Thursday, October 26, 2017

From Print to eBook.



The availability of new improvements for digital books has made publishing of ebooks so much easier. 
As a book designer, what pleases me most is that the digital book comes closer to the richness of print layout than it has in the past.   

The 2012 print edition of Martha Libster's The Nurse Herbalist was too complex for an accurate conversion to ebook. The text and cover would have been easy to convert but the interior graphics, charts, paintings, and vector elements were too complex for a pleasing digital copy. However, today the process is much easier and accurate.

The photo above shows how a chapter looks in the print version (on the left) and how the conversion to Kindle looks much better (on the middle and right.) There is now color on the head of "Tess" the nature spirit. The Chapter names are also in color. Although the page layout had to be shifted to avoid overlapping text, it still looks smooth and easy to read. The print book is well over 400 pages and the ebook handles the length easily.

To get a better idea of the printed book, see my flipbook demo on my website here: The Nurse Herbalist You will see how many graphics are present in the printed book that had to be considered for the Kindle version. Some full page patterns couldn't be used but the rest are in full color on the ebook.  (If you have Flash installed, you can flip through the animated pages) 

For authors, this is a good sign of where the state of both paper and digital books are. Print and digital are finally existing nicely together.

Amazon: The Nurse-Herbalist: Integrative Insights for Holistic Practice Kindle Edition