[Hitch]

Originally Posted by AlanHK

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).

Yes, I concur. I'm rather partial to creative, clever tables of content, but of course, there are a kajillion books out now that are the usual Ch. 1, Ch. 2, etc.

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.

Well, I meant prologue, not other frontmatter.

Is this "PW" a documented Amazon thing? Where is it?

It's not documented, like in the Publishing Guidelines, but it's a very real thing. I first encountered the term and came to know about it in 2012, when Amazon changed the SRL (Start Reading Location) policy and started changing it, based upon their determinations that too many Word-, PDF- and Other-file uploaders couldn't get the SRLs set correctly. They decided that they'd set it, so that all the books would conform.

The PW is the Publishing Workflow. It's what they call it; it's what happens between the time that the author-publisher clicks "save and publish" and when the book shows up as available for purchase.

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?

Not only deprecated but expressly against the PG. Amazon has specifically stated that the TOC should not be placed at the rear of the book. They state that so doing bollixes up the calculations of "time remaining in the chapter," etc. in that book. That's under Sections 5 and 5.1, in the 2017-2 PG. That prohibition, against putting the TOC at the back of the book, however, has been in place for years.

The only reason that it started, really, is because of people using Calibre, which routinely put the TOC at the back of a book. Then some folks started using it, due to wanting to maximize the LITB (Look Inside the Book). Nonetheless, if someone puts the TOC at the rear, they will most likely run afoul of the KQN (Kindle Quality Notice) program, nowadays.

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".

I assume, to be frank, that it's just the usual laziness of people that result in things like "judgement" being spelt "judgment," "acknowledgement" being "acknowledgment," and so on. {shrug}. Language evolves; some people go with it.


Hitch