or older b&w kindles when LIVE...it certainly does not mention them on the availability list...Is the "available on" list 100% accurate?

It will be available for sale eventually for these devices (give it 2 or 3 weeks):

Kindle
Kindle Touch
Kindle Paperwhite
Kindle Fire
Kindle Fire HD
Kindle Cloud Reader
Kindle for Windows 8
Kindle Keyboard
Kindle for iPad
Kindle for Android

In the above list, “Kindle Fire HD” means both Fire HD and HD 8.9" devices. “Kindle Keyboard” means Kindle 3 (manufactured since September 2010), and “Kindle” means Kindle 4 (manufactured since September 2011) and Kindle 5 (available since September 2012).

Why/When do some books have the "optimised for larger screens" dropdown bar, and others don't?

In my experience, if at least one of your images is bigger than 500 x 700 pixels (width x height) in a regular Kindle book (not fixed layout), which is the approximate limit for images within the screen of most eInk Kindles, then your ebook is likely to get this label. This label is actually a bad thing because it is a euphemism for "pictures will be illegible on most Kindles".

Thank you for the reply :)

you said: "give it a few weeks"

So do you think it will be available, even though the offline previewer doesn't show it either?

you said: "In my experience, if at least one of your images is bigger than 500 x 700 pixels (width x height) in a regular Kindle book (not fixed layout), which is the approximate limit for images within the screen of most eInk Kindles, then your ebook is likely to get this label. This label is actually a bad thing because it is a euphemism for "pictures will be illegible on most Kindles"

All of my pictures are bigger than 500 x 700px actually....except my book is not regular layout, but rather fixed layout....
I guess you are right to some extent that having that label could be bad...
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