Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
The change, in modern bookmaking is, of course, the TOC. For dog's years, most fiction books didn't have Tables of Content, certainly not in genre fiction. But now, they do, and print is doing the same thing, to conform to the ebooks.
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If the chapters are just "Chapter 1", etc, there's little point in a print TOC. But if they have descriptive titles, or the book has "parts", and especially if it has front and/or end matter (author's note, map, glossary (eg foreign words), dramatis personae, etc); then it's common.
E.g.
https://archive.org/details/thecompleteworks01dickuoft (Tale of Two Cities, edition c. 1900).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
Normally, the prologue would appear before the bastard title (half-title) page, if one exists. And after any TOC. Now, you have to be SURE it's after the TOC, so as not to run afoul of the PW (Publishing Workflow). I have any number of clients that don't want it there; they want it BEFORE the TOC (no matter what I say about historical placement or anything else), and that is a major damned headache.
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They may be calling it a "prologue", but to me, the prologue is part of the story. If it's before the TOC, it's something ABOUT the book: a preface, etc., often not written by the author, and maybe only in that edition of the book.
Is this "PW" a documented Amazon thing? Where is it?
I've seen many ebooks where the TOC is at the end of the book, also with the copyright and other minutiae. Is that then deprecated?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
OT, kinda: Anyone else here want to bitch-slap auto-corrects, etc., that PERSIST on insisting that "prologue" is PROLOG?????? GRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
Hitch
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I just thought that was a common American spelling (and of course, the logic programming language I learned many years ago). My spelling prefs are set to UK, so I see the red squiggle under "prolog".
Merriam-Webster does have it, but prefers "prologue".