Sunday, June 26, 2011

Illustrations In Ebooks

As I've been saying for weeks, I'm working on photography for the NLM2 book.  Why?  Who illustrates novels?

I do, if I can.  If it's appropriate.  What's the rationale?  Added content.

I'm reading Annie Jacobsen's nonfiction Area 51 now (very much recommend it as a window into the world of espionage).  I was struck by the vast number of links in the text.

I tried to read Do The Noises In My Head Bother You (yes, Steven, they do to the point where I won't finish the book) but the number of good color photos is surprising.  Well done.

I read Rob Lowe's Stories I Only Tell My Friends.  Quite well written.  Bravo!  He grew upand instead of becoming a star, became an adult.  But it seems plain, devoid of photos.  I needed more.

I want the technology to come to the point, and it's not there yet, where a book like Witch by Michal Towber (highly recommended) would make it possible for the reader to listen to the soundtrack at the same time.  And trust me, I've heard the soundtrack to this book and it's fantastic.

But with my Nook Color you can have your own music loaded onto it.  You can access Pandora and listen to music.  How big a step is it for the book to come with its own music?  It doesn't seem that complicated to me to listen and read at the same time.

If your book could have illustrations, put them in.

I was contacted circuitously this week by a woman doing a nonfiction book who wanted help in formatting it.  She was doubtful it would work because of all the graphs and charts.  A jpg is a jpg.  If you get the html right, you will be fine.  The only issue is size.

My friend, Chris Westphal, did a marvelous book  Inhuman (highly recommended) and created 150 images of newspaper clippings, reports, interviews, letters and notes.  Initially it was too large a file for Amazon to accept and he had to cut it down but got it to the point where everything worked.

Great and creative things can be done with ebooks.  We're just starting out.  So after you've written the best book you can, make it the best book you can.

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