How big is that e-book anyway?

[Ellimist]

BenG, indeed. There are often multiple printings of the same book with widely different formatting.

This exact problem has bothered me for a long time. I never know how to answer when someone asks "oh, how long is it?" ... "well... um... technically, 700 pages, because that's how many times I will have to press the button on my Sony with the small screen... but... if I had to convert that to paperback book pages?... 300? I guess?"

So yeah, I just look it up on Amazon. People have those boundary conditions already in their heads... you can say 300 pages, but they aren't thinking Stephen King 300 or Umberto Eco 300... they know a general range between those two is how long the book is.

Word count is definitely inefficient. What if you wanted to count? You can count pages pretty easily and that's still how the numbers show up. Hell, even the Bard knew that. The lines are numbered.

There probably needs to be a new measurement/unit for ebooks. I do not have any suggestions for that yet.

Originally Posted by Jack Tingle

rtf
long novel, about 500 kb

This definitely doesn't work because (anecdotally) I had a huge RTF (14 MB) of what seemed to be only text and formatting of that text which froze my Sony. I tried multiple conversions with no luck. So finally, I converted from RTF (14 MB) to PDF (1.5 MB) then back to RTF.(7 MB).. the resulting file was half the original size, with no obvious formatting changes. WinWord said 400,000 characters - that is nowhere near 7 MB.

Haha, let's count by sentence. David Foster Wallace now has the shortest novel ever, Infinite Jest.

[delphidb96]

I, for one, am quite happy to not have page numbers. For one thing, as others have mentioned, leaving paper behind with all its silly "must number every page" rules, allows me to shuck all that dead weight (Think of all the TREES we're saving!). For another, if we had to have 'fixed' page numbers with fixed text sizes, no one would be able to swap on-the-fly to different sizes to meet different lighting and eyeglass changes.

Derek

[Sweetpea]

I don't care how long a book is, most are too short anyway

Besides, people here mention the Outlander series. I have them in my library upstairs. But one Outlander book is as large (and thick) as the entire collection of my Princes of Amber from Roger Zelazny. But the Outlander book has normal pages and normal letter size, the Princes of Amber book has very thin paper (I always am reminded to that paper you make cigarettes from...) and a very small letter...

So, it's relative even in pbooks!

[Red Alert]

The page numbers are only somewhat relevant to me under most circumstances. If actually a paper novel, I keep an eye on the page number to find my place when I pick up the book again.

Sometimes, I'm so involved in a story, I just wonder how long I have to live in this story. Sadly, sometimes I wonder how soon this piece of junk is going to last. Do I want to finish it with 1000 pages left?

I do so enjoy my reader, Sony PRS-505 now, as it allows me to keep a hundred books so close at hand and also when reading a very thick book, it is much more comfortable than balancing or toting around a 1000+ page paperback!


Red

[Salgueiros]

Hi

I did like to see the progress of my bookmark when i read a book, specially when it was a thick one, so i also faced what i wouldn't say is a problem, but one of those little experiences that ebooks don't yet offer. So i started calculating and comparing the text in the page of my PRS 505 edition of some book with the paper book i had too. Since most of my paper books are paperback editions this rule doesn't apply to other book formats, but i would say that roughly a page in my sony reader is equal to 1/3 of the paper book page, so i visualize more or less where i would be if i was reading the actual paper edition.

I also noted the number of pages that i can read per hour and the number checks with the 1/3 proportion i calculated before, that is the number of pages i turn in an hour is 3 times the one i get when i read the paper edition.

So for any paper book i get i use this rule to calculate the ebook size, and vice versa.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Zero9

The page numbers in ePubs tend to be pretty close to at least one edition of a given book; not close enough to switch between eBook and paper book without scanning a few pages to find where you are, but close enough to say "I'm half way through my 300 page book" and know you'd be saying the same thing if you were reading paper.

What ePub does - or at least, ADE implementations of ePub - is to count pages in 1k "blocks", so a 300k book will have 300 pages (slightly complicated by the fact that a hard page break will force a new page start). As you rightly say, this does seem to correspond reasonably well to the amount of text on the page of the typical paperback.

The ADE method also has the benefit of being independent of font size and screen size, so that "page x" will be the same point in the book for anyone reading using a device with ADE.

[worxland]

For me page count gives a perfect parameter on the length of the story. Using txt and rtf with roughly the same font size I know that short novels are somewhere between 100-250 pages, standard is for 250-600 pages. I read few really long novels on my ebook so far therefore my only comparison is Stephen King's It - which takes cca. 1100-1200 pages on my PRS-505.

[awi]

I really like the way my iliad visually shows how i've gotten in a book. It gives me a clue on how much i've read and how much is yet to come.

[charlieperry]

Really interesting thread. I've been thinking about this a lot myself.

As for knowing how far you are through a book, I've actually read a couple of paper books recently (Atonement and Disgrace) where I'd wished that I didn't know that I was coming to the end of the story. The ever diminishing pages in your right hand are a telltale sign with a paper book.

I'm guessing that in the old days when people read books in serialised form in journals they often didn't know when they were coming to the end of the story. They'd only know for sure when they stumbled upon 'The End'.

[hakim]

Originally Posted by Zero9

I totally understand how you could feel way that, even though I'm completely different. I'm the kind of person who pages ahead (trying to avoid reading any words that would spoil what's coming up) just because I wonder how many pages are left before the end of a CHAPTER. Now that's something I'd like to be able to turn on in an e-book reader: a CHAPTER progress meter.

I expect I'm practically alone on this.

Same here. Chapter progress bar could be a really neat feature


Talking about whole book size, maybe there could be some simple software which could
show approximate size of the book by opening an ebook? 3D visual representation.

[Kostas]

I would like something very intuitive. Could the ebook reader get thinner or lighter as we read more pages...

[tompe]

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

I've never wondered how long an E-book is, and I've read hundreds of them. Just doesn't matter to my reading experience.

For me it kind of disturb the reading experience and making it sub-optimal not knowing how long a book or short story is. A book or short story usually has a certain structure and you know what to usually expect by looking at the total length and were you are in the book. And that helps a lot in interpreting the text correctly and increasing your enjoyment of the book.

I also like to get a sense of progression when reading and a sense of how much I have progressed in a book. A also very often do things like read a book in a certain number of days and then I read a certain number of pager per day.

[Zero9]

Originally Posted by HarryT

...The ADE method also has the benefit of being independent of font size and screen size, so that "page x" will be the same point in the book for anyone reading using a device with ADE.

Exactly! My wife/friend/etc and I can be reading the same (ePub) ebook and compare notes using the same page numbers, regardless of device, font size, etc.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Kostas

I would like something very intuitive. Could the ebook reader get thinner or lighter as we read more pages...

I like the way you think, Kostas. Someone see if the Doctor is around... he can probably whip up a variable mass adjustment to our readers!

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by Superlucky

You're not alone. I don't like putting a book down between chapters, and with paper books I usually flip ahead at bedtime to decide if I should start a new one.

I didn't know about the Kindle feature that showed (roughly) the size of books. Pretty cool. I wish my Sony did that.

Now that you mentions it

the cybook mobi firmware had just a progress bar. ePub have page numbers. I i liek having page numbers. Gives you an idea on the length of the book.
Also, when my opus crashed, i could memorize the page number and "goto page". Or go to another page and back. With mobi, i had to guess estimate.

I once was reading a book, seeing the progress bar getting near the end, and thinking : How the hell will he finish the story that fast. Got the explanation when reaching the lasts words : "To be continued".