[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

It seems in most traditional printed books, the frontispiece appears *before* the titlepage. Well, that doesn't seem like a happy place in an ebook.

I believe the Title Page should go the way of the dodo in ebooks. You already know the Title/Subtitle/Author of the book.

Depending on how the Title Page is written, I could just see the publisher/translator/edition information being folded right into the copyright page.

If all else fails though, it is never a bad idea to just transfer all of the text as you find it from the book scan faithfully.

The example that sticks out in my head is this book I converted, "Letters to Mr. Malthus" by Jean-Baptiste Say, which is a collection of two books (attached the original PDF scan + the finalized EPUB):

• There is the Title Page on page 1 of the PDF (created by the republisher)
• There is a mini-Title Page on page 3.
  • Introduction to Book #1
• There is a Title Page on page 5 (the original Title Page of "Book 1" as it was printed in 1821)
  • I can see an argument being made for this staying in a physical reprint, but since you cannot emulate the look of that exactly, I believe it is WORTHLESS/redundant in an EPUB edition of the book.
• A "Title Page" (for Book #2) that doesn't match the rest of the book on page 109.
  • In this case, I split it into its own second Title Page. (Very rare that I do this, I try to condense them all).

I could have probably done a more strict job of removing/incorporating/compressing the Title Pages... but this decision was out of my hands. I was trying to think of a way to just mash all three together and get them in the single Title Page right in the beginning.

I was at least able to remove the mini-Title Page on page 3 (because that one WAS super redundant).

PDF:



EPUB:



My ideal would just be:

• Cover
• Copyright
  • List publisher/translator/publication date here.
• TOC
• Text of book.
• Index (Optional)
  • This one doesn't make much sense in ebooks either, but I keep it in for completeness. Some clients prefer this to be removed completely... and I tend to agree. Always transfer it though, then it is up to the client to decide whether they want it or not.
  • Who knows, maybe someone will create an easier way to create page-map files and be able to create linked indexes at some future date, or a future format might be able to handle this easier and in a more elegant way.

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

If the image is a portrait of the author, I try to incorporate it into the titlepage or the "about" page. If it is an illustration, I've started to follow the lead of AlexBell and incorporate it into the text flow where it references. But occasionally the illustration is not referring to any particular text, and then I tend to place it before the half-title page.

With other sections (Dedication, About the Author, ...), I tend to just err on the side of caution, and just keep it within the same exact flow as the physical book (I see this as never a bad idea).

I would be interested in seeing an example of this "Illustration incorporated into the text flow where it references." I have yet to run into such a case in any of the books I have worked on.