demonsword@vasia.com wrote:
I was wondering somethign in spite of
what is in the FFML FAQ.
What format do you people prefer in
receiving fics? Would you rather
receive your fanfics directly in the
message text itself or as an attachment?
To get to the heart of the matter, do any
of you mind if you get the fics as an
attachment?
Here are some things to consider:
Attachments can be a problem if you choose a file format that cannot be
properly read at the receiving end because the receiver doesn't have an
application that can open your attached file (saved in Word but receiver
has WordPerfect etc.). For this reason it's probably best to post your
story in the message itself. If you are set on posting your story as an
attachment, it might be best to convert your Word Processor file to a basic
.TXT file first. This can be done by saving your file in your Word
Processor as a .TXT file, then opening it in the DOS Edit program (for
example) and go through the story installment to fix any formatting
problems that may occur in the conversion. It's a tedious process, but your
readers will appreciate the effort.
I am currently using Eudora Lite on both my PC and my Mac and it seems to
have a limit of around 20-25k of text in the message itself before it gives
me a message that no more text can be added. I posted a couple chapters
that were larger than 25k by chopping it up into two emails and labelling
them as 1 of 2 and 2 of 2. This seems to be a pretty common practice among
story posters and with a little preparation before posting, should deliver
your story installment to the FFML with no problems.
But, if your story installment is pretty big (100k or more) it might be
worth considering sending it as an attachment so that the FFML isn't
flooded with several chunks of your story. It could be argued that sending
a 100k attachment is the same thing as sending several pieces of your story
installment when comparing file sizes, but I have noticed that people seem
to take offense more to the several pieces method. The sheer jump in
quantity of emails can be over whelming and instinctively annoying.
Keep in mind that emails that are over 400k in size (I think that's what WW
posted as the limit recently) will not make it to the FFML. So, if you
intend on posting a story or installment of this size or larger, it would
be worthwhile to chop the story in half and post it as two attachments.
One last tip would be to compress your attached file using a program like
Winzip to cut down on the attached file size.
Panda
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