{"id":2112,"date":"2010-04-06T17:04:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T22:04:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-03-27T21:20:47","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T02:20:47","slug":"getting-into-apple-bookstore-with-epub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/2010\/04\/06\/getting-into-apple-bookstore-with-epub\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting into the Apple Bookstore with ePub 1.0.5"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

The first thing that caught my notice when the iPad was first announced was that they would have a bookstore.  The second thing that was clear, after lots of research, was that there was no easy way for a tiny publisher like me to talk to the Apple people.  I monitored the publishing news and sure enough, there’s a new word out there\u2013”Aggregators”. <\/p>\n

Apple has contracts with Lulu, Ingram, LibreDigital, and perhaps others to serve as aggregators of small publishers and self publishers.  I’ve been looking at the details and the first thing that stands out is the tougher standards required for the ePub files.  You see there are ePub books that work, but there are also ePub books that pass the 1.0.5 standard validators.  Only the latter need apply.<\/p>\n

So…I found the validator at http:\/\/code.google.com\/p\/epubcheck\/<\/a> where it’s a free download.  The program is java, so it’s fairly portable.  It’s easy to run in a terminal session:<\/p>\n

\nhjmmbp:epubcheck-1.0.5 hmelton$ java -jar epubcheck-1.0.5.jar \/Users\/hmelton\/Desktop\/GoldenGirl.epub <\/span>
\nEpubcheck Version 1.0.5<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>
\nERROR: \/Users\/hmelton\/Desktop\/GoldenGirl.epub\/OEBPS\/text\/content004.xhtml(15): attribute “name” not allowed at this point; ignored<\/span>
\nERROR: \/Users\/hmelton\/Desktop\/GoldenGirl.epub\/OEBPS\/text\/content004.xhtml(17): attribute “name” not allowed at this point; ignored<\/span>
\nERROR: \/Users\/hmelton\/Desktop\/GoldenGirl.epub\/OEBPS\/text\/content005.xhtml(13): attribute “name” not allowed at this point; ignored<\/span>
\nERROR: \/Users\/hmelton\/Desktop\/GoldenGirl.epub\/OEBPS\/text\/content006.xhtml(13): attribute “name” not allow<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>
\nI was horrified to see that my lovely ePub files weren’t validated.  Actually, there was one that passed.  But the others needed minor work.  Tedious minor work.  I had created my books using various work-flows.  I had used Dreamweaver to do the HTML markup.  I had exported ePub from InDesign CS4.  I had converted some from mobi format using Calibre.  And most of them had been through Sigil for various touch-up fixes\u2013and been subjected to Sigil’s built-in <\/span>tidy<\/span> which modifies the code.  The end result was code that worked, but code that didn’t pass the validator.<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>
\nNow, I didn’t actually need to download and run my own copy of epubcheck since the nice people at Three Press Consulting run a web version<\/a> of the same software where you can upload you files and test them.  I wanted my own version so I could run it faster and with less net traffic and command line software doesn’t bother me, but your tastes may vary.<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>
\nOnce I discovered the errors, there comes the difficulty of fixing them.  Sigil failed me.  I would open the ePub file, correct the offending code, save the file and retest\u2013and discover that the error was still there.  Either I was making some kind of cockpit error, or Sigil was ‘fixing’ by code by putting back the elements I was removing.  <\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>
\nI decided to go back to my roots.  You can ‘explode’ an ePub file with the command:<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>
\nunzip -d work FallingBakward.epub<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>
\nThen in work\/OEBPS\/text there are numerous files that contain the xhtml code of the book.  I dropped into vi and went to work.  Any text editor would probably work, but I was feeling very command line oriented, so vi with all it’s handy shortcuts was my choice for the day.  Using the error codes from epubcheck points you right to the problem:  <\/span>
\nERROR: \/Users\/hmelton\/Desktop\/GoldenGirl.epub\/OEBPS\/text\/content004.xhtml(15): attribute “name” not allowed at this point; ignored<\/span><\/span>
\nThis says that in the file content004.xhtml, on line 15, there is an extraneous name attribute.  A few keystrokes, and it’s gone.<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>
\nRepeat for every error line.<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>
\nNow comes the process of putting the ePub file back together.  Google took me to a nice comment on the process at http:\/\/instantindesign.com\/index.php?view=412<\/a> where the magic sequence is:<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>
\ncd work<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\nzip file.epub -X0D mimetype<\/span>
\nzip file.epub -X9rD OEBPS<\/span>
\nzip file.epub -X9rD META-INF\/<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
Now you have file.epub which you can run through the epubcheck validator again and see if any additional errors have popped up.  Repeat until it’s clean.  <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
If you have any plans for putting your ePub files into Apple’s bookstore, you’d better get your files validated and ready.  Good luck.<\/div>\n

<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first thing that caught my notice when the iPad was first announced was that they would have a bookstore.  The second thing that was clear, after lots of research, was that there was no easy way for a tiny publisher like me to talk to the Apple people.  I monitored the publishing news and… Continue reading Getting into the Apple Bookstore with ePub 1.0.5<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[160,120,24],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/overview_ibooks_20100403.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4t90x-y4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2114,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2112\/revisions\/2114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}