Episode 296: Eight Ebook Formatting Errors Readers Hate And How To Fix Them cover art

Episode 296: Eight Ebook Formatting Errors Readers Hate And How To Fix Them

Episode 296: Eight Ebook Formatting Errors Readers Hate And How To Fix Them

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 In this week's episode, we take a look at eight common ebook formatting errors and how to correct them. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook of Ghost Exile: Omnibus One at my Payhip store: EXILE25 The coupon code is valid through April 6, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this winter, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 296 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is March 27th, 2026 and today we are looking at eight ebook formatting problems that readers hate and how to fix them. Before we get into our main topic, we'll have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. So let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook of Ghost Exile: Omnibus One at my Payhip store. That coupon code is EXILE25. And as always, you can get the coupon code and the links to my Payhip store in the show notes. This coupon code will be valid through April 6th, 2026. So if you need a new ebook as we leave winter and head into spring, we have got you covered. Now for an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. As of this recording, I am currently 97,000 words into Blade of Wraiths, and I'm hoping to get to the 100,000 word mark by the end of today. You will note that if you read the first three books in the series, this will make it longer than the first three by good bit, which is part of the reason why it's taking so long. I was hoping to have it published by now, to be honest, but between the length and the variety of things I've had to do in real life before I can get to writing have slowed me down a bit. I have made progress and I am hoping to finish the rough draft before the 31st, if all goes well. Then it will be time to write a tie-in short story that newsletter subscribers will get for free when Blade of Wraiths is published, and then on to editing. So I'm hoping to have the book out in the second half of April, if all goes well and the creek doesn't rise, so to speak. I'm also 12,000 words into Dragon Mage, which will be the sixth book in the Rivah Half-Elven Thief series. I'm hoping that will be out in May because that will become the main project once Blade of Wraiths is finished. In audiobook news, as I mentioned before, recording of Blade of Storms (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) is complete. I think as of right now, you can get it at my Payhip store, Google Play, and Kobo. Audible, Amazon, Apple, and a few of the other major stores should hopefully be coming along before too much longer. Recording is done on Wizard Assassin, which you may recall is the fifth book in the Rivah series, and that is narrated by Leanne Woodward. We just have to proof that, and then it'll be time to submit it for processing at the stores. So hopefully you'll be able to get your hands on that before too much longer. I believe next week, Hollis McCarthy will start recording on Cloak of Illusion, the 12th book in the Cloak Mage series. Since a few people have asked about this, I thought I'd mentioned here there will be a Cloak Mage: Omnibus Four in audio that will combine Cloak of Embers, Cloak of Titans, and Cloak of Illusion. I will probably start working on that one month after Cloak of Illusion comes out in audio. So that will probably be along sometime this summer, if all goes well. So that's where I'm at on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. We've got good things coming up for you soon. 00:03:18 Main Topic: ebook Formatting That Readers Hate Now let's move on to our main topic this week, and it's something I have quite a bit of experience with, I have to say, is ebook formatting that readers hate. Today, we're going to talk about issues with ebook formatting, a topic that people have very strong opinions about. I am going to talk about eight issues in particular and then discuss how we can fix or prevent or best of all, avoid them. First of all, what do we mean by ebook formatting? Formatting is the term to describe the layout, text, and images of the book. Back in the print book days, this was a complicated but fairly fixed thing. In the very old days, you would have to lay it out the books manually. A few decades ago, they had programs like QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign where you could use these software applications to prepare finished files for sending to the printer to be printed as books. But nowadays, in an age where books are electronic files read on dozens of possible devices and apps, it's much more difficult to predict every possible thing that can go wrong with formatting. For example, with a print book in the old days, you would set the layout, and that is the way the layout would look. Every single book (ideally) printed would look the same. But in the modern age, if you have an ebook, it could be read on a Kindle, a Kindle Color, the Kindle app on the phone,...
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