What I don't like about ebook omnibus editions

[ShellShock]

To start, what I do like about omnibus editions: they are much cheaper than buying the individual books.

Now, what I do not like:

They are sold as a single file (e.g., a single epub). For the A Song of Ice and Fire omnibus, this is 4500 virtual pages. I am not going to read through all this sequentially because I will probably be heartily sick of it half way through, and just the thought of those 1000s of pages still to go is quite a deterrent. I want a bit of variety so I mix things up by reading other books in-between the books in the omnibus.

Plus bigger books take longer to load and are generally slower on most ereaders.

I also like seeing the covers of the individual books in my library.

So this means I spend time splitting the omnibus epub into individual book files. Which is ironic because some minion at the publishers has had to spend even more time munging the individual books into the single omnibus. And I mean munge--with multiple stylesheets as the original books had their own styling.

The publishers seem to be still stuck in pbook thinking, where an omnibus meant another print run so it probably made sense to spend time creating a single book; I guess it is cheaper to print and distribute a single large omnibus book rather than many individual books (in a box set). But with ebooks it is actually cheaper for the publisher not to create an omnibus file--there is no additional cost because the individual ebooks already exist.

Perhaps the problem is for the retailers--how to package the individual ebooks (that they already have in their system) into an omnibus? Thinking of the Kobo web site, this could be done with coupons--buying the omnibus gives you a coupon for a discount on all the books in the omnibus. But now the onus has shifted from the publishers to the retailer to actually manage the omnibus.

Another idea would be for the publisher to provide the omnibus as a single zip file that contains the individual ebooks within it. I assume that this would work without too much change (if any) on the retailers' web sites.

Do any publishers or retailers do this (coupons/single zip)?

[Valhalla]

I have no problems with omnibus files. My reader knows where I'm up to so I can easily read another book and come back to it later.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

Plus bigger books take longer to load and are generally slower on most ereaders.

Not true. The time taken to load ePub books is independent of their overall size, since only a single "flow" is loaded into memory at any given time. A similar thing applies to Kindle books.

At the dawn of time there were readers like the Sony PRS-505 which would "paginate" a book when it was first opened, and the time taken to do that was dependent on the size of the book, but I don't know of any current reader which does anything similar.

Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that large books take longer to open?

[pwalker8]

I guess you could always buy the books individually if you don't like the omnibus.

For the most part, omnibuses in the paper world is because there is limited shelf space in the physical bookstores and because it's expensive to keep inventory around, so rather than reprint all the books in a series, it makes sense to publish them as a single volume.

On the other hand, in the ebook world, it doesn't cost anything to keep a book in print, so I wouldn't expect their to be a need to produce omnibooks.

[Dr. Drib]

I like the idea of omnibus editions, since it leaves less 'clutter' [files] all over my ebook reader.

On a similar thought: epubmerge is my dutiful friend.




Don

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

On the other hand, in the ebook world, it doesn't cost anything to keep a book in print, so I wouldn't expect their to be a need to produce omnibooks.

There is: the authentication systems for most vendors are built around the model of "one transaction: one license: one file".
So the choices are to buy each book individually, or buy a single omnibus file. The latter is usually sold at a discount so that's the deal. Take it or leave it.

Since most ereaders and apps track your location you can just read one volume at a time and come back later for more. No biggie, really.

Now, some retailers have sales of *bundles* where one transaction nets you several books, which may or not be related, but that is usually a retailer deal not a publisher decision.

[Witty Username]

For the A Song of Ice and Fire omnibus, this is 4500 virtual pages. I am not going to read through all this sequentially because I will probably be heartily sick of it half way through, and just the thought of those 1000s of pages still to go is quite a deterrent.

I just don't understand this at all. The number of pages in a book has no relevance to my enjoyment of said book. With ebooks, the size and weight is the same for every book so even when travelling book length is not a factor in my reading choices.

I am aware that there are people who will not even consider reading anything over say, 400 pages but to me that is just weird!

[owly]

What I don't like is when the books aren't in publishing order. I bought a Dresden Omnibus and the books where all jumbled up.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by owly

What I don't like is when the books aren't in publishing order. I bought a Dresden Omnibus and the books where all jumbled up.

That is annoying, I agree. I recently bought a 5-volume omnibus edition of P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves" books and short stories, and they too are all jumbled up. Most irritating.

[paws]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Not true. The time taken to load ePub books is independent of their overall size, since only a single "flow" is loaded into memory at any given time. A similar thing applies to Kindle books.

At the dawn of time there were readers like the Sony PRS-505 which would "paginate" a book when it was first opened, and the time taken to do that was dependent on the size of the book, but I don't know of any current reader which does anything similar.

Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that large books take longer to open?

Agree 100%. I had read several large books on my kindles (different ones) and they never have been an issue.

[jersysman]

EpubSplit plugin for Calibre works wonders.

[latepaul]

I split omnibuses because I like to have one file per book record in Calibre and so I can mark them read/unread individually. To be fair I also have a record for the omnibus as a whole and I could have "empty book" records for the individual books but it's not the way I work.

Plus, in my limited experience of about 4 cases, the omnibuses are sometime very badly put together. Whilst I agree that no modern reader should barf on size alone, my Kobo Touch gets cranky if the individual files within the epub are too big. One particular omnibus I had - a complete works of HG Wells - had made each work, including the novels, a single file. It was also an opportunity to tidy up the formatting which was atrocious.

Having said all that, my Kobo Touch is now my least used reader.

[Yapyap]

I wouldn't have thought that large omnibus editions would be a problem on modern e-readers, but I did start to have trouble in the later books in the A Series of Unfortunate Events omnibus (13 books, although many of them rather short).

It was okay to start with, but if I recall correctly, my Paperwhite (which has under 300 regular not-very-large books on it) started showing minor but definite issues about eight or nine books into the omnibus - slightly slower to open (when returning to it from another book), but more irritatingly, noticeably slower page turns and problems when turning pages, sometimes hopping two pages forward or moving back instead of forward.

I haven't had any such issues with other books either before or after, while the issues, while minor, were consistent and constant with that omnibus, getting worse the further towards the end I got.

It did surprise me, as the file itself - in file size - wasn't even that large: under 9 MB.

Of course, that's just one person's experience with one omnibus, but it did make me wary of very large omnibus editions in general.

As for the topic in general, I would also prefer separate books in a "bundle" (not the least because I don't always or even usually read through an entire series all at once, and also as I keep track of read and unread books in Calibre with tags, it's much easier to mark separate books read or unread), but I recognise that when I buy an omnibus edition from a major ebook shop (e.g. Amazon or Kobo), I know that I'm going to get all the books as one file.

I've assumed DRM is a major reason, but probably not the only one - for online shops that have their own e-readers and apps, and where the possibility of buying a book straight from the reader and starting to read it right away, without needing to go through a computer at all, is a major sales point, there's just no way they'd sell a zip file containing several books instead. And neither Kobo nor Amazon seems to be set up to allow buying more than one book in one transaction.

I've been too lazy to split them, so far, especially as I don't really buy omnibus editions that often, but I know it's an option.

[jersysman]

I get a lot of Delphi Classics and EpubSplit has been a welcome help with those.

[cadele]

Originally Posted by owly

What I don't like is when the books aren't in publishing order. I bought a Dresden Omnibus and the books where all jumbled up.

I had the same thing happen with a different series. Stupid publisher put the last book first (alphabetical order ).

I read that whole book wondering why so many past dramatic events were mentioned, not realising until I hit the next book what had happened. As all was now revealed there was no point in reading the other books.

So annoyed I will never purchase another book by that author.

It did teach me the expensive lesson to always double check the order of the books before starting reading, however.