[Hitch]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Hi,
I am confused. If you properly create either the pageList in the toc.ncx, or the page-map.xml with links to the page start position of a the hard copy book it was based on, and add the SOURCE metadata pointing to that hardcopy book (typically with the isbn of the print edition) and pass all of this to KDP or to Kindlegen, are you saying the proper apnx file for your book is NOT created by Amazon.

That makes no sense, as the code to match those ids to pages is properly created and stored in by kindlegen, and it can be extracted into its own .apnx file and used.

I have seen many commercial ebooks from Amazon that have done exactly that (most of the Jim Butcher series for example). Don't they support that for kdp?

Thanks,

KevinH

Kevin:

Although I have a lot of interface with them--more than the average bear, I'd think--I don't pretend to know the inner workings of the mind of Amazon, nor its Amazonians. Just like a/v, which you can submit, working perfectly, all you want, it SEEMS that if you create a perfectly-working apnx, it disappears somewhere, somehow, between the "publish" button and the "buy" button. I don't know the where. Just as I don't know where the Start Location is altered, between "publish" and "buy," even though that seems to happen not once, but twice (once at the KDP, again sometime after that).

There are simply functions at the KDP that work differently than do that of the FTP-intake. Hell, for that matter, most of the FTP'ed books are NOT actually mobi files, they are ePUB files, that are auto-converted, in large batches, at Amazon--but NOT at the KDP. This allows for things that don't come through at the KDP, like audio/video, or automation (some gaming books, etc.). AT the KDP, if you try to upload (say video), it's simply STRIPPED (removed from the book). You can, more easily, see the same process with fonts; some fonts are ripped right out of the book. Actually, when it happens, ALL the fonts, the entire font directory and folder, are ripped from the book, in toto. (You want a fun time--try to publish a book with Papyrus. Go ahead. Drive yourself nuts. NO, not my choice, trust me.)

I haven't tried this (apnx) in quite a long time. It's possible that it may work now, but I have not seen any self-pubbed book in which it does/did. I suppose we could all cobble one together, and try to publish it, and see what happens...? But the problem is, we'd have to go to the end of the process, and actually put the thing up for sale, at least long enough to buy one, and then remove it from sale.

I suppose I could try asking. {shrug}. I suspect I won't get an answer that satisfies me (like my never-ending argument about the SRL with them), but...it can't hurt.

Hitch