[Triceratops]

Hi Brad. Any chance you or one of the Vellum folks could stop by another thread? We're wondering about the new Amazon emphasis on epub, and how the two Vellum versions of epub, the Generic epub and the Kindle.epub, are different?

Thread:
Amazon now "prefers" epub files to mobi files
https://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,326357.0.html

 

[SmidgenPress]

Hi there, Brad/Brad! 

Two questions . . .
1) There is SO much conflicting information now about justified/non-justified text in ebooks. (I just found a big-name self-publisher blog saying to center-align an entire ebook and let the device figure it out. Ugh. While I see their point... Um, no thanks.)

Do you have an official opinion, from the coding side, or do you have device knowledge we should consider? Sometimes left-aligning a Vellum file seems to lock a book to where it can't be justified on a device, but even that doesn't seem to be consistent.

And 2), have you guys seen that Ingram is no longer allowing users to override the PDF/X-1a:2001 error message before publishing? They are requiring that the issue be resolved before continuing. (And some people are getting an "embedded fonts" error message as well, which is odd.)

Thanks much!

 

[Brad Andalman]

1) There is SO much conflicting information now about justified/non-justified text in ebooks. (I just found a big-name self-publisher blog saying to center-align an entire ebook and let the device figure it out. Ugh. While I see their point... Um, no thanks.)

Do you have an official opinion, from the coding side, or do you have device knowledge we should consider? Sometimes left-aligning a Vellum file seems to lock a book to where it can't be justified on a device, but even that doesn't seem to be consistent.

Hi Smidgen!

Justification controls are tricky and behave differently on different platforms. For instance, in Apple Books, a reader's justification setting will only be used when the reader chooses a font other than "Original." Otherwise, Apple Books will use the justification specified in the EPUB. And, in both Apple Books and Kindle, justification may not take effect if the font size is too large (as it would, presumably, result in gaps between words that would be too large).

That said, we haven't heard of a case where left-aligning a Vellum file would "lock" a book so that it can't be justified by the reader (given, of course, that the platform allows it). If you encounter that, please contact us and let us know.

Our recommendation, then, is simply for authors to choose the justification setting in Vellum that they prefer.

And 2), have you guys seen that Ingram is no longer allowing users to override the PDF/X-1a:2001 error message before publishing? They are requiring that the issue be resolved before continuing. (And some people are getting an "embedded fonts" error message as well, which is odd.)

We just checked at IngramSpark, and their website currently allows users to bypass the PDF/X-1a:2001 warning. You do have to click a checkbox and press Continue, however.

If the PDF has more errors than that, though, then you won't be able to press Continue. If, for instance, you have managed to insert a non-standard character into the text, then you might receive a warning that "fonts contain missing glyphs or are not fully embedded." These missing glyphs can sometimes occur from errant typos, and may look like a "box" in the generated PDF. If you have Adobe Acrobat, you can find them easily by verifying compliance with PDF/X-3.

 

[Melwen]

Hi Brad,

first, let me say how much I appreciate the hard work put into Vellum and the great customer service!

There are a few things I think would make this awesome software even better though:
1. An option for links in the pdf file. When you give free stories away e.g. via book funnel, it's always a nice touch to give readers the option to read the story as a pdf for example on their pc. It is really annoying that in these cases I have to use "Affinity Publisher" to ensure there are clickable links in the document. But especially with free stories implementing links is so essential.
2. I would love to have an option to center the TOC or more general to adjust the alignment.
3. When you format anthologies a nice touch would be to assign different scene breaks to the stories. In these cases, I have to use Jutoh but let's face it if you can use Vellum for something, why use any other program. ;-)

I understand that the more options are added the more complicated it might get for some users but why not add a bunch of possible additions in an advance option tab or even charge something for a bunch of extra options which then are only for the people who want and or need them?

Once again, you guys are doing such an amazing job and it's very much appreciated!

 

[Karen Monroe]

I have read a lot of KU books with Velllum. I am thinking of saving my profits to invest in an a Mac Pro Laptops  and lifetime Vellum.

My question is it worth it?

 

[scott.marmorstein]

I have read a lot of KU books with Velllum. I am thinking of saving my profits to invest in an a Mac Pro Laptops and lifetime Vellum.

My question is it worth it?

Karen, you don't need a MacBook Pro, but it will last you longer. I bought a 2015 Mac Book Air and Vellum works flawlessly along with Scrivener and a host of other apps I use daily. The new stuff is just up to you and your budget. Bottom line: Vellum is worth it even if you only did MacInCloud.com when you go to publish your new books. But I'm a Mac person through and through.

 

[Karen Monroe]

Karen, you don't need a MacBook Pro, but it will last you longer. I bought a 2015 Mac Book Air and Vellum works flawlessly along with Scrivener and a host of other apps I use daily. The new stuff is just up to you and your budget. Bottom line: Vellum is worth it even if you only did MacInCloud.com when you go to publish your new books. But I'm a Mac person through and through.

I am PC.....transitioning to any Apple device outside of the phone...I just think they are overpriced, but you can't seem to get Vellum on the PC.

Bastards!

 

[CassieL]

I know I should probably report this through the Vellum website, but, well. I've been annoyed by it for over a year and I'm here now, so.

There is an intermittent problem with the print PDFs that Vellum generates where a chapter will have no footer. So for me, no page numbers. If I go back and regenerate the file it either moves to a different chapter or fixes itself. For the book I just published yesterday the first time I was missing page numbering on at least one chapter. The second time it was actually missing the header on two chapters. That's the first time I've seen the header missing.

Eventually if I generate the file enough times it fixes itself and it never seems to be consistent which chapter it will happen to, but it would be nice to not have to go through that each time I want to generate a print book. I work in Word 2013 if that helps.

(Overall I'm very pleased with Vellum but I'm assuming since it hasn't been fixed in all this time it's something you guys aren't aware of. Also, I'd love it if you fixed the tab issue when adding book links. Two updates ago or so it changed so that if I put in a book link for one store and tab to go to the next store to add that link it goes back to the top instead.)

 

[Brad Andalman]

There is an intermittent problem with the print PDFs that Vellum generates where a chapter will have no footer. So for me, no page numbers. If I go back and regenerate the file it either moves to a different chapter or fixes itself. For the book I just published yesterday the first time I was missing page numbering on at least one chapter. The second time it was actually missing the header on two chapters. That's the first time I've seen the header missing.

Eventually if I generate the file enough times it fixes itself and it never seems to be consistent which chapter it will happen to, but it would be nice to not have to go through that each time I want to generate a print book. I work in Word 2013 if that helps.

Hi Cassie,

We're really sorry you hit this. We've received - very rarely - a few reports of a bug like this. Unfortunately, we've been unable to reproduce it ourselves. If you're willing, we'd love to take a look at your Vellum file to see if we can get to the bottom of it. The best way to do that is to use the Help > Contact Vellum Support menu item in Vellum's main menu. Then, you can use the Attach a File link at the bottom to upload your Vellum file.

(Overall I'm very pleased with Vellum but I'm assuming since it hasn't been fixed in all this time it's something you guys aren't aware of. Also, I'd love it if you fixed the tab issue when adding book links. Two updates ago or so it changed so that if I put in a book link for one store and tab to go to the next store to add that link it goes back to the top instead.)

Oh! That's a good one. Thanks for reporting it. I've added it to our bug database so we can look into addressing this in the future.

 

[Indiecognito]

There is not a way to lock the chapters, but we have heard from a small number of users who've made similar accidental moves, especially when using Vellum through Macincloud. For a future update, we're looking into adding a confirmation for when a move seems like it may have been unintentional, especially if the change would be hard to spot (as can be the case for untitled chapters, which are automatically renumbered).

This change in the new update is a MASSIVE life-saver, time-saver, and game changer. Thank you and the team so much for it. I absolutely love it.

I literally name my chapters now out of fear of re-ordering, and this will save me so much stress.

 

[psnew]

I have read a lot of KU books with Velllum. I am thinking of saving my profits to invest in an a Mac Pro Laptops and lifetime Vellum.

My question is it worth it?

Buying a refurbished Mac just for Vellum was worth every penny for me. Trying to format a beautiful book any other way was very time consuming, and time is money. But if just don't have the funds right now, and are willing to risk a stranger having access to your work before you even publish, there are people who will format your manuscript, using Vellum, on Fiverr for cheap prices.

 

[ShayneRutherford]

I am PC.....transitioning to any Apple device outside of the phone...I just think they are overpriced, but you can't seem to get Vellum on the PC.

[illegitimate persons]!

You can't.

Maybe don't call the Brads bad names in their own thread.

 

[Jude Thaddeus]

If you choose the "full" size for displaying images and you do not meet a certain pixel width by height ratio, Vellum warns you that "Image is too small for selected size."

What does this mean? Will Amazon do something? Is it just a preference? Will Vellum default you down to a smaller image display on the page?

I'm adding old grainy black and white photos from 1909 that I've remastered, and they do not look worse at 1,000 pixels wide vs the 1,200 px wide Vellum suggests.

I feel like Amazon is being a bit ridiculous by both demanding high image standards and penalizing you if you meet those standards, which always increasing your file size and therefore your delivery fee.

My book is nonfiction and has 240 images. I'm getting penalized heavily, and I'm trying to minimize this by finding the sweet spot between looking good and using the smallest amount of kb possible.

Any suggestions?

 

[Jude Thaddeus]

I'd like to put a solid line below my chapter titles, as you often see in books. I've tried using the subtitle field in Vellum to do this. I put in a solid line but it appears as a broken line. You can see this here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Bes77F9BK0ceE1CR6SL5erWT2PZF_osh/view?usp=sharing

Not quite the effect I'm looking for. Any way to add a solid line?

 

[Brad West]

If you choose the "full" size for displaying images and you do not meet a certain pixel width by height ratio, Vellum warns you that "Image is too small for selected size."

What does this mean? Will Amazon do something? Is it just a preference? Will Vellum default you down to a smaller image display on the page?

I'm adding old grainy black and white photos from 1909 that I've remastered, and they do not look worse at 1,000 pixels wide vs the 1,200 px wide Vellum suggests.

I feel like Amazon is being a bit ridiculous by both demanding high image standards and penalizing you if you meet those standards, which always increasing your file size and therefore your delivery fee.

My book is nonfiction and has 240 images. I'm getting penalized heavily, and I'm trying to minimize this by finding the sweet spot between looking good and using the smallest amount of kb possible.

Any suggestions?

For ebooks, size recommendations in Vellum are based on a combination of specs for common devices and quality standards from Amazon. In their image guidelines, KDP recommends images that are full width be at least 1200 pixels wide.

You're right that Amazon doesn't make it easy to meet these guidelines when they also charge for delivery, but keep in mind that those delivery costs will be based on lower-resolution versions of your images created when KDP converts your file. As we discuss on our guide to File Size, that means the only way to find out delivery costs is to upload your book to KDP.

That said, it's going to be very hard to get past delivery fees with 240 images, even with aggressive resizing and compression. For a book with that many images, you may want to consider KDP's 30% royalty option, where delivery costs don't apply.

There's also a chance your book may be invited into Amazon's Great on Kindle program, which pays a 50% royalty and does not have any delivery costs. To meet the criteria for this program, though, your ebook will need to meet Amazon's image resolution guidelines.

I'd like to put a solid line below my chapter titles, as you often see in books. I've tried using the subtitle field in Vellum to do this. I put in a solid line but it appears as a broken line. You can see this here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Bes77F9BK0ceE1CR6SL5erWT2PZF_osh/view?usp=sharing

Not quite the effect I'm looking for. Any way to add a solid line?

The best way to include a line (or a "rule") in your heading is to choose a Book Style that includes one. You'll find options like these in Meridian, Trace, Kindred, and Parcel, but not in the Oxford Book Style. Rules are typically used between the chapter number and chapter title, however, and not always under the title.

Hope that helps!

 

[Jude Thaddeus]

For ebooks, size recommendations in Vellum are based on a combination of specs for common devices and quality standards from Amazon. In their image guidelines, KDP recommends images that are full width be at least 1200 pixels wide.

There's also a chance your book may be invited into Amazon's Great on Kindle program, which pays a 50% royalty and does not have any delivery costs. To meet the criteria for this program, though, your ebook will need to meet Amazon's image resolution guidelines.

Thank you for your help.

I've got a related question. Following your link to the Amazon guidelines, I see it suggests a minimum of 1200 px wide OR 1800 px tall. There is also a requirement of 300 PPI.

However, when I take my images and export them at 1200 px wide, my PPI is only 72 pixels/inch. Even when I set the "quality" all the way up to 100% and do a do 1350 px wide, I still only get 72 pixels/inch for DPI.

Any idea what's going on here and what the significance of that is in how Amazon will judge your image meeting the requirements for their "Great on Kindle" program?

 

[Gessert Books]

Thank you for your help.

I've got a related question. Following your link to the Amazon guidelines, I see it suggests a minimum of 1200 px wide OR 1800 px tall. There is also a requirement of 300 PPI.

However, when I take my images and export them at 1200 px wide, my PPI is only 72 pixels/inch. Even when I set the "quality" all the way up to 100% and do a do 1350 px wide, I still only get 72 pixels/inch for DPI.

Any idea what's going on here and what the significance of that is in how Amazon will judge your image meeting the requirements for their "Great on Kindle" program?

Amazon is kind of confusing in how they sprinkle guidelines for print + ebook on the same page. That part relates to print. Also, the dpi reported in e.g. Photoshop when you check image size is practically irrelevant, it's your pixel dimensions that matter. Your 1200 px example is 300dpi at 4" wide, regardless of what dpi is reported in file metadata. Your 1350px image is 300dpi at 4.5" wide.

 

[Jude Thaddeus]

Thanks. That's super helpful. Just to clarify, some of their requirements read "1200 px wide or 1800 px high". Others read, "1200 px wide and 1800 px tall." Am I safe if I stick to 1200 wide for landscapes and 1800 tall for portraits without paying attention to the other axis?

Amazon is kind of confusing in how they sprinkle guidelines for print + ebook on the same page. That part relates to print. Also, the dpi reported in e.g. Photoshop when you check image size is practically irrelevant, it's your pixel dimensions that matter. Your 1200 px example is 300dpi at 4" wide, regardless of what dpi is reported in file metadata. Your 1350px image is 300dpi at 4.5" wide.

 

[Gessert Books]

Thanks. That's super helpful. Just to clarify, some of their requirements read "1200 px wide or 1800 px high". Others read, "1200 px wide and 1800 px tall." Am I safe if I stick to 1200 wide for landscapes and 1800 tall for portraits without paying attention to the other axis?

I believe those are both minimums for full-width images. So a super tall image would be 1200x1800(+), a super wide one would be 1200(+++) x 1800.

 

[Marseille France or Bust]

Hi, I am using the paperback print feature. I have URL's in the ebook that I also want in the paperback. But when printed, Vellum "full justifies" the links and breaks them up. Example: https://int. nyt. com/data/documenthelper/6916- george-barnhill-letter-to-glyn/b52fa09cdc974b970b7/full. pdf

How do I fix this? Not good.