NCX Tables of Contents Are a Pain

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I really didn't know what I was getting into when I started looking at the table of contents for Determination. It turns out that the TOC is by far the most tricky part of the entire ebook creation process.​

I'll confess I even wondered why I bothered at several points during the day; after all, Determination is quite a short story. But the TOC is required by Amazon, at least in theory, and I am committed to doing this professionally. I'm not going to half-ass it.​

I found a resource that is immensely helpful for not only the TOC, but every element of creating an ePub/mobi ebook file. Check out this blog:​

http://bbebooksthailand.com/bb-epub-kindlegen-tutorial.html#epubkindlegentutorial_kindlegen

​Huge thanks to them. As a direct result of reading that page, I now know how to create an ebook from the ground up, in detail, without any 3rd party software.

So now I have a working table of contents for Determination, which works perfectly well with the Kindle's position indicator at the bottom and all the navigation options and everything. It's pretty cool. But in the process of getting that right, I broke the cover image! Argh. And it's too late to fix now. It's also too late to write any more of The Price of Entanglement, so that will have to wait until tomorrow.​

Determination eBook

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Work on the Determination eBook is progressing very well. At this point I've pretty well nailed all of the content. I just have to teach myself Kindle TOC creatio​n and I'll be all set, I think, pending any weird discoveries that I make in the meantime.

This also means that with a little luck, I'll be able to make eBooks out of the drafts of a bunch of other stories available here on the site very soon.​ Of course when I do that, I'll have a variety of formats, including ePub, Mobi, PDF, etc.

I've spent most of the working day on this so far, so while I will​​​ be updating The Price of Entanglement, it'll be a relatively short update.

Wish me luck! I'm hoping Determination will be available very shortly on Amazon, and other fine book vendors shortly afterward.​

Determination

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​After much too much time, I've come up with the cover art for Determination, and this means if all goes well, I should have it in the Kindle store soon. Here's a sneak peek!

​Determination Cover

​Determination Cover