Glencrow Summer Maps
I like books with maps, so I usually put maps in my books. Glencrow Summer is no exception. However, I find that maps in ebooks are too small and awkward to be enjoyable or much use. So I post them on my blog. Here are the relevant maps for Glencrow Summer. I believe that you can click on them and download them to have alongside you when you read the book. The maps are included in the paperback book.
I talk about the influences that shaped Glencrow Summer i.e. my "Project 2026" in several other blog posts. If you are curious, you can find them linked below.
I also talk about my future writing projects in a more general way HERE
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteI recently downloaded "Seakeeper" from Smashwords, a novel which describes with much detail the adventures of the gaff cutter yacht - Seakeeper. I am interested in the operation of sailing boats since I have spent a week on the "Sedov", but what is a throat halyard as described in the story? Where is a staysail? Thank god the author has included a picture with all the details.
So I looked into the matter. E-books (.epub) are nothing else than zipped HTML-texts like a webpage. You can rename the .epub into a .zip and after unzipping it, you might find a lot of XHTML files, but also a subdirectory with all the pictures in one place. Or you can open the .epub with some E-Book-Reader app on the PC, doubleclick or click with the right mouse key on a image and whatever app you use, chances are big that it offers to save the image, asking for a location on your pc. Modern operating systems might do it all automatic if you click on the downloaded .epub file with their file explorer.
So I happily extracted and printed the image, as well as the map of australia the author has included in the book and had all the information ready whenever reading the novel.
As I have not only an E-Book-Reader, but also a tablet, I can also upload the picture(s) to that one. I often have it running besides the e-book-reader, for example, to look up something in Wikipedia or Google maps so I can profit most of a book.
There is one important requirement. Authors often only include a tiny image into their book. This image, to result in a crisp picture as a print-out, must be big enough, and only the dimension in the .epub file must be declared as a small picture. If the author has an image of 500x500 Pixel, but wishes to show it at 100x100 Pixel on the book page, he should leave the image file at the original 500x500 px., not minimize it with photoshop etc., and for example in Libre Office minimize it with the mouse to the desired dimension so the reader can still extract the original size.
So it might make sense to also include the image(s) in the E-Book-File so they can be printed out or viewed even if the reader is offline.
Kind regards,
Hannes
Hi Hannes, Thank you for your observations and suggestions. I did include maps and floor plans in the Kindle version of Chateau Clare, but that version was created in the Amazon app for that purpose. Adding images to an epub I create in Calibri is a lot more iffy and I figure maps are, in the end, optional, and awkward to use, especially on ebook readers, or I would imagine on the 6"-7" screens on the phones a lot of people use to read ebooks, And well, most ebooks open up to chapter one, so that many readers would never know there were maps included anyway. So this is the (lazy) solution I've come up with. Cheers, Chuck
DeleteHi,
Deletereaders should be aware that often they could make a big, crisp printout from a tiny, fuzzy image. If I am not well I have my E-Book-Reader and this printout and delve in a parallel universe. Or learn a lot of geography, ships or whatever :) .
Kind regards,
Hannes
That's why I post my maps here. Print them out.
Delete