Publishing ebooks

[Novascotia]

I really like the software and previously used Serif Pageplus but I'm amazed the Publisher persona is incapable of exporting as epub or azw3 file types. I would gladly pay for a bolt-on to get this extremely important capability with this software. How soon can we expect to get access to publishing ebooks with Affinity software?

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @Novascotia

Your question would have been better asked in the appropriate “Questions” section of the forums rather than a “Feedback” section as the “Feedback” sections are generally used to report problems and make suggestions for changes and/or new features. (Also, questions in the “Questions” sections tend to get answered more quickly.) A moderator will probably move this thread for you.

[walt.farrell]

22 minutes ago, GarryP said:

as the “Feedback” sections are generally used to report problems and make suggestions for changes and/or new features.

Wasn't this basically a request for epub or azw3 export formats?

Seemed quite appropriate as Feedback to me, except for the inclusion of the question about when it will happen. Serif doesn't answer that kind of question, no matter where it is asked.

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Seemed quite appropriate as Feedback to me, except for the inclusion of the question about when it will happen. Serif doesn't answer that kind of question, no matter where it is asked.

Personally I also see the question about when it will happen completely appropriate, regardless of Serif's (IMHO silly) policy of refusing to answer such questions. It's commercial software, not a religion folks.

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, Bryan Rieger said:

regardless of Serif's (IMHO silly) policy of refusing to answer such questions.

I have worked for commercial software companies. We also never answered such questions.

When functions were available and ready to be delivered to our customers, they were announced. For Serif, and the Affinity products, that happens via the Beta releases.

[GarryP]

Walt: It looked more like three statements and a question to me rather than a suggestion or feedback, which is why I suggested it might be more appropriate in the Questions section, but I guess it’s a difficult one to judge since there aren’t any formal guidelines for what should be where.
(Either way, I think Novascotia will probably get more responses in Questions rather than Feedback.)

[PaulEC]

2 hours ago, Novascotia said:

I really like the software and previously used Serif Pageplus but I'm amazed the Publisher persona is incapable of exporting as epub or azw3 file types. I would gladly pay for a bolt-on to get this extremely important capability with this software. How soon can we expect to get access to publishing ebooks with Affinity software?

To be honest I think this is another of those "bells and whistles" that was tacked onto PagePlus (in the same way as webpage design / html export) that is much better handled by dedicated software. (Calibre or Amazon's online converter?) As I remember PagePlus could only, natively, export as epub, exporting for Kindle required Kindlegen to be installed, which AFAIK is no longer available. IMHO I would much prefer APub to be developed to do what it currently does as well as possible, and for the many requests for improvements (including footnotes/endnotes etc) to be implemented, rather than trying to turn it into some sort "Swiss Army Knife" for every kind of publishing.

[PaoloT]

2 hours ago, Bryan Rieger said:

It's commercial software, not a religion folks.

Answering on when a feature will be available, in software, is more chiromancy than religion!

Paolo

 

[PaoloT]

1 hour ago, PaulEC said:

IMHO I would much prefer APub to be developed to do what it currently does as well as possible, and for the many requests for improvements (including footnotes/endnotes etc) to be implemented, rather than trying to turn it into some sort "Swiss Army Knife" for every kind of publishing.

In my opinion, limiting the output to printing would make Publisher obsolete very soon. While there are still sectors where printing is the only output, there are others where ebook is at least an important final medium. Novels are for sure one of these.

In particular, ebooks are relevant in the independently published book world, that is probably the core target for Affinity at the moment.

While I think that everything must be done at the right pace, I also hope this feature will not be deferred too much.

In the meantime, I would be happy with export to DOCX, a universal interchange format that would allow us Mac users to use Apple Pages to make ebooks.

Paolo

 

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, Bryan Rieger said:

Personally I also see the question about when it will happen completely appropriate, regardless of Serif's (IMHO silly) policy of refusing to answer such questions. It's commercial software, not a religion folks.

It is not silly for commercial developers aware of the Osborne Effect to refuse to answer such questions. The number one job of these companies is to stay in business, preferably while making enough profit to continue to develop their products.

[PaulEC]

17 hours ago, PaoloT said:

In my opinion, limiting the output to printing would make Publisher obsolete very soon. While there are still sectors where printing is the only output, there are others where ebook is at least an important final medium. Novels are for sure one of these.

I wouldn't necessarily disagree with this, but the last thing I want is a piece of software that tries to do everything for everybody and ends up doing nothing very well! If you want to produce eBooks there are currently other ways to do it. At the moment there are already plenty of features that need to be added/refined in APub, before adding additional functions like eBooks.

[PaoloT]

4 hours ago, PaulEC said:

I wouldn't necessarily disagree with this, but the last thing I want is a piece of software that tries to do everything for everybody and ends up doing nothing very well!

I completely agree with what you say. The most urgent feature is, for me, a way of exporting to DOCX and IDML, to let us quickly convert Publisher files, so that they can be reused with different tools working in tandem with it on other types of output.

Paolo

 

[R C-R]

On 12/28/2021 at 11:59 AM, PaoloT said:

In particular, ebooks are relevant in the independently published book world, that is probably the core target for Affinity at the moment.

I seriously doubt that Serif considers that their core target for any of their Affinity apps.  I suspect they are hoping to appeal to a much larger market, particularly anyone interested in a low cost integrated suite of apps capable of performing reasonably well on even very low end computers.

There really isn't much competition for that market, at least that I am aware of.

[IanSG]

22 hours ago, R C-R said:

It is not silly for commercial developers aware of the Osborne Effect to refuse to answer such questions. The number one job of these companies is to stay in business, preferably while making enough profit to continue to develop their products.

I doubt that it's as subtle as the Osborne Effect.  Like @walt.farrell I've worked for companies that refused to discuss futures - they created way too much ill-feeling with customers who treated the faintest whiff of a possibility as if it was a binding promise.  

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, IanSG said:

I doubt that it's as subtle as the Osborne Effect.  Like @walt.farrell I've worked for companies that refused to discuss futures - they created way too much ill-feeling with customers who treated the faintest whiff of a possibility as if it was a binding promise.  

But that does not mean that Serif would be immune to the Osborne Effect if they started commenting on when they expected various new or improved features to be included in the apps. At least to me, it seems very likely that if they did that a lot of potential buyers would wait to see if & when that happened before making a buying decision.