Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
So that triple asterisk whether a literal 3 asterisks with spaces or an image used by many books to indicate a scene break should be deprecated And personally, I tend to use superscripted numbers for footnotes, etc. though that is my personal preference. I will admit that I generally colour the numbers blue as an eInk ereader will show it as a shade of gray distinguishing it from black text.
And I don't even want to think about trying to make that work on epub2, epub3, mobi, AZW3 and KFX format ebooks on multiple devices and renderers.
I only believe in "intuitive" elements on alternate Wednesdays.
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Well, we've already been told that saying anything but "how high?" is not "an appropriate response," but...to respond
to you, DNSB:
Not to mention, the Pavlovian response. I mean, it's been a bit over a decade now, and what do the readers themselves expect? That the links that are "regular" web links, and the superscripted numbers (or symbols) for endnotes are...yes, you got it!--linked and obviously so.
I would also point out that expecting people to "know" that an un-underscored, uncolored asterisk is linked...man. I don't even know where to
start with that. We've done >6,000 books now. And I can honestly say that just as Barnum is widely misquoted as having said that "nobody can ever go broke underestimating the taste of the American people," (effectively Mencken's "intelligence" quote, but hey...) no book formatter or publisher should
ever overestimate the experience and knowledge, in the use of eReaders, of the typical eBook buyer.
I've taken an informal poll, of every client I've ever had, that owns a Paperwhite family device, asking them if they are familiar with or know about, "Publisher fonts" or what it means. Want the results?
Nearly
96% never noticed it. NINETY-SIX PERCENT.
Of the 4% that did notice it, one--one person--knew what it did. So much for the endless plans of my customers, who blithely assured me that "hey, I'll put a note in the front-matter of the book that tells my readers to turn ON publisher fonts!" Yup, lotsa luck with that.
Or how about the fact that Kindle ebooks
don't open to the goddamn cover or the front-matter, for that matter? They open to the main body of the story or content, well
past the front-matter. Who's going to
see or
notice that note? Or one about "clicking astersisks," even though unidentified as links? The one lousy guy out of 1,000 that actually back-pages through the front matter? You think if people
actually read the front-matter, that Amazon would auto-magically open the books to Chapter 1? Not bloody likely. Everything that they do is based upon their user data, including the 2013-14 "let's start opening the books at Chapter 1" thing.
OR, how about those of us, who after a decade in the biz, routinely suggest to our customers that even (with all due respect to my colleague, DNSB) though the appearance is traditional, it might be a kinder, gentler thing to do, to change all the superscripts to something a bit easier to click[9], instead? As it's more tap-area, for the finger? Is there anything that could be smaller than
an asterisk?
Oh, and speaking of Amazon, let's not forget
Kindle Quality Notices. You guys know, those pesky little emails that you get from Amazon, when a SINGLE CUSTOMER COMPLAINS about your editing, your grammar, your use of "ain't" or misspellings, OR, bad formatting or formatting that defies Amazon's Formatting Guidelines. And how
they not only tell you to fix it--but if you continue to defy them, they put a yellow notice up on your Amazon sales page, telling all prospective buyers that the publisher produced the book with formatting deficiencies--and if you continue to defy them, they'll remove it from sale.
But hey...sure, why not?
Be a trailblazer, a pioneer. Remove those pesky underscores.
Hitch