[intrstngtimes]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

The Amazon default is the first page of the first chapter, ignoring all preliminary material even if that material is vital to understanding the book. As I understand the matter, the SRL is set in the actual publishing workflow, so the Kindle Previewer experience is meaningless. I suspect the way to get what you want is simply not to use a text semantic at all.
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https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho....php?t=212660

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=191387

Yes, I remember coming across your comments to this effect on the KDP forums. After trying a whole bunch of other things yesterday (including the trick mentioned in one of the threads you linked, re not putting the cover in an html file), I'm beginning to think you're right - the mobi file I get from Kindle Previewer software works beautifully on my Kindle Paperwhite (I even got the "Front Matter" drop-down in the "Go to" section), but the mobi file I downloaded from KDP - generated using the exact same epub - is a hot mess It opens to the middle of my copyright page instead.

FWIW, the file generated by Kindle Previewer is around 2 meg, whereas the KDP-generated file is nearly double in size. That's rather odd, since I figured they're both supposed to include multiple mobi formats, but who knows.

Originally Posted by AThirstyMind

I've always used 'guide' tags by putting the epub of the book in Sigil. I'm always careful to put where I want the book to Start right after the TOC, Amazon seems to choke if your start point isn't after the TOC for some reason. They probably have a rule about that in their Formatting Guide. Then I add the guide tags beginning with Cover, Title page, TOC and then 'text' which is my Start id for Notes, Prologue, Chapter 1 or whichever point I want Amazon to flag as the Beginning. Sometimes in the content.opf the guides loose their order and I go back, take off the guide tags and re-do Cover, Title page, TOC and lastly Text. I've never had a problem with my own books or any of the books I format for others. Just saying. This is probably too simplistic, but it works for me and has for years.

Interesting. So does your guide code look something like this?

<reference type="cover" title="Cover" href="cover_page.xhtml" />
<reference type="?" title="Title Page" href="title_page.xhtml" />
<reference type="toc" title="Table of Contents" href="toc-filename.xhtml" />
<reference type="text" title="Beginning" href="where-to-start.xhtml" />

...if so, what type do you assign to "Title Page"?