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For many weeks now I have struggled to complete a freelance project. One that has been an incredible learning curve. The project was an art instruction book. It had an entirely different structure than most of the books I have dealt with. It was filled with JPG’s and PNFs and text boxes and a hundred other items that required special attention when it was converted.

Last night after all our trials and conversions we finally managed to produce an eBook that was professional in structure, format, and form. 

What were the problems? When it came time to size, place, and position the various JPG’s, I lost. I mean it. I tried a dozen things, and nothing seemed to work. I converted the word doc using Calibre, UEC (Ultimate E-book Creator) and a half dozen other conversion tools found online.

Now to clarify, these are all free programs except for UEC. We don’t have much of a budget, so we are currently not subscribed to programs such as Adobe or Corel. These are a little bit out of our price range right now. Therefore, we use Calibre a lot.

Unfortunately, Calibre left too many problems with the JPG’s and the text boxes. Each time I did something different and converted the Word Doc the image on the conversion reverted to its original size and placement. Nothing I did would overcome this. I spent a solid week on this particular problem. 

On the Word Doc the images and text boxes stayed the same when converted to PDF. However, when you convert to the flowable format of an eBook things change. An image may be too big for a page on an eBook reader. Or out of place, or somehow listed as a header and spaced accordingly.

When I was unable to make Calibre function in the manner I needed, I went searching for other conversion tools. None of them worked. I used up a lot of time, patience and frustration trying to craft a professional eBook for our clients.

 

When I tried UEC, it worked on the images the way I needed. It took me a great deal of time going through each image (it is an art instruction book so of course, there are a lot of images). Once I managed to format each image, I had to use the placement tool inside Word to tell the program what to do with the text surrounding it. Each image proved to need a different function. In the end, I tried to use the “in line with text” function as much as I could then set the image, so it didn’t move with the text. Only this worked for about forty percent of the images.

I fiddled and converted. Fiddled and converted. Did it again and again and again so many times I lost count.

Once I got all the images where they needed to be, the size they needed to be and the test where it needed to be and converted, I had to take on the actual editing process of this project. This is where things got a little hairy. As I revised the book, the clients looked it over and decided on changes. Once we were finished with the final changes, I was able to get down to the nitty gritty of the small details. 

I had help on this. My wife is excellent at catching what I missed, and our clients also helped find the small items that are so important to a completed and polished manuscript that converts to a professional eBook. I doubt I would have done as well without their help.

In the end, we completed the work and turned it over to the client for review and publication.

It was an incredible learning experience that I hope will make the next one easier since the next one is already underway. Life as a freelance editor and publisher has its ups and downs, but to tell you the truth, I find I enjoy it and enjoy one other item as well. 

I love it when I complete a project and turn it over to the client. I spent forty years doing manual labor and I never got the satisfaction from completing paperwork as I did with finishing a weld joint or a pipe run.

Now, I do. I enjoy the self-satisfaction of completing an eBook. Especially ones I had to use as learning tools.

I’m Ross, The Editor-in-Chief at The Pyrateheart Press, and I’m out.