Front Matter in Epubs

[SigilBear]

I found a good reference on front matter here.

I just wondered if there are any significantly different conventions or quirks associated with epubs that I should know about.

Thanks.

[DaleDe]

Occasionally the inside jacket front an back text is also included although this is often placed in the OPF. ePub has an external TOC so having the internal one is optional and the external one should provide a way to bypass most of this extra stuff. eBooks often have a cover image, usually from the jacket cover.

[dwig]

I would say that the "half title" page should always be omitted from an ebook with the exception of using one as a divider between the components of an omnibus. Also, I would omit the table of contents page unless there is something very special about the book's organization that makes it important to read the ToC before reading the book (e.g. Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar & Sheep Look Up and Dos Passos' USA Trilogy). The other pieces are optional and should be included if important.

[Notjohn]

For an e-book, I limit the front matter to the cover (except for uploading to the KDP), the title page, and the table of contents. (The TOC is important to me. I spend a lot of time putting juicy titles on my chapters, for the benefit of those browsing the Look Inside sample.) I expect my books to open at the cover (they usually do, though not always) and while I want the shopper to see my handsome cover, dignified title page, and entrancing TOC, I don't want them delayed by Acknowledgements, Prologues, Forewords, and Introductions. Page one, Chapter One (not called that, of course) should start off with a bang.

[IronChaim]

It's really a personal/editorial choice, but some considerations:
- Do you have any 'legal' stuff you definitely want to put in there (copyright info, accreditation, etc.)
- Do you *really* need a TOC? As mentioned above, EPUB has an external TOC which a Reading agent should render for the user (and is usually easier to use from a UX perspective).
- The usual shoutouts (acknowledgements, dedications, etc.).
- Marketing/sales - Links to other books/places to buy stuff. What's useful about EPUBs is you can include links to your own/other's sites.

You should review what you think is a good balance between necessity, your own desire, and what readers will be 'happy' with.

On slight tangential - Front Matter can sometimes influence the amount of copy a user might see for a Sample of the book. This really depends on the retail platform (Amazon, Kobo, etc.) and any other terms with those retailer. Some platforms try to 'filter out' front matter so to give a user a true "X%" of real book content to sample from.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by IronChaim

You should review what you think is a good balance between necessity, your own desire, and what readers will be 'happy' with.

Yes!

However, as to the legal stuff...from a strictly legal perspective... there is no requirement to have your copyright page at the front of the book as long as it is in your book it works just fine. I would always have copyright at the back of the book.

All the other info - acknowledgements, list of other books sold, advertisements, about the author, etc. can all go at the back of the book as well. If you want to make sure the reader knows those pages are there you can put a link to them in your TOC at the front of the book. Most readers just skip over those pages anyway so why waste their time putting it up front?

Pretty much the only thing I like to see at the front of the book is the cover page, TOC, dedication (if any), and title page.... everything else to the back!

[JSWolf]

Most eBooks have the copyright at the back so it doesn't take space in a preview.

[SigilBear]

Good tips about moving some of this stuff to the back. I think I'm going to do that.

In the meantime, my current prototype includes a couple key links on the Title page.

The first link takes readers to the Table of Contents (which includes links to the Preface, Epigraph, etc., for those who want to check them out).

The second link takes readers to a blog page where they can learn more about the book and comment on it.

In fact, I think I'll keep these Title Page links but move most of the "front matter" to the back, anyway.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by SigilBear

I just wondered if there are any significantly different conventions or quirks associated with epubs that I should know about.

In this case, I still tend to err on the side of matching the print layout. Back in 2013 we had some discussion about Frontispiece/Front Matter in ebooks:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=228927

The only difference I can recall is in the past few years some publishers decided to hide the TOC at the very back of the book... but this was a huge nono according to Amazon and they started to crack down. (Amazon implemented a "pay per page read" system, and this was really fudging with their numbers + scammers were taking huge advantage of it).

[dwig]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

In this case, I still tend to err on the side of matching the print layout. ...

I still think that you should reevaluate the various components. There are a large number of poorly designed printed books. Copying bad design is bad design, period.

Most print front matter is good to include in an ebook, but there are three things that I recommend changing or considering omitting are:

• Half title pages - as I said above, always omit except as dividers in omnibus editions
• "Advertising" matter - always omit, or move to the back, lists of other books by the same author or by the same publisher.
• ToC - omit the inline ToC unless this particular book has a real need to force the reader to review the ToC (e.g. an omnibus edition where the reader needs to be made aware of the division of the various components, where the reader isn't expected to read the book front to back, ...).

[Notjohn]

IMHO there's a real value in an html TOC at the front, though not of course if it consists only of One, Two, En... Some Daniel Silva books have fifty or sixty numbered chapter titles, so the html TOC is utterly useless.

I wouldn't put the dedication at the front, either. Mostly I do without. If I'm reprinting an old book, I put it at the top of the copyright page, at the back. (I link to the copyright page in the TOC.) For my own more recent work, I do it as narrative in the Notes & Sources section, or a From the Author page at the back.

And yes, no half-title, Also by the Author at the back, no foreword or prologue or introduction (that material either worked into Chapter One or banished to the back).

[Mousewaffle]

Over several years of converting various texts, htmls, old mobis etc. to Epubs, I've come up with the following formulas (subject to individual variations and whims):

• No half-title before a main title page; it's a wasted click or swipe.

• Title page (either graphic or text). Sorry, I'm a traditionalist.

• Dedication page is OK. It doesn't take much space and is part of what the author intended. Sometimes it ends up as a lower element for a short copyright page or for a half-title in an omnibus collection.

• I usually set the <guide> in the opf file to open at the title page. I get tired of books set to open at "Chapter one," often skipping prologues and introductions.

• Inline TOC: Not necessary for books that are simply Chapter 1, Chapter 2. Valuable for essays, collections of short stories, etc. In those cases, I usually link the individual chapter titles back to the inline TOC for ease of navigation.

• Copyright, "Other Books By," "Acknowledgements," "About the author," "Upcoming books," etc. can live quite happily at the end of the book — findable but not intrusive.

On a slightly off-topic topic, I always make line-drawings (ornaments, decorations, etc.) as transparent-background png's. To my mind, nothing's more disconcerting when using a reader that allows you to choose a non-white background than to see a line-drawing or decoration framed in a bright white jpeg block.

I also invariably change the default link CSS from "blue underline" the old HMTL legacy that gives your neatly formatted book that charming, rustic web-site appearance. Usually it's accomplished by adding "a {color:#600; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none;}" to the CSS file (or changing the exisiting link code). The #600 code is a nice maroon that makes the link stand out on color readers and slightly off-shades it on e-ink readers.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

IMHO there's a real value in an html TOC at the front, though not of course if it consists only of One, Two, En... Some Daniel Silva books have fifty or sixty numbered chapter titles, so the html TOC is utterly useless.

I wouldn't put the dedication at the front, either. Mostly I do without. If I'm reprinting an old book, I put it at the top of the copyright page, at the back. (I link to the copyright page in the TOC.) For my own more recent work, I do it as narrative in the Notes & Sources section, or a From the Author page at the back.

And yes, no half-title, Also by the Author at the back, no foreword or prologue or introduction (that material either worked into Chapter One or banished to the back).

As for the HTML ToC, I don't think it's useful in an ePub if it doesn't bring anything to it that you cannot get from the NCX ToC.

The dedication is something I 100% disagree with. A lot of people skip the copyright page and thus there's a good change the dedication will never get read. The dedication should be in the front before the book starts. Also, most of what's behind the end of the book won't get read because once the book is read, most people are done. So anything you want read should be before the end of the book.

I think a 1/2 title is worthless. Also by can go in the back because if someone wants to read it it will get read and those who do not want to read it can easily skip it. The forward, prologue, or introduction shoud all be at the front before chapter 1.

The one thing I think is 100% useless is that page (or pages) of review blurbs). I already have the eBook. So that is just a complete waste.

[SigilBear]

Yes, I don't like the idea of featuring reviews in a book, either. However, I would like to lik each of my books to a web page where readers can learn more about the book, including reviews.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by SigilBear

Yes, I don't like the idea of featuring reviews in a book, either. However, I would like to lik each of my books to a web page where readers can learn more about the book, including reviews.

This needs to be though out very very carefully.

1. You can't rely on the link being clickable in all reading environments. It must be human readable (e.g. "http://books.mysite.com/bookpage" and not "click here for more info" with the actually url hidden).
2. It needs to be a URL that will be viable for 10 years or more regardless of changes in website design.

A good solution to #2 is what we did long ago at Macromedia.com and many other major site do, that is to link to a page in a "go" folder that merely redirects to the real page. That way, when the site is rebuilt, the book's info page can change however you want with a simple tweak to the "go" page to point to the new page. Once the book is published, the target of the link can never change.