Hello!

[nelotizapu.livejournal.com]

I've recently bought an Aluratek LIBRE eBook Reader PRO for reading fanfics. I really spend too much time in front of the computer screen, but there aren't really much in the way of paperbacks that hold my interest, so I started looking into an ereader.

I got to handle a nook for the first time, and got to experience the odd page flashing. I did not like this in the least. So I started researching ereaders, and eventually found the libre, that has an LCD screen that isn't backlit. It might not be as "crisp" or have an extraordinary battery life, but no flash! Also, only cost $99+tax, and even got free shipping! Also came with a case, strap, earbuds, wall charger, USB cord, and 2 gb SD card.

So I'm really liking it, and am currently spending hours trying to perfectly format fanfics for it. I'm... still learning. I can get a fanfic converted quickly enough, and even make a cover, and have it looking pretty good on my libre, but I'm still working out some kinks. I'm also having a lot of fun making grayscale covers in photoshop.

So I actually found this comm as the first result for "calibre look & feel" as I was trying to figure out the more advanced options of calibre and I saw fanfic_ebooks which is just what I like. =)

I read a lot of Star Trek: TOS and Star Trek XI fics, and recently got into Merlin (BBC), and considering I'm watching Sherlock Holmes of the Jeremy Brett variety at the moment, will probably read some of that when I'm done with the series. Besides that, I spend a lot of time managing my delicious account, nelo_fanfic_recs, where I also rec fics to my roommates (cmo's_log and captain's_log are tags for them) though I'm behind right now because I've been spending more time formatting fics for my libre rather than actually READING them!

So I hope to learn from this community and maybe download some ebooks. I see Breaking Point on the site... =)

Comments

[amalthia]

What formats do you need? I made a Ebook Formatting Tutorial for Calibre users. If you're trying to make epub or mobi you're in business. :)

It's the process I use to create ebooks for the Ebook Library. I was hoping it would help other people get an idea of where to start and what to watch out for. :) I'm really into Star Trek right now and Merlin. Basically the fandoms with the most fics are my main fandoms. The hard part about the archive is that I need author permissions so while I have 1600 fan fics converted I can only share a fraction of that via the archive.

It's great to meet you. :)

[nelotizapu.livejournal.com]

I'm making epubs, so I'll check out the tutorial, even though I think I have it figured out now what I want to do... or at the very least I have my current library in a standard format now. Which is only 25 things, and I'll probably change my mind on the "standard format" when I learn more, but eh. I see there's a how to make a TOC, which I don't know how to do, so that's cool. Though I'm not sure how much I'd use one, I'm going to see how my Sherlock Holmes books do with a TOC on my ereader, since they already have them.

Star Trek and Merlin are great fandoms. There are just so many fics for them, and a lot of good ones! I'm used to the days when I had to wade through 90% badfic and that's if there was much fic at all. Anime fandoms are just not as good quality in general... =( I swear I started watching Merlin just because I kept seeing so many fic recs for it looking for Star Trek fics!

Yeah, I thought about the author permissions, that's a shame. However, what about just sharing by email? Like, private sharing? I feel like it'd be cool if I could just tag any fics on my delicious account with "ebook avaiable" and I could give the ebook to someone if they emailed me. Or something like that. ...in those 1600 fan fics, do you happen to have Only Good For Legends, by leupagus? For some reason my computer is physically against copy and pasting that fic into Open Office, where I can save it to html and turn the soft returns into paragraph tags. Because I'm trying to make all my fics read like books, with no spaces in between paragraphs and with indents. And I usually don't have an issue just... Only Good For Legends chapter one is weird. I was planning on waiting until the author archived it to Archive of our Own or something and trying again.

Nice to meet you too! =)

[amalthia]

I do share my collection via private email. :) My email is amalthia at gmail.com and I do have Only Good For Legends, by leupagus.
I have the story in epub/lrf/mobi as well as RTF. I can send you all formats if need be. :)

there is no rule against sharing privately last time I checked and truly no way to enforce not sharing.

TOCs are good for long stories in case you want to jump to later chapters or in novels you can skip 16 pages of introduction and go straight to the first chapter. I sometimes merge a collection of an author's stories into a single file and use the TOC to navigate to individual stories. It's a useful tool but not always needed for shorter works.

[nelotizapu.livejournal.com]

YOU ARE MY HERO. <3 I like your formatting... very similar to my own... it blends right in with the other fics! And finally I can finish reading Legends, I was keeping up with it until Chapter 3, and then got distracted with life and before I knew it was finished and I needed to reread it from the beginning to figure out what was going on. But like I said, couldn't get it to copy, and I didn't want to read it ONLINE when I have this perfectly good ereader. ;)

I can only think of once instance where the author didn't like sharing, and it was when she took her fic offline and she in the Harry Potter fandom and there was drama or something... but even she couldn't enforce it, or course.

That's understandable. I have a tendency to leave out A/N's all together... unless they're useful to the story. But that's smart. Though looking at A Study in Scarlet on my reader, I seem unable to use the table of contents or the footnote links, which is a shame, because I remember using them when I had mobireader on my phone. So I probably won't bother with them for now. =)

I'm going on vacation this weekend and I'll probably have limited internet access for the week, so I'm going to make sure I still have fanfiction to read! Not that I don't have three paperbacks I still need to read, one by Roddenberry, one by Shatner, and one that used to be a fanfic but they changed the names and published it as original fiction. And a book on Carnivorous Plants. My reading material makes me feel ridiculous... ridiculously awesome, that is. xD

Thanks again though... I did a literal happy dance around my living room.

[amalthia]

I'm so glad we shared enough fandoms for it to be helpful. :) Have fun on your vacation! :)

On ff.net many author notes are like "I hope you enjoy the chapter!" or some BS like that. I think after seeing enough ff.net fics with that I won't post any author notes except at very end or at the beginning of my stories. :) The notes every chapter is excessive. Though some authors do use them responsibly.

[tea-redneck.livejournal.com]

I recently bought a Libre Pro too! I really do like it. I've been lazy and been leaving my ebooks in HTML format. One of the things that I love about the Libre. That and the price. You got a better deal than me, I paid $130 plus free shipping but I'm still very happy.

Have you been listening to MP3's with it? I've been having sound issues with them and wanted to know if I was the only one.