The Connor Wars Writer’s Room 46 – Kindle Testing

Ever since I started publishing The Connor Wars, I’ve gotten requests for it to be made available for the Kindle. I think (I think) it’s finally gotten to a point where I can do it for some Kindles. I’ll be posting a file here if y’all want to see if I have it.

Extra04 Allison Wonderland (Kindle)

For this to work…

You MUST be using a [amazon_link id=”B0051VVOB2″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Kindle Fire[/amazon_link] -or- a [amazon_link id=”B005890G8Y” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Kindle Touch[/amazon_link] that has been updated to at least 5.1 so that KF8 (Kindle Format 8) is running. KF8 is a more robust platform for formatting text—something absolutely essential for screenplay formatting. Using any other Kindle package, or earlier software, will not display properly

You MUST install the file directly into your documents folder on your Kindle. If you route it through Amazon they will reformat it enough that the layout breaks.

Hopefully everything will look like it’s supposed to. One element not included in this file is simultaneous dialog. As the options to have that side-by-side are sketchy, I’ve opted to place them staggered–one dialog moved closer to the left margin followed by the other dialog moved closer to the right margin. Here is a test of that:

 Test – Ghost Message (Kindle)

The same restrictions as above apply equally to this file. Simultaneous dialog is a little awkward, but I haven’t figured out a better way as of yet. I’m still testing.

If it looks like this will work for y’all, I’ll start posting Kindle versions of the TCW stuff as time allows. It won’t be a fast process. Currently, the fastest procedure has me exporting from my screenwriting program ([amazon_link id=”B000V5SRAE” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Movie Magic Screenwriter[/amazon_link]) to RTF, using LibreOffice Writer to convert that to HTML, firing up Sigil to simplify the HTML and generate useful style tags, and then I copy that code into a text editor to do all the fun coding stuff the Kindle needs. So…it’s not slow, but it’s definitely not fast, either. I’m constantly looking to streamline the procedure, but letting the intermediate programs do the conversions really does speed things up considerably.

As for those of you wanting epub formatted files…well, I don’t have an epub device, so I can’t test it. If I can’t test it, I’m loathe to post it. So it’ll have to wait until I can justify the expense…sorry about that.

In any case, if you do test out the files on the appropriate Kindles, let me know if you find anything at all hinky that I need to fix. Thanks.