Cadence wrote: "I am visually impaired" As I figured out when I read your other thread. :) "When I write, I use Word, but I believe that I can save it into HTML format, rather than DOC format." Well, I was telling what the publishers are most commonly using. Personally, I like reading word processing formats, so (in addition to HTML, PRC, and LIT) I will be making my e-books available in DOC and RTF (a generic processing format that can be read on Mac computers, among others). One warning I should give you is that Word bloats the HTML code when it converts. Perhaps others here who use Word know some workaround solutions to that. MauiPotiki wrote: "I hate TXT format. Just having had stories plagarised almost word for word in the past." PDF won't prevent that. It can be converted into TXT, and even if it has DRM, the DRM can be broken, as I mentioned above. Plagiarization has been going on since well before the computer era. The only way to prevent plagiarization is not to publish your writings. :)

I just got done saying in another topic that I am not as familiar with Word as I should be, even though I use it quite a bit. I need to take a class LOL! Thank you for the advice and tips. They could be useful. So far, I have only written in Word. I have never submitted anything so I've not been forced to broaden my horizons...yet :D

"I need an editor." *Lifts eyebrows*. Are you saying that those of us who self-publish aren't edited? Darling, one of my future e-books was line-edited by no less than six people, had two science consultants, and received general critiques from three other people. My typos were *scurrying* to escape such vigilance. The problem with self-publishing isn't lack of editing/design/marketing/etc. It's that you either have to have the skills to do such work yourself or (inevitably, in the case of editing), you need to obtain someone who has such skills. That can be tough when you don't have money to spend, but the best things in life are worth working for, right? :) I see traditional publishing as similar to (though far more ethical and successful than) subsidy publishing: you get a package deal. You're assured that somebody will do the editing, the design, the marketing. The problem comes when traditionally published authors (not you, I'm sure) get complacent and think that all they need to do is lie back and think of England, rather than help their publisher out with whatever non-authorial skills they possess, such as self-marketing. An author who isn't awake enough to say to their line editor, "Um . . . that's not the grammar rule I was taught in school," really deserves all their editor's mistakes.

I beleive the point was that those who self-published *don't* need an editor.

That's not the point at all. Self-publishing means you bypass months and years of subbing material to traditional publishers. That's all it means. If a self-pubber can get decent editing prior to self-pubbing, he/she should.

Perhaps I should have worded it this way... The people who offered me editing services at the time I considered self-publishing did not provide me with the kind of second eyes that I needed. I should also note that I typed that just after reading an excerpt from a self-published book that bounced between first-person and second-person with each paragraph. I don't doubt that self-publishing CAN include decent editing. It's just that I know myself and one of the biggest things that I know is that there's a whole crap load that I don't know.

"The people who offered me editing services at the time I considered self-publishing did not provide me with the kind of second eyes that I needed." But my dear, I don't see how that's any different from submitting to a press that turns out to have poor editors. It's one of the hazards of the business. The difference is that, if you're self-publishing, you can get a second editor if the first one's a flop. I'm not trying to force self-publishing on anyone. I think traditional publishing is the best option for most authors. But aren't you the one who was ranting recently about some badly edited prose that was published by a traditional press?

I've edited my self-pubbed stuff so many times I've lost count. Thing is, I apply what I learned recently to every edit. But yeah, if you can't edit your own work, you can keep looking for someone to give you feedback until you have something decent to publish. But ultimately, an author, whether self pubbed or not, has to learn to edit on their own. They have to. The only way to ensure quality control is to learn to spot quality. Dusk is right. Bad novels make it on the shelves, whether the shelves are digital or solid, every year. Authors really have to stop being sloppy about their writing before an editor gets their manuscript.

Which one do you use, Lieran?

Right now I use Dreamweaver, but since Adobe bought it and doubled the price I'm going to investigate NVu next week :) I'll try to remember to let you guys know what I discover. I know people who use it and like it, so I have high hopes for it. There are other solutions, but NVu looks the most promising.

I forgot to mention that NVu is free :D

I use Nvu for my website design. It took a bit of fiddling before I figured out how to work it, but not as much as say...photoshop. I like the interface. You can be a coding idiot like me and still make it work.

I'm still using Netscape Composer, believe it or not. I tried to upgrade to Mozilla Composer (a pause to let you all laugh), but it was doing things to my documents that Netscape didn't recognize, and since Netscape is my main browser, that was self-defeating. I don't use stylesheets for the same reason - Netscape doesn't recognize them. I do double-check that everything I create is forwards-compatible with the la-*test*-('") browsers, but I assume that all of my readers with older browsers have a special love for me. :)