Eeek.
…
Zoe! You’re back!
Yay!
Dave
Thanks, Dave. 
I’m scrabbling back, slowly, with Keith and now David’s unwitting help. I’ll take this below when my fingers & grey matter loosen up a bit. And when Vic gets my martini down off the top shelf and dusts it off.
Sorry Kitten, I was miles away (metaphorically obviously).
Here get this down y’ neck
Not HERE, Vic! This is a respectable thread and it’s still early a.m. here. Keith, take this below for us, will you, love?
(Sorry, David.)
Y 'wot!!?
Y’ever read Hewson’s stuff? Gratuitous violence ‘n’ gynasticated fornication, cover to cover.
Top of the Vatican’s Index Librorum Prohibitorum!
Vic
Doesn’t take long for the off-topickers to rear their ugly heads…does it? tch!tch!
Fluff
I was amazed it didn’t happen earlier!
Sigh. :-\
David,
Got mine yesterday — a very few dollars very well spent. Well written, concise, and a great companion to the user’s guide. Novel or not, if you’re doing any kind of creative writing with Scrivener, this is a terrific resource.
Thank you, David!
S
Thanks Sean. Been an interesting little project. I’d like to write something much longer and broader on writing some day. That came in at 24,000 words and I think said all I needed to say for that particular purpose with Scrivener.
[quote="Sean Coffee"]
David,
Got mine yesterday — a very few dollars very well spent. Well written, concise, and a great companion to the user’s guide. Novel or not, if you’re doing any kind of creative writing with Scrivener, this is a terrific resource.
Thank you, David!
S
[/quote]
Now I’ve read it, I agree with Mr Coffee. (And I look forward to the “something longer and broader”, when it appears, some day. I think there’s a gap in the market for a decent book about thriller-writing, if that’s what’s intended.)
H
Thanks Hugh. I’d quite like to write something that’s about the basic mechanics of fiction really. The fundamental stuff that so many students I used to meet at writing school simply didn’t have on board. There’s a lot of theory in fiction but there’s a lot of craft too and it doesn’t get talked about enough.
One day – if I have the time. Essentially it would be the ‘don’t invite me to your £%&^& writing school read this instead it’s quicker and cheaper’ book!
I love it already! 
Looking forward to when you have the time, although I suspect it might be a long wait… 
Thanks for the interest, Nom. Sometimes these things turn up more quickly than one would expect. All depends on a few contractual issues for other projects now under discussion.
It would help if the manuscript for the ebook was in plain old pdf - that is a doddle in Scrivener. Anyone could then convert it to anything using Calibre - donation ware.
I’m reasonably confident that Calibre also will convert kindle azw mobipocket format to pdf and epub etc - however I have not tried that specific conversion myself. But well worth a shot.
Format stuff here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison … ok_formats
Why is a part of me a little saddened to see folks making money off the back of Scrivener? I guess my old egalitarian ideas are just that, a bit old fashioned. Think I might collect all my Scrivener posts and give them page numbers too. However, when I make a declarative statement it applies to ME. Not to everyone.
I’m saddened you take this view, LL. David is a bestselling author who has supported and blogged about Scrivener since before Scrivener 1.0 was released, so I am really, really pleased that he has chosen to spend time he could have been working on his next bestseller instead working on a book about how he uses Scrivener. I find it interesting to hear how authors use Scrivener myself, and I have no doubt that other Scrivener users will find it useful.
He’s not making “money off the back of Scrivener” any more than anybody else writing a book about software. I myself have bought several books on using Photoshop, and I do not feel the authors are taking advantage of Adobe, and Scrivener itself owes its existence in part to Steve Kochan and Aaron Hillegass, authors who chose to make money by writing about Apple’s development software, Xcode, and whose books made a lot more sense to me than the Apple help materials. If David’s book does that for a budding young author starting out with Scrivener then my only complaint would be that the budding young author ends up getting published before me.
As for format, David created his .mobi file using Scrivener’s .mobi export. He did so in order to sell via Amazon - a PDF file would not be optimal for selling, and the Kindle format is great as it can be used on the Kindle device (which I love) and on Kindle software for the iPad, iPhone and other platforms. I think he has a right to be paid for his efforts, as do all authors. And if you choose to write a screenwriting book for authors, I will not complain either, and will happily endorse it.
All the best,
Keith
Yes, your point about Calibre is correct. It converts to any one of 16 formats, including PDF.
I winced at your second comment. The Hewson book is an original effort and highly useful to fiction writers. So few support our community; we should not be tearing down each other.
Doesn’t take long to get ripped off does it? And to be told I’m ‘making money off the back of Scrivener too.’ Do you work for a living Lord Lightning? If you spent a few weeks working on something of value to others wouldn’t you expect a small reward for it – and it is small compared to the general fiction I could have been writing instead? Or is your day job performed for free? I’m also impressed by the way you know it’s a ‘collection of old posts’ without even reading it (it isn’t actually, it’s all new material written from scratch though obviously some of it covers issues I’ve written about – for free – on my blog).
This is a copyright book. No one has the right to convert it into anything else. If you want to read it please either buy it or if you live in the US borrow it from a friend through the Kindle lending system for which it is enabled. If you don’t want to do either then kindly accept you can’t read it.
Once this book is converted to pdf it will be on the torrents in minutes I promise. I had been planning to write a follow-up longer title about the mechanics of fiction (and yes, LL, I would have the temerity to ask people to pay for that too). If I’m going to be ripped off so quickly – and through a community of writers at that – I don’t think I’ll bother. I could be writing fiction instead, which will get ripped off too but does make rather more money after the book theft.
In order for LL to steal my book in the way he outlines above someone will, of course, have to provide him with the file. Can I please ask people NOT to do this, not if you want to be working writers yourselves one day.
Thanks goodness there are honest people out there though – and newcomers to Scrivener who are coming to it, I hope to think, because my own readers are interested too.
My understanding is that Calibre converts formats, but will not crack DRM. So the book would need to be DRM-free before you could give it to Calibre. Or the original author would need to do the conversion, perhaps as a low overhead way of publishing on multiple platforms.
Personally, I truly wish that it were possible to import all of my e-books from whatever source into a single reader. But for that to happen, authors (and publishers) need to be sure enough of their income streams to use less-aggressive rights management tools. So if you want cross-platform e-books, buy the book anyway, and then tell the publisher how you feel.
Katherine
I would like it to be in other formats too but as I’ve already said it’s impossible, mainly because I’m not based in the US.
davidhewson.com/blog/2011/5/ … books.html
Kindle can be cracked by those sufficiently devious and I’m sure this will be at some stage. No one who’s bought the book or written about it on Amazon has complained about DRM, perhaps because the Kindle system is so broad it lets you read your book on a PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android or Blackberry, simultaneously if you want. Hardly a restriction for most readers.