Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryn
Thanks Jellby. I had considered that option, but decided against it in favour of supporting the "flow of reading". Maybe I'm the only one (and 1 is a very small sample size) but having to memorize where I've left off before I follow a link takes away from that selfsame flow of reading.
I realize hopping from footnote to footnote is probably less "flowy", and I think I will adopt your footnote backref strategy for that purpose. As for images that are referred to 20+ times, I think that solution breaks down somewhat, with having 20+ links to pick from when returning, some on a new page.
Sure, the linear=no solution is not perfect either. But then, us ePUB makers live in imperfect universes (and thrive).
Thanks for your insights!
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As an add-on to this discussion--being related, although probably not helpful--I slogged through a chunk of the "app" version of Amanda Havard's "The Survivors" and regardless of any technical considerations, my own personal view of hell is that I'll be stuck in Hades with THAT bloody book, forced to page through its precious, self-conscious, twee prose, infused with "useful" "Immersedition" interactive detritus and orts, including the author's notes about why we should "get" an "inside joke," and other bits used to actually try to TELL the story (god forbid she actually put it on the page), not to mention the oh-so-precious fashion-item pop-ups (Prada shoes! Gucci bags! Vivenne Westwood sheaths!), which are surely paving the way for intrusive product placement in BOOKS, for the love of heaven...not to mention the "soundtrack" songs, (from Coldplay! You can listen to it and then, BUY IT NOW, right on your iPad! No, I didn't make that up).
I
loathe it. I found it so horridly distracting that I do not believe I could ever again be forced, as a consumer, to buy another. I'm like everyone else; when the original Harry Potter films came out, I thought a "Daily Prophet"-like book/newspaper would be "cool," but of course--that's because THAT is
magic. It's not this mind-blowingly
dreadful attempt to bring paid product placement "commercials" disquised as "bonus content" into BOOKS. I mean, isn't the gerbil-like attention span of Americans and everyone else already short ENOUGH? Now we have to explain the book to them, that wasn't written well enough? Put character bios every few pages, so our brain-dead readers can pop it up to remind themselves as to who "John" is? Is the writing so execrable, the characters so lifeless and unimaginative, that we don't think the readers can remember who the impossibly-beautiful-supernatural-heroine-with-lavendar-eyes is, nor the name of her impossibly-beautiful-Armani-wearing, soon-to-be-romantic-interest?
ARRRGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Yes. This is possibly an OT rant, but...fellow ePUB makers, let's stop feeding the crows, just because they like "pretty shiny things," can we? Apple, I entreat all you Jobblesheads still populating and worshipping at the Temple of Steve: stop contributing to the demolition of the human brain,
please. A book is
supposed to make people use their brains for something other than a paperweight to hold their ears on their heads while you pump vapidness into them.
Nothing against the OP; we who make the books have to earn our bread, feed our families, pay the bills...but I couldn't get past page 36 of this thing. It was poorly written to begin with (simply my own opinion, but I freely admit I'm not their target audience), but the "Immersedition" was so distracting that I don't think a heretofore undiscovered Dorothy L Sayers done in this fashion could have kept me reading (I shudder to think what THAT might have looked like)--and that's saying something.
My $.02, FWIW--and it's probably worth less than that. Just had to get it off my chest. Had a client who called, raving about this being "
the future of ebooks," insisting I DL this thing...and
that thought alone is enough to make me scream.
Hitch