Set First Page

[oiver55]

How can I set a particular page to be showing when readers open my e-book?

Also in your experiences of E-book reading what are some things in an E-book that would make it unprofessional, or irritating to see?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by oiver55

How can I set a particular page to be showing when readers open my e-book?

I don't think you can with an epub.

Before converting to a Kindlebook, some people right-click on a file in the book browser and set the "Text" semantic. Sometimes that works after publication on Amazon ... sometimes it doesn't. The SRL (Start Reading Location) on Kindlebooks has been a crap-shoot for quite some time now.

My advice for epubs or epubs being converted to Kindlebooks?.... Forget about it. It's an attempt to micro-manage the reader's experience even when it does work.

[eschwartz]

Theoretically setting the Text semantic should mark a file as the location to first open to, I don't know which ereaders will support it however. The Kindle definitely does (although as DiapDealer pointed out, KDP seeems to arbitrarily change that, sometimes, when uploading).
@Hitch claims to have found a fix for that, but since her job is to process and polish peoples' ebooks, I don't blame her for refusing to share a trade secret.


@Diap -- I'm afraid I don't quite undertand your "micro-manage" accusation...

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

@Diap -- I'm afraid I don't quite undertand your "micro-manage" accusation...

I liken it to someone asking a publisher/printer to arrange it so their physical book is weighted and balanced in such a way that it opens to a very specific page whenever a reader drops it spine-first on a table.

There's no real point to it, IMO. You can't make people read stuff they don't want to (or skip stuff they don't want to), so open the ebook and let the reader find where they want to start. They're readers... they have a lot of experience doing just this. They don't need any help. And if Amazon (since this is mostly their fault to begin with for trying to automatically find the "very best beginning point") wants to change things so books open at--or immediately following--the html ToC, then make sure nothing you deem "too important for the reader to miss out on" comes before that html ToC and have done.

I understand pros (like Hitch and others) are compelled by paying customers to "make this work," (and have to try and do so--bless their souls) but that doesn't stop me from believing that their paying customers are making mountains out of mole hills. Just rearrange the book so Amazon's diddling can't accidentally cause a reader to "start" too far into the thing and move on.

The SRL is giant, soul-sucking waste of time (on both sides of the equation). It's like spending enormous amounts of time, money, and resources on creating an automated system to detect which way you need to tilt your boot to dump the water out of it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by oiver55

How can I set a particular page to be showing when readers open my e-book?

Also in your experiences of E-book reading what are some things in an E-book that would make it unprofessional, or irritating to see?

What I think is annoying is when you open a Kindle eBook and it doesn't open to the cover.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What I think is annoying is when you open a Kindle eBook and it doesn't open to the cover.

Don't you just love it when some person 1000's of miles away DECIDES , for you, what to show on OPEN

Since both Cover and Text semantics exist, why not HAVE A device PREFERENCE option to of what to open

My K4NT only has titles, therefore I WANT a cover. (AFAIK this no cover decision was made for the original K)

OTOH I have Calibre Companion on my TAB to show me a cover, so open to the first TEXT would be fine (Moon+ still shows the cover ).

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I liken it to someone asking a publisher/printer to arrange it so their physical book is weighted and balanced in such a way that it opens to a very specific page whenever a reader drops it spine-first on a table.

There's no real point to it, IMO. You can't make people read stuff they don't want to (or skip stuff they don't want to), so open the ebook and let the reader find where they want to start. They're readers... they have a lot of experience doing just this. They don't need any help. And if Amazon (since this is mostly their fault to begin with for trying to automatically find the "very best beginning point") wants to change things so books open at or immediately following the html ToC, then make sure nothing you deem "too important for the reader to miss out on" comes before that html ToC and have done.

I understand pros (like Hitch and others) are compelled by paying customers to "make this work," (and have to try and do so--bless their souls) but that doesn't stop me from believing that their paying customers are making mountains out of mole hills. Just rearrange the book so Amazon's diddling can't accidentally cause a reader to "start" too far into the thing and move on.

The SRL is giant, soul-sucking waste of time (on both sides of the equation). It's like spending enormous amounts of time, money, and resources on creating an automated system to detect which way you need to tilt your boot to dump the water out of it.

Well, personally I like the idea of it opening to the first page of text.
I don't see the harm in it, although I think Amazon should just stop interfering. It works just fine before they post-process it...


Look -- I will grant you that there are bigger things to worry about.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Well, personally I like the idea of it opening to the first page of text.

I'm one of those weird bastards who wants to start at the very first page (or the cover image/page if it's first) and browse. I want to check out the dedication, the foreword, the pronunciation guide, the blurbs/praise, the epigraph--the works. I'm not in a race to get right down to the nitty-gritty. I wanna buy the book some dinner and get to know it a little before I plow right into Chapter One. I want my ebooks to open at page zero. With EPUB/Mantano, that's what I get. Every single time, without fail.

Being able to dictate which page an ebook opens to (other than zero) automatically means games can be played and wrong assumptions can be made. It's unnecessary. The Intro/Chapter One is never more than a couple of clicks/taps away for those wanting to get there quick.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'm one of those weird bastards who wants to start at the very first page (or the cover image/page if it's first) and browse. I want to check out the dedication, the foreword, the pronunciation guide, the blurbs/praise, the epigraph--the works. I'm not in a race to get right down to the nitty-gritty. I wanna buy the book some dinner and get to know it a little before I plow right into Chapter One. I want my ebooks to open at page zero. With EPUB/Mantano, that's what I get. Every single time, without fail.

While I wouldn't have put it that way, I agree. I've always read, or at least looked at all pages in the front matter.

With EPUB/Mantano, that's what I get. Every single time, without fail.

Where the book opens depends on the reader. The Kobo ereaders will open an epub to the ToC entry. The calibre view opens to the cover. I don't know if any actually pay attention to the "text" semantic.

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I wanna buy the book some dinner and get to know it a little before I plow right into Chapter One.

Oh gosh yes, and a glass of wine before that!

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by oiver55

Also in your experiences of E-book reading what are some things in an E-book that would make it unprofessional, or irritating to see?

Well, to me, being forced to read a book that is ragged right is irritating. I don't know if Herr Gutenberg justified his texts, but books have been justified long enough that they just don't look real to me if they aren't. I don't mind ragged right on the web, which has its own imperatives. I suppose that's where the odious practice originated, but I'd read my first couple thousand books before there was a web, so I don't like it.

Among the authors who have failed me in this respect is Daniel Silva. One of his Gabriel Allon thrillers was set ragged right.

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What I think is annoying is when you open a Kindle eBook and it doesn't open to the cover.

Yeah. The cover costs money! It takes time and thought! Let's all pause there and admire it for a moment before diving in!

Happily, Amazon allows its Look Inside sample to open at the cover, 99 times out of 100, and every time in the case of my books. (Well, I haven't yet published 100 of them. Maybe that one will fail.)

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Well, to me, being forced to read a book that is ragged right is irritating. I don't know if Herr Gutenberg justified his texts, but books have been justified long enough that they just don't look real to me if they aren't. I don't mind ragged right on the web, which has its own imperatives. I suppose that's where the odious practice originated, but I'd read my first couple thousand books before there was a web, so I don't like it.

I can't stand it when people force me to read it in full justification....
I just can't stand the "rivers of white space" on a small screen.

Luckily, my device has a settings option where I can quickly flip to the view of my choice.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

I can't stand it when people force me to read it in full justification....
I just can't stand the "rivers of white space" on a small screen.

I have this setting called "hyphenate." Full justification with no 'rivers of white.'
(which, by the way is not limited to ebooks or small screens. I picked up a mmpb book off my shelf that had rivers of white that would put the worst non-hyphenating justification algorithm to shame)

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I have this setting called "hyphenate." Full justification with no 'rivers of white.'
(which, by the way is not limited to ebooks or small screens. I picked up a mmpb book off my shelf that had rivers of white that would put the worst non-hyphenating justification algorithm to shame)

I didn't like those rivers in pBooks either - but there was nothing I could do about it. Now, I don't have to put up with the HORROR! lol

I don't care for hyphens. I can't see the point of breaking up words just to fill up space at the end of a line when I have an infinite number of lines and no need to conserve paper. The old days of professionally hand setting the type and figuring the precise amount of space between letters and words for a work to be considered "professional" just doesn't matter on an electronic medium. I'm not trying to take anything away from that profession... but it's just not something that I care to spend any time worrying about. When I get to the end of a line of evenly spaced words, having read a complete word, my eye just goes to the next line...if it ends at the bottom of the screen I swipe/tap/shake/wiggle/whistle (or whatever) to get the next screen... and repeat until I fall asleep, then wakeup and keep going!

Since everyone has their own preferences it's a good thing that there are devices/apps out there that allow the user to configure their own reading experience. I would recommend to anyone that has an older, or limited device, that doesn't have that functionality, to upgrade ASAP.