Hi. I am nearing the end of my gamebook, however, I now realize that converting it to kindle isn’t going to be as simple as I thought it would be.
This is my workflow:
I am using Gamebook Authoring Tool because it is simple and fits my needs as well as offering the option to save a single html file or multiple html files.
I then open the file in Word which i save as a .docx file.
I then open the .docx file in vellum (mac only) to import images – mainly because vellum allows me to make images linkable and I am wanting to use buttons i create for my choices instead of hitting small text links.
Am I doing this the best way? I only know a bit of html and prefer not to learn more if i can help it. But if there is a simpler way, I am all ears. I have about 100 choice images which are simply created – i make a shape in powerpoint and type in the text, then select the shape and save as .png. I like this because it allows me to make buttons that are big enough to be used on a mobile phone.
I am all ears, as i said. The manual linking in vellum is a chore.
If there was a way to modify the output from Gamebook Authoring Tool to have large text choice selectors, I could probably use just that one tool, then go back and plug my illustrations in one by one. That would be ok, if not ideal.
I supposed I could format my word file to have bigger text links and pull in images while using my word file pass. That might work.
If you’re releasing through HG you don’t need to convert it, COG will do it for you.
If not, any reason why you don’t want to release through HG? You can release it for free if you want, and get a lot more exposure than most indi authors do. (Unless you’re a well known author in disguise in which case go for it. Or go for it anyway, just Amazon isn’t the best platform in the world for releasing CS gamebooks for some reason. It may not be worth the bother if it’s a lot of work to do.)
Sorry can’t help you with the conversion process itself.
Edit: To insert images, it might be worth converting them to scenes using CSIDE. I’ve found that a lot less bother when hosting games off site rather than messing about with folders for images.
Thank you Mary! I was sort of confused what COG was…i thought it was a forum about creating interactive fiction games. I didn’t realize there was a platform behind the forum! My apologies.
Whoops sorry I assumed you were writing in CS. You’re welcome to stick around in the other interactive fiction section of the forums if making something else, but I agree, also check out the forums linked above. Also really friendly place and have people designing games in a lot of different formats, so there are people there who will probably be able to help you out.
