amalthia: Stephanie Brown Batgirl (Stephanie Brown Batgirl)
I've seen more requests on how to use Calibre plugins to download fic from archives into Calibre and how to merge series into a single file. This tutorial will first cover how to install plugins. As well as how to use the plugin Fanfiction Downloader to download fic from archives into Calibre and then the use of the plugin Epubmerge to merge series into a single file.

Install plugins )
How to setup Fanfiction Downloader )
How to use Fanfiction Downloader )
Plug-in Epubmerge )
amalthia: (Full Metal Alchemist)
Today was the last day of my summer school and I now have a two week break before the fall semester starts. It may take a few days for it to sink in that I have free time again and after taking 3 grad school level classes in two months I suspect next semester of only taking one class may seem easier. (hope I didn't jinx myself)

In other news, I'm officially obsessed with My Little Ponies:Friendship is Magic (still need to find icons!). I started watching to see what the fuss was about and it ended up being my comfort tv show when I needed something happy and bright to look forward to. I LOVED all the characters and the show was really funny and sweet. I plan on buying my niece the DVD set because I figured it's good...and my sister-in-law may enjoy the show as well. it's a tough balance making a kid show that's also entertaining for adults.

My new current fandom is DCU (in the sense that I download artwork like crazy, read every story I can get my hands on, and am outlining stories I'll probably never write) and to be more exact Young Justice. The Young Justice cartoon is good but there are only 10 episodes and I have no clue when they are going to air the rest of season 1. I also surprisingly enough really want to read more about Wally West and the Flash Rogues. I don't really have a OTP in Young Justice/DCU verse and I've been reading more Gen than I originally anticipated. It's kind of nice to be in a fandom with a large cast of likeable characters and the pairings aren't skewed to just one pairing. I sort of wish they could make a live action version of Young Justice or Teen Titans. I'm also reading the Red Robin and Green Lantern comics, and I suspect Batgirl, Blue Beetle, and Secret Six are next on my list of comics to check out. There is a lot of canon in DCU. The weirdest part is that cartoon canon does not match comic canon and when I read fic I have to remember that YJ cartoon isn't like YJ comics, it threw me off when I first saw the cartoon because I expected to see Tim Drake and Bart Allen, not Dick Grayson and Wally West. Basically, DCU is a really big playground.

I had high hopes in Smallville when the Justice League characters were introduced that we'd actually see more Justice League missions. The biggest disappointments were we never met Wonder Woman or Batman in Smallville universe.

I still read a few SPN, Merlin, and SGA stories...but the recs may become few and far between so if you're following me for those recs in those fandoms I'm a-okay with anyone defriending/unsubscribing.

I haven't been so great with posting recs lately or keeping the ebook library up-to-date these last two months, but school had to come first. I also think with the A03 now offering epub/mobi downloads the Ebook Library isn't as needed as it was initially.

I'm sort of in-between stories so I think this is a great weekend to pick up on adding stories to the archive. I've still been creating ebook versions of fic and now I have this huge backlog.
amalthia: (Beauty)
The following info may be of interest to those writers and artists who are posting - or want to post – their Supernatural Big Bang fic and art to A03. Posting fan fic and artwork to A03 is not a requirement for the Supernatural and J2 Big Bang Challenges and neither Amalthia or I are part of the Supernatural and J2 Big Bang nor the A03. We’re just two very very eager and helpful readers with an organizing gene.

Tagging Your Fic On A03
We have set up a tag collection on A03 to help authors who are posting their Big Bang fiction to A03. Only authors can add their stories to the collection. Instructions and more info are here. Note: Big Bang stories are tagged by year. We’ve set up collections for all 5 years (2007-2011) and you can add your story to the collection even if it has already been uploaded to A03.

Readers looking for SPN J2 Big Bang stories on A03 – go to here to read stories that are part of the Collection.

We are not very knowledgeable about A03 so if anyone has problems with uploading or tagging, your best bet is to contact A03 support or check their FAQ.  Ditto on questions about how Collections or the A03 works, its features or how to get an invite.

Artwork on A03
We also want highlight two issues that may benefit SPN J2 Big Bang artists. First, authors can include Big Bang art in their stories on AO3– they have to host the images elsewhere (like LJ, PhotoBucket or Flickr). Here is an example of a SPN J2 Big Bang story that includes artwork. (scroll down to see the art).

Secondly, artists can also upload their artwork separately (again hosted elsewhere) and tag it as part of the SPN J2 Big Bang collection. Here is an example of artwork from the SGA Big Bang. When posting to AO3 artists add “Artwork” to the title of their work to help it stand out. The artists are then including their artwork in the Big Bang Collections as stand-alone works. If we get enough stand-alone artwork, we may be able to set up a separate SubCollection for them among the AO3 SPN Big Bangs.

Regards,
Morgan Dawn and Amalthia

PS. Accessibility Tips For Writers Not Using AO3
If you’re interested in improving accessibility for your fiction to help fans with disabilities (and even fans without) here are few tips:
*Design tips for your website/blog (basic stuff about color and fonts). These tips are actually helpful for everyone, but if you post your fic to A03, some of the design issues have been addressed.
*For fans who need to read offline, consider offering both a PDF and an ePub (include an ePub because not all readers can handle letter sized PDFs). If your fic is posted to AO3, PDFs, ePubs and Mobi files are automatically offered.
*If you don’t have time/knowledge to create a PDF and an ePub file, there are fans who will help (you can include a request for help in your Master post on your LJ). Even better if you offer your fic on a single webpage or a Word doc, fans can make their own PDFs/ePubs by using halcyon shift’s Squeebook – simply load the webpage URL or the .doc file and it is converted automatically.


EDITED to ADD: You can add your story to the collection when you first post it or add it afterwards (no need to reupload).
amalthia: (Stargate Atlantis Sheppard 2)
One of my on-going projects is to convert all the RTF files hosted at the Ebook Library into Epub and Mobipocket format.

RTF did not as I had originally hoped become the default format for e-ink devices and other portable readers. However, before I'd realized this sad fact I had already added hundreds of stories to the Ebook Library that are only really compatible for a limited range of devices that do support RTF. (Sony, Pocketbook Pro, Cybook, and a few other smaller brands)

I've been jumping around the site randomly picking authors and fandoms to convert and it's slow going because I'm also trying to add new stories at the same time. But it's going...

If anyone has any requests for an epub or mobipocket version of a story that is currently only in RTF, please let me know. I'll add that fic to the top of the list. This would be a first come first serve conversion queue.
amalthia: (Legend of the Seeker Sunset)
and thank goodness! I was ready for this semester to be over a week ago if not sooner. But I still have 3 more assignments plus my leadership project to complete, and my boss had jury duty this week so my ability to get some school work done at work went to crap.

Now onto the bright side of things, my big bang is almost at 20k mark.



I didn't think that would happen, not with everything else going on.

After this semester my goals of things to do are:

- revise my big bang
- install Ruby and learn how to code!
- continue formatting stories
- start merging stories again
- test out embedding fonts into epub files.
- add stories to the Ebook Library.
- post recs more frequently
- read again! (and new stuff at that) with all my assignments I tried to stick to re-reading fic instead of reading newer stories because my self control is rather non-existent once I get into a story.

I think I'll stop there, these are the activities I truly enjoy and I don't want to put too much on my plate. (Okay I just realized my brain is scary if this is what I consider fun! except for the fic reading and stuff of course)

I also just realized that the Ebook Library is past 1000 stories which kind of amazes me when I think about it. :)

I've also concluded that at some point I'll phase out LRF as a format the site supports. The Ebook Library Poll results speak for themselves. Including myself, only 4 people actively use the format and technically they can also use Epub. Since I'm one of the 4 people using the format it's going to be hard to let go. My original plan was to wait for Sony to release a firmware upgrade that would fix the issues I currently have with how epub displays on the Sony PRS-505/600. However, I've been waiting over a year already and I'm not sure it's going to happen.

That's it for tonight, I think we'll catch up on Glee and watch SPN soon. It's probably good to take a break from the computer.

I've also been avoiding reading many SPN fics because I found it made writing my own SPN story more difficult so does anyone have any non-spn recs? I'm a fannish butterly so I'm easy when it comes to other fandoms and pairings.
amalthia: (Default)
This is a poll for anyone that's used or has an interest in using the Ebook Library Archive. I'm trying to get an idea of what I can do to improve the site and know which formats to focus on more.

Poll #2703 Ebook Library User Poll
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 68


What type of device do you read fan fiction on?

View Answers

Cybook
0 (0.0%)

Nook
1 (1.5%)

Amazon Kindle
14 (20.9%)

Ipad
3 (4.5%)

Sony PRS
18 (26.9%)

Ipod/touch
18 (26.9%)

Other will explain in comments
23 (34.3%)

What is your preferred reading format?

View Answers

RTF
21 (32.3%)

PDF
15 (23.1%)

LRF
4 (6.2%)

Mobi/PRC
14 (21.5%)

Epub
34 (52.3%)

Other I'll explain in the comments
11 (16.9%)

What fandoms do you read in the most?

amalthia: (Angel Illyria)
For those who are curious as to why I'm not adding new fics to the Ebook Library. It's because I'm currently going back and converting stories already hosted on the archive to epub/lrf/and mobi.

For anyone that would like either of these formats I'm posting the updates at the News page.

I still plan on adding new fics to the archive it's just not going to be as fast or as many as in the past.

If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask. :)

P.S. School also started and I'm taking two classes so that'll certainly eat into fandom time. :(
amalthia: (Angel)
This weekend I added another 12 stories mostly Supernatural Big Bang fics and I think two Star Trek stories.

I've also spent a lot of time creating a new skin for the site. It's titled ebookarchive2. I know not very original...I've tested it on Firefox and on 15 inch monitor as well as a 22 inch monitor it looks good there.

For some reason, it's not working so well on IE7 and older versions, but someone did let me know from IE8 and up it displays properly. Unless someone knows css better than me...it looks like it may be like that for awhile because I can't figure out why it's mis-aligning on IE7.

The new skin is open to constructive criticism and suggestions. It's been a year since I've worked on another layout but I liked the idea of having the featured stories and random story easily seen. Before people would have to scroll down a lot to see them. However, for the recent story list..some scrolling is involved too.
amalthia: (Default)
Saturday I was pretty much gone the entire day. Did the monthly meetup with the Houston Browncoats at this really good chinese resturant and ate lunch, then went to a birthday party for a slash writer (pros fandom mostly I think) along with other fannish friends and we went to a Magic Show resturant. The food was awesome, I loved the company, and the magic show was neat. Afterwards, we headed back to the b-day woman's house and had cake and talked for a few more hours and finally at midnight I had to leave because I was getting kind of tired. it's just way too much fun hanging out with fan fiction people.

Then on Sunday, woke up messed around with trying to find the best way to convert RTF's to PDF (tried Times New Roman size 12 font it was too small, then tried size 14 and that was too big. Tried Arial and it just never looked right. Ended up settling for size 13 times new roman because in the wise words of my elder brother, sometimes you just have to leave things at "good enough") I was floored by this concept and it's amazing how many revolutionary ideas I get standing at the deli waiting for someone to slice ham for me. I've been trying so hard to make things "PERFECT" and I spent HOURS and felt like I got nothing done.

So decided to settle for good enough for now. I did mange to fix the margins which I was very happy about. So I think over the next week I'll check out the other PDF/LRF files hosted at the Ebook Archive. And with the PDF's I created I'll go back through and re-master them. As for the LRFs, while waiting in the IMAX theater to see the Dark Knight (which by the way was PACKED and we got there 40 minutes early!) I had my ebook reader and decided to see how the LRF fan fiction files looked. The font was VERY TINY so I'm going to over this upcoming week gather all the LRF files and use a slightly larger font with converting. (thankfully, I think this number is less than 4)

What really weirds me out about converting documents is that I'm converting novels to LRF using the exact same settings as I used for the fan fiction stories and those novels turn out readable. So not sure what is up with that. I'm predicting that because most of the novels are starting out with LIT and HTML containers that it makes a bit of a difference from my fan fiction RTF master copies. (at this point I think I should add a disclaimer to the archive letting people know that the RTFs are the REALLY GOOD copies and the other file types are less predictable) Though I am now trying to change that. But I really want good PDF versions for me if no one else. Because I like having graphics embedded in my stories and RTF is still buggy on my PRS-505.

So anyways, back to the Dark Knight. It was my second time watching and omg it was still riveting. If this movie isn't nominated for Best Picture I'll be VERY DISSAPOINTED. As far as I'm concerned this is the best movie I've seen this year in every way that counts. Iron Man comes close second but it's just not the same...and i'm not a movie critic so I can't say why I feel that Dark Knight deserves Best Picture Nomination (and win) and not Iron Man.

After the movie, my brother and I stopped by Best Buy to pick up more memory for his computer, then went shopping for food, and came home. (memory was a bust, will have to return to store tomorrow) and we just had a make it yourself dinner night. I think I ate too many twizzlers and my stomach felt unsettled...which sucked because my left over spagetti was AWESOME.

Then we spent the rest of the night watching Full Metal Alchemist which is still my favorite anime series I've seen in years. I love the Elric brothers and the first time I watched I cried my eyes out so many times! this time i'm prepared for the angst but it's still heartwrenching. So anyways, I dug up my old favorite FMA icon. :) I'm glad I'm allowed 1200 icons at JF now. I keep finding more icons to add. :)
amalthia: (Default)
The SGA Big Bang Challenge website is up and running.

And I know I shouldn't make any complaints but I think I got used to the way the [livejournal.com profile] spn_j2_bigbang intergrated the artwork into the story. Right now it looks like you have to download the artwork seperately. Maybe I'm wrong I haven't had the chance to go through the stories and strip all the code from the story yet. Maybe the stories I checked were so large when I scrolled through I overlooked the images?

I can't wait to read the stories, almost all of the summaries caught my attention.

Just wish they didn't use the three column website layout on every single story. I'm such a formatting snob it's just not even funny anymore. I think my patience for website designs is at -1000% Especially, now that I'm converting so many stories over to RTF to add to my Sony PRS-505.

Also, in other random news. I've been monitoring the Ebook Archive site stats and it seems like this week no one has been visiting. :( I'm thinking maybe everyone that owns a book reader is on vacation or the intial interest has tappered off so only people who actually use the site are coming. It also could be I haven't been able to add a lot of new stories this last week and a half because I was on vacation myself and I never seem to add stories on weekends.

I'm not going ot read too much into this. E-ink ebook readers are still relatively new and rather expensive so it may take awhile before more fan fiction readers glomp onto the technology.

edited: I figured out not long after I posted this that apparently there are different skins for the site, but on IE7 they don't really show up. Not sure why that is.
amalthia: (Default)
Supernatural

Now We Are Come to Our Kingdom by cormallen (Sam/Dean Dean/OMC Sam/Ruby) INSTANT REC!!!!! I don't even know where to start on how good this story is I couldn't stop thinking about it after I finished reading last night. I LOVED the plot, character voices, and I really loved Sam's desperation and the lengths he was willing to go.



And in other news, I upgraded the Angst Archive from efiction 2 to efiction 3!!!! It actually went rather easy this time, no site implosions which is wonderful. It left me more time to adjust the skin (I'm totally borrowing from what I made for the Ebook Fan Fiction Archive I'm hoping to add a few more skins...but honestly I really want to write porn! I have this spanking story idea that's only 4 paragraphs long and it's inching along, literally! And there's this Narnia story I want to write that's completely hot to me and just no time. I feel like that's the story of my life lately, I never have enough time, and then when I do I can't get motivated to start and instead watch the Nanny Diaries because I was on the computer all day at work and my mouse arm was hurting.)

this is your chance to back away and run very very fast to another person's possibly happier journal post... )
amalthia: (Default)
Supernatural

I Built This Thing For You by toxica939 (Dean/OFC Sam/Dean) I liked the character voices and the sex was hot. This was also a bit sad in a way.



now there'll never be an intermission by fleshflutter (Sam/Ben) This story was short but gave me shivers. Wonderful imagery.




Okay I'm a lot behind in the stories I wanted to read but I was pretty busy getting the Ebook Fan Fiction Archive up and going this last week. I also went and saw Iron Man on Friday night and had a wonderful time. In fact, it's been ages when a movie I was looking forward to seeing didn't dissapoint me.
amalthia: (Default)
For the last five to six months I've been working on creating an archive for fan fiction that's already formatted for ebook readers, such as the Sony PRS-500/505. This is just one example. At the moment there are 4 or 5 other ebook readers on the market not counting people reading on PDAs and cell phones.

Truthfully, I didn't actually spend all that time on the design of the site, mostly it took so long because I kept going back and forth debating how would be the best way to share all the fan fiction I've already formatted for my reader and yet at the same time encourage authors to start sharing their work in a slightly different format. At this point in time there are no archives or websites to download fan fiction in the formats ebook readers would accept. Mostly because of the size of the ebook screens the font has to be somewhere near size 18-20, metatag information has to be entered, and ebook readers don't read html so the stories have to be saved in RTF/LRF/TXT or some other format which varies depending on the book reader.

I finally came to the conclusion that I was wasting time worrying that authors would reject this idea out of hand and went ahead with setting up an ebook archive. This morning I finally took the password protection off the site.

This archive will host Gen/Het/Slash fan fiction. It's not limited to just one fandom. Right now the only stories hosted are from Supernatural because Supernatural is my current fandom but I hope to expand upon that.

Here is the link to the archive: Ebook Fan Fiction Archive

I am currently looking for co-admins to help run the archive. Mostly, I need help contacting authors to request permission, uploading stories from authors who do grant permission, and converting stories into ebook ready formats. Anyone that is interested helping can email me at amalthia at gmail.com

I'm willing to accept help from anyone that's willing, even if you don't own an ebook reader.
amalthia: (Default)
Well I got the database restored, the one I backed up last week. Which means some stuff was lost, like 2 chapters I uploaded for one author which I'll re-add as soon as everything starts working properly again.

At the moment people can access stories but not categories. I can't update the welcome message and well there may be a few more bugs that I don't know about.

I've already wrote in a request for help at the efiction forums and I'm really hoping someone there understands what the error messages mean so I they can tell me what I need to do to repair the problem.

At this point I'm just happy the database backup worked. I can still access the story. Worst case senario I do a fresh install of the newest efiction archive software and manually transfer everything over to the newer version of the archive. (best case the problems i'm seeing are easy to fix for those that know how)

Also on another note, I got a stomach bug. So not a good day.

edit: it looks like I solved most of the error messages I was getting. so the archive is up and running again.
amalthia: (Default)
I accidently deleted the database for the Angst Archive so for now the site is down.

I have the sql file but am getting an error message #1044 - Access denied for user 'amothea'@'localhost' to database 'amothea_archive'

I have no clue how to fix this.

None of the files are gone or damaged the stories are all there but I think I lost the tables or I backed up the wrong file.

going off to my room to cry. Like seriously I'm trying very hard not to panic. Next time I swear I'll experiment with upgrades on my personal fiction site first.



EDIT: database is restored, but the site is still screwed up because I was in the middle of upgrading to 331 efiction in order to combat the spam attacks the archive was getting. Though at this point I've come to the conclusion that I was not prepared to upgrade the site after all. This is just one big mess and I don't have time to fix it because I have work in the morning. I should be able to get the archive restored by this weekend or during the weekend. (I hope)
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