I went to the SFU Workshop and I’ll got was this t-shirt
Nah, kidding. I had a good time at Digital Publishing 101 where I have now figured out that a) My method for dealing with content transfer between HTML and InDesign was on the right track b) I can make epubs without InDesign without fear of messing it up. I have used InDesign to make ePubs, but I was wondering if there was an alternative, and, lo and behold, there is! It’s called Sigil. I had been looking at Calibre, so I’ll have to test both of them.
The other good resource I learned about was ePub Zen Garden, which has some really nice Creative Commons CSS that can be applied to your ePub files.
Considering that the market for e-books hovers at one percent right now, I don’t think this is the next best thing since slice bread, though it was good to hold a real iPad in my hands. I also got to look at the Kobo reader, which looks cheap. Then again, it is cheap.
The Kobo is used by Chapters in Canada and Borders in the US. It’s a no-frills alternative to the Kindle. Unfortunately, sales of the device have been hurt by Amazon and Barnes & Noble; both stores lowered the price of their e-readers. Barnes & Noble released a $150 Wi-Fi-only version of the Nook.
I still have huge issues with DRM, so I’m not rushing out to get the Kobo, or anything of that sort. But DRM is a topic for another post.