Downloads Section

[Darkniciad]

You might have noticed a couple of things added to the forum here.  If not, there's a new Downloads tab up there.

 

What's in that section right now are Kindle .prc files of "Casting off Convention" and "Blackhawk Hall" as well as RTF ( Real Text Format ) versions of both stories.

 

Provided I've done everything correctly ( *laugh* ) you can download the Kindle versions to your Kindle and carry them with you wherever you go to read at your leisure.  Blackhawk Hall includes all 6 chapters in a single file.  Casting has all three of the chapters from SOL ( It was a single submission at Lit )

 

SOL readers already had these options, but I've had many Lit readers request portable and offline versions of my stories.  Plus, the cover images are attached to my kindle versions, where the SOL versions don't have it.

 

The RTF versions are the same full stories, but in a cross-platform document format that should be readable on just about any computer.  It's a way you can download the stories and read them at your leisure.

 

As time moves on, I'll add more of my stories to this section, until they're all up there.  New stories won't appear in the download section for at least a month after release, in order to give them time to perform and draw feedback on the websites where I post.

 

For the time being, it's set for a maximum of two downloads at once, and five downloads per day.  I'll adjust that as necessary for bandwidth/convenience.

 

Odds are that the really long stories ( Danica, especially ) will be in multiple volumes.  When each part of Danica is around 20k words, that would be one blood HUGE file.  The whole story will still be downloadable, but it just won't be a single file.

 

Eventually, this new section will also provide another means to audition or donate for my LST3Ks.  RejectReality stories will also be added to the download section.

 

I'll announce this on my blog and elsewhere soon.  I just want to give the newly released "Devan: Deflowered" plenty of front page time before moving it off with this information.

 

If you'd like to see other document formats added ( PDF for example ) let me know.  If there's some other e-reader format you'd like to see, I'll probably need some pointers on locating the necessary converters.

 

Feel free to ask questions or discuss things here.

[Darkniciad]

Just added "King Thakkorias" to the downloads section.

 

Please let me know ( especially if you have an actual Kindle device ) whether you prefer whitespace between paragraphs ( Casting, Blackhawk ) or no whitespace ( Thakkor )

[Darkniciad]

Do keep in mind that I'm willing to make plain text covers for Kindle versions of my stories, if requested.  Also willing to convert and upload other formats.  Odds are that anything outside the standard offerings will be by-request only, but once I create something, it will be put up for everyone to download if they choose.

 

Feel free to offer feedback and point out any goofs in the text as well.  I'm not completely reading back through these before converting them and doing only the most minor editing on a few of them.  I could be missing a few things that happen during the conversion process as well.

 

Do you prefer the whitespace between paragraphs on Kindle versions, or would you rather see it removed?

 

Sing out about anything, and I'll see what I can do about fulfilling requests.

[Darkniciad]

In case anyone's wondering about the obvious omission so far, the reason that none of the "Magic of the Wood" stories have posted is because I'm planning to re-edit "Steward of the Wood" and probably "Daughter of the Wood" before converting any of them.

 

They've always been weaker in both writing skills and storytelling than all the rest, and I can help that at least a little by editing them again.  Once edited and posted in the new form on the story sites, I'll get them converted and begin posting them for download as ebooks.

[Darkniciad]

Getting closer to having everything available as an Ebook.  I won a tablet in the Christmas giveaway at work, so I'll probably be looking at them from within a portable Kindle environment soon.

 

One major advantage of posting Ebooks for readers is that stories which are exclusive to one site or another will be available here without having to "patronize" a competing site.  At least, as long as someone doesn't consider me a competing site LOL  "Sister's Shadow" was only available on SOL.  "All In My Head" was the only RR story not available on Lushstories.  There are lots of Laresa stories that are only available on Lit.  A new RR story "Wash Away the Blues" will most likely remain a Lushstories exclusive, but will be available here.

 

I'll also be publishing my shorts as Ebooks as well.  Some will get individual releases ( Breakin' in the Boy ) while others will be series releases ( Young Devan Trilogy ) and others will probably be true collections ( RR Shorts )

 

Eventually, you'll be able to download pretty much everything except my ancient work ( linked through the "About Me" section of the site ) and the lost work ( Linked from the "My Work Extras" page )

 

Once I've caught up and all finished stories have been converted, I'm planning on about a two week delay before new stories are converted to Ebooks and put up for download.  That's to give the stories plenty of time on the story sites.  It's the traffic there that generates new readership, so I'd prefer if there weren't a lot of people simply waiting for the Ebook.

 

You can if you want, but I'd just rather you read, vote, and comment on the story sites.  It's good for me in the long run

 

The Downloads section may eventually expand to have a few things other than Ebooks as well.  No hints as to what that may be, but it's a possibility.

[Darkniciad]

Finally looked at the Ebooks on my tablet.  So far as I'm concerned, I like them better without the whitespace than with.  On the PC app, I was pretty much ambivalent.  Going to look into converting my docs to remove it for future releases.  Eventually, I'll probably go back and update all the ones that have already been uploaded as well.

 

Probably going to think about creating larger cover images especially for the Ebooks as well.  I've usually got larger versions of them saved nowadays, although I'm going to have to experiment and see how horrible the colored pencil sketches look when used at that size LOL  Part of what makes them look better is shrinking them down.

 

A lot of the older stories that use the free-for-non-commercial-use images from Artmam are just going to have to stay as they are.  There aren't larger versions to work with there.

 

The images in the illustrated Ebook of "Even, Steven" are beyond too tiny for ebook format.  Something else I'll have to think about in the future.  Not sure if I have or can retrieve larger versions of those old sketches, but I think the ones for the work in progress story should have the larger ones available.

[Darkniciad]

Heh... found an easy way to cheat to remove the whitespace - at least for everything that I've posted to SOL.

 

If I copy-paste the story from SOL, it automatically eliminates it for me.  Convert to HTML - Done.

 

The next two that go up ( "Ride No More" and "The Offering" ) will be absent the whitespace, and I'll likely continue that way from this point forward.

 

I'll check out the two new ones on my tablet once I get them uploaded for a final evaluation.

 

EDIT:  Well, crap.  Or so I thought.

 

I'll have to double-check Ride No More, which I've already converted.  When I copied The Offering, it sort of worked, but not quite.

 

First off, it completely lost my scene breaks.  Second, there were a few places where whitespace was left in for whatever reason.

 

So much for the easy cheat.  On to seeing how to do it the hard way - if possible.

[Darkniciad]

Well, ratshit

 

My attempts to fudge away the existing whitespace between paragraphs via formatting options in Word and Wordperfect have come to naught.  I suppose there's probably a way I can do it with a macro, but I've never messed with macros in either of those programs before.

 

I tried doing it the hard-hard way and deleting every carriage return manually, but that proved problematic at the page transitions, and took bloody forever.

 

It's beginning to look like my best option is to copy-paste from SOL, put back in scene breaks where necessary, and eliminate the odd orphan whitespace.  For those stories not available on SOL, I'll have to do it all manually, which is going to be a huge pain in the ass.

 

Doubt I'm going to change my writing habits for that purpose, though.  All the sites where I post require that whitespace between paragraphs generated by the double carriage return.  I don't think there's any way to fudge it in reverse short of a macro either.

 

Besides that, it's going to look fucked up and alien to me, which will distract me from writing.

 

It will slow down Ebook conversion, but what can I do?  I suppose that once I get caught up, it won't be as big of a deal.  I'll only be making a few conversions here and there after new stories publish.

 

It's going to make the thought of going back and converting all the ones that are already up pretty discouraging as well *laugh*

 

I'm going to take a break from it now.  I'll make the final few fixes to The Offering in a while and get those two up.

[Darkniciad]

The last four Ebooks to go up are all no-whitespace versions.  ( The Offering, Ride No More, Labor Day, and Jerk )

 

Feel free to let me know what you think.  Still haven't started to create the larger cover images yet, but I'll probably experiment with that soonish.

[Darkniciad]

Figured out a better way to kill the whitespace.  Save it to HTML as I've been doing, then open the document in Wordpad and Find/Replace all the whitespace BRs.  Far quicker and has fewer problems in the long run.  Will make redoing all the ones that posted previously much easier.

 

Did one with a larger cover for the "Hot Shorts Vol. One" which includes the first two shorts from my RR shorts page.  Of course, this one was designed for a larger cover from the get-go, so it's a completely different animal from converting existing covers.  The image of the girl on there is probably about as big as what I have gets, though.  That's the full-size image as scanned, when put on a cover to Amazon's cover size requirements.  I'll experiment with some bigger but not full-size ones and see what happens.

 

That cover quite naturally appears the same size as other books from Amazon on my tablet's Kindle app, which is nice.  The rest of my covers were showing up as little bitty things, which annoys me *laugh*  We'll see how big I have to make them to get full-size thumbnails, and how many/whether it's possible.  Once I figure that out, I'll take it into consideration during the design process.

 

The next release of Danica chapters will also go to no-whitespace, now that I've figured out an easy way to do it.

 

Experimentation with the "Hot Shorts" Ebook also showed me some of what I did wrong with "Even, Steven".  It looks fine on the Kindle PC app, but the pics are horribly small on the tablet app.  I simply hadn't resized the images properly when inserting them into the document in the first place.  I should be able to fix that and get a 2.0 version of the illustrated Ebook up soon.

 

Now for some lists that are as much for my information as anybody else's.  I keep having to look up what I've already converted from all three pen names every time I go to upload new ones, so today, I went through and checked them all.  Here's what remains to convert and upload:

 

Reject Reality:

 

Lucky?, Merry Ex-Mas, Milf Allie, Nailed, Nude Holly Day, Paige From Her Diary, Pick Up the Spare, Pickin' an' Grinnin', Recycled, Sunny Daze, Taste of Sherry, Three Alarm, Wash Away the Blues, Wish of Jeanie.

 

Les Lumens:

 

VR: DQ 1, VR:DQ 2, VR: DQ3, VR: DQ 4, VR: DQ5, Window to a Dream

 

Darkniciad:

 

ARS 9, 14, 19, Danica 16-Epilogue, Grandfather Yule, King Thakkorias, Laresa's World 5, 10, 15, 20, 22, 24, Lowborn, Of the People, The Beast Within, Arts Ardane 1, 2, 3, Innocent Devan Trilogy ( shorts ), Breakin' in the Boy ( shorts )

 

I'm not going to post "Virtual Lapdance" as Les, because I doubt anybody is interested.

 

I'm up in the air about putting the LST3Ks online as Ebooks.  For one thing, I've never gotten around to finishing covers for all of them.  I'm also not really sure about the interest in them outside of Literotica.

 

I'm up in the air about posting the existing chapters of SOTM as well.

 

The only reason I'm going to convert the ARS chapters is because I'm going to provide a link to my ARS page in hopes of getting people interested to go read the rest of the stories in the chain

[Darkniciad]

Made another tweak to how I'm processing the Kindle versions of the Ebooks with 18&19 of Danica.  I stopped removing the whitespace before and after my scene breaks, because I didn't like how it looked without them.

 

I'll get this to a place where I'm completely happy with it eventually, and then even more eventually, I'll go back and change all the ones I've already posted to the final format.

[Darkniciad]

Had to redo that list I had up there of what wasn't done, because some of them were

 

I have so many up now that it was getting hard to track, and some of the titles don't match the titles at Lit, which I was using as a cheat when checking.  Think I've got it all straightened out now.  At the very least, the mobipocket creator warns me when I'm about to redo an ebook I've already finished.

 

I am getting frustrated with what covers will display on my tablet version of the app, though.  My old standard cover size of 350x480 will display, but they're very small and look out of place next to books that have normal covers.

 

My experiment with using the Kindle recommended dimensions for "Hot Shorts Vol. One" worked fine, naturally.  I know there's almost no way I'm going to be able to get my covers that frikkin' huge, though.

 

So, I started going with images that are 600x823.  That's almost double, and within the bounds of what mobipocket considers a properly sized image.  I've been working on all new covers at that size, which is a multiple of my old standard cover size, so I can easily shrink them down and use those on my website.  Should have been problem solved.

 

Nope.

 

Downloaded the Innocent Devan trilogy a few minutes ago, which uses a cover in the new size.  Damn thing displays a Kindle default image instead of the cover.

 

The hell does this frikkin' app want!  Aaaargh!

 

More research obviously necessary to get everything displaying the way I want it to everywhere.

[Darkniciad]

Did some research and found out that it's only the carousel ( the default screen, unfortunately ) of the Kindle app where the covers don't display.  Checked, and sure enough any other selection such as "on device" displays the covers just fine.

 

It appears this is an issue with the Kindle app that has been going on since 2011.  There are all kinds of solutions, most of which aren't reported to work in every case, or to only affect existing books, or new books, or unread books...

 

So on and so forth.

 

The primary thing users are saying is that the books have to have a cover size of at least 500 width, or they won't show.  I know that's bogus, because all of my old 350x480 covers show up just fine in the app ( if annoyingly small next to regular covers )

 

The conclusion I've arrived at is...

 

Fuck it.

 

There's obviously a problem with the carousel in the app that Amazon has no interest in addressing.  I'm going to stick with my currently chosen e-book cover size of 600x823 which doesn't throw warnings when creating the books in mobipocket.  It's what I've already been working with, and what I'm now using as the default when designing covers.  I shrink them down to the old 350x480 dimensions for display on the website, with thumbs of 60x82

[Darkniciad]

Just did some programming to create backend tools and modded the story entries on "My Work" to provide links to the Ebook downloads.

 

It will be straight Dark tales added as Ebooks for a little while.

 

All of my existing Les stories are up, and new ones will go up once they pass the two week embargo period I've decided upon.  After a story has been up on every site where I'm going to post it for two weeks, I'll convert to Ebook and upload.

 

Diamond Valentine and Pink Slip-pery Slope haven't hit the end of their embargo period yet.  I need another Lush exclusive short and another website exclusive short to combine with "Wash Away the Blues"  and "Breasts to Go" for compilation volumes.

 

Already have ideas for both of those, a cover mocked up for one, and a partial mock-up of the other.

 

"Of the People" and "The Beast Within" will go up later today.

 

I'll finally be caught up before long and only releasing new stuff.

 

Then it's time to go back and start updating some of the older Ebooks to the new format...

 

Ugh...

 

*laugh*

[Darkniciad]

Just a reminder that if there's any of my work you'd like to see as an Ebook, feel free to request it.  Hell, if you want digital copies of things like my lost work and ancient stories, I'll do that.  ( though some of that stuff is so crappy it's hilarious )

 

Likewise, I'll create versions with text-only covers if you'd rather not have the explicit covers showing up in your Kindle carousel when someone is looking over your shoulder. 

 

Eventually, I'll go back and convert all those original releases to the "final" format I came up with.  No whitespace between paragraphs, but with whitespace on either side of screen breaks, and the larger covers ( where possible ).  When I get around to that, I'll probably use this thread as a master list of which Ebooks have been updated, so you can download the new version to replace the old, if you choose.

 

"Final" is in quotes there, because if I find something that creates a better presentation on the Kindle, I'll do it.  I'm happy with how they look now, but you never know.

[medic24]

tried to download Blackhawk hall series to my Kindle. Both files available for download didn't work.  Do i have to have both on my kindle at the same time?

[Darkniciad]

That's weird... I'll double check it and re-upload if necessary.

 

EDIT:  Give it another try.  Somehow, I had two files on there, and I don't know how.

 

I just downloaded it to the Kindle app on my tablet, and it's working fine.

[DTavona]

Did a lot of work with Calibre tonight. I prefer the books without the extra white space.

 

When I first put King Thakorias onto the Kindle and I listed books by author, it went right to the top. No author listed. Similarly, the Danica series came up out of order. The Kindle app is great for reading, but crap for any type of book management.

 

This bothered me, so last night and tonight, I went through all the files in my collection (not just the ones I got from you), and I used Calibre to update the metadata.  Some of the PRC files showed author and title in reverse fields. I also replaced all underscores with spaces in titles and file names. My own preference is file names with spaces rather than underscores, but I understand the reasons for doing it as you have. It took a bit, but then I was able to export all the PRC files to a dedicated directory, which I used to copy and paste into the Kindle folder on my PC and also onto my android tablet.

 

For adding books to a tablet, connect it to a computer and access the main memory section (not the extra memory card), and look for a folder "Books."  Drop your PRC copies there. When you relaunch Kindle on the tablet, it will find them. I tried using the separate sub-directories like Amazon does for its own books on the tablet, but that didn't work; it didn't find them, even after trying to re-sync.

 

I also prefer to export the books by author name, followed by title. It helps them to group when I sort in a directory by TYPE, so I can see if I am missing a file. I did not have any luck using Calibre's Export to Device; it copied EPUB documents onto the tablet that Kindle ignored. So the export files method, copying to a single directory on the PC worked best; it copies JPG files, PRC files, OPF files, and EPUB files, and I'm interested in the exported PRC files.

 

Once I have the files exported, I sort by TYPE, and copy the PRC files to the Kindle directory for the PC app, and on the tablet, to the "Books" directory. It took a bit of experimenting, but this seems to work.

 

FWIW, for Publisher, I listed it either as Darkniciad Press; Lumens Books, Darkniciad Press; or as RR Books, Darkniciad Press.

 

If you are interested in getting a copy of those PRC files, let me know and I'll be happy to send them to you. I don't check my email very often (nearly all of what I get is solicitations for money, which is pretty scarce these days), but I try to do it once a week or so.

 

I have received a lot of enjoyment from your writing. You put a lot of work into your tales, and it shows. Thank you!

[Darkniciad]

Thanks

 

I really need to go through everything on my tablets again.  I've been cheating and only checking everything after conversion in the windows app.

 

I'm in a serious motivation and creativity slump, though — worse than usual.  I really need to update all my code to the new version of the forum software, but even thinking about that makes me want to walk into traffic instead.

 

Trying to find the jumpstart I need, but all the things that used to work aren't.  Trying to just step away for a while and see if that helps.