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Converting the .html output file to ebook
As stated in the title, I want to change the .html output file, into an interactive story ebook to distribute via nook/kindle store. I have tried doing uploading the .html file as is, but when I preview it within the amazon/nook website, it just comes out as the code that I entered into twine 2.0. Is there anyway for me to do this, so I can make a profit from my work?
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Especially if you are doing things like setting variables and using complex logic. If you are using only the branching narrative aspect of it, on the other hand, you at least have a chance. (Well.. to be fair, you have a chance the other way as well... but it is practically Herculean in nature to do.)
What it boils down to is this: imagine a print book. Something with physical pages you turn. Can your story be there? Sure... provided you give them every single page and every single branching option of your original design. Someone has even done tic-tac-toe as a print book, and the pages literally "play" the game against you. And this is in a print book with no special processing happening. The book, as you might imagine, is thick. It allows for every possible configuration of the game board.
imagine, now... a character with goals and equipment. It's a bigger book. Yes, your e-book won't be thick in the traditional sense, but you would still have to represent all of the possible configurations and story iterations.
Inkle has done it by writing a converter that will play your game and programmatically click on every single link you make, and then print and compile each page. I don't know that anyone here has built such a converter.
Hope that helps,
Sage.
PS, It is still possible... you could just do what Inkle does, even if you did it by hand. This is the way CYOA books have always been done.
If you upload it to a password protected site, for example, you could have people pay you for access. I can show you how to do that.
There are other ways as well, once you realize that it is just an HTML file. You could wrap it and have it sent as an exe that way to your friends for example, and I think there is added functionality in Twine 2 as well for that.
Once they pay (if that is your goal), they get the password.
If all you really want is to be able to charge for access to your story HTML then you could do what many others do and either setup a web-site that requires your readers to create an account to be able to view your stories, or find an existing website that already has this feature and will allow you to host your stories. This will still allow people to access your stories on mobile devices as long as that device has a web-broswser with Javascript support.
If you really want to host your stories on a eBook store then you will need to handle people's complaints when it does not work on their eBook Reader.
Axma is like a "fenced yard" version of classic Twine. If you know original Twine it will be very familiar.
All EPub choice fiction ends up being very simple for the reasons stated above. I believe for AXMA you can't use any variables, it's basically the branches you write and link together are the branches you get, though I think they are hyperlinked.
Inkle is the same - you can't have a loop or a hub because their compiler will get caught infinitely.