On how various bookstores and apps handle series

[pwalker8]

I noticed on the most recent update that Amazon added series to the Kindle app (iOS version). This is something that Apple added about a year and a half ago. They do it the same way that Apple does, which is show what books are in the series and which ones you don't have. It's pretty nice, IMPO.

However, since they don't want to pay the Apple fee, they don't give you the option of buying. You have to go to your browser for that. It's one of those extra steps issues that is the difference between a kludge and a quality user experience. Series info hasn't made it to my kindle device yet.

Apple does group by series with missing series titles that you can then buy. Since Apple allows side loading on their app, the question is how it handles series titles that you didn't purchase from the Apple store. The answer is that they don't and there is no method for adding series information.

Kobo has had group by series for a while as well. It works pretty well and series can be marked in Calibre, and then updated on the device if you have the right add-ons. Maybe there is something similar for the kindle and I haven't found it yet.

When buying books at the various app stores, series information is usually included. Since I buy mostly from Amazon, I notice it the most. They really improved how they handle series several years ago. It notes which books are in the series and which books you already have. You do have to click on the right links to get there, but for me, it's not nearly as much of an issue when I'm already in the browser. There are some gaps, but I suspect it's because Amazon pushes maintaining the book catalog back onto the publishers.

One thing that I've noticed is that when I buy from Baen books, the calibre series metadata is already filled in. This is something that I think that other publishers could add value by doing.

[Quoth]

Amazon Store often gets Series numbers wrong. I don't know if it's them or the supplier.
I'm happy to check alternate sources and manually update Calibre.

However neither collections or Series works properly on my PW3, collections only work on the Kindle DXG if you never connect to Amazon and they don't work on the KK3. Connecting/Sync to Amazon messes up collections on all my Kindles.

All the Kobos work fine for Collections and Series.

[crane3]

What is considered a "series": date of purchase, date of publish, chronological? or??

Do people "change the series number" when 'prequels' get published/bought? How about when the author writes a book that is "in between" a numbered series?

I have given up as I am not too concerned whether I read a book in its chronological order.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by crane3

What is considered a "series": date of purchase, date of publish, chronological? or??

Depends. Mostly I read in the publication order, but occasionally in the chronological. It depends on the series.

Do people "change the series number" when 'prequels' get published/bought? How about when the author writes a book that is "in between" a numbered series?

I don't buy prequels often, but in the case I do, a prequel gets the number 0. Books in between get the number 1.5, 2.5, 3.5 etc. as needed.

I have given up as I am not too concerned whether I read a book in its chronological order.

I certainly want to read a series in the correct order. Sometimes there are spoilers in the later books, and sometimes the books are not meant to stand alone, i.e. you cannot understand much or anything at all unless you've read the previous books.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by crane3

What is considered a "series": date of purchase, date of publish, chronological? or??

For me, it depends on what the author thinks is the series order. Otherwise, chronological within the books.

Originally Posted by crane3

Do people "change the series number" when 'prequels' get published/bought? How about when the author writes a book that is "in between" a numbered series?

Prequels get numbered with a 0 so a single prequel would be 0.5. For some series where the author has churned out multiple prequel novellas, I will number them 0.1, 0.2, etc. As for books in between? If it it a full novel, I renumber the series, if it is a short story/novella, I treat them the same as prequels, i.e. a novella between books 3 and 4 in a series would be 3.5.

Originally Posted by crane3

I have given up as I am not too concerned whether I read a book in its chronological order.

Chronological as in written? Published? Internal chronology? I've had more than one author who was a George Lucas/Star Wars fan and wrote prequel series and restarted the series numbering from the first novel in the prequel series so book 1 is now book 5.

I prefer reading in internal chronological order otherwise you find yourself tripping over too many spoilers.

[theducks]

I with @DNSB In that THE AUTHOR view prevails. (sometimes Amazon does not even include the series, or the give it a different name )

Some release shorts (could be deleted scenes) thru other channels. Those get fractional numbers as to where the Author says they fit.
Prequels get 0.x numbering.
A stand beside book in the series get a 0
Omnibus editions, I number Start.end (3.07). x.10 fails in Calibre, but usually I number a short as x.5, so it should be easy to twig on the placement

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Amazon Store often gets Series numbers wrong. I don't know if it's them or the supplier.
I'm happy to check alternate sources and manually update Calibre.

However neither collections or Series works properly on my PW3, collections only work on the Kindle DXG if you never connect to Amazon and they don't work on the KK3. Connecting/Sync to Amazon messes up collections on all my Kindles.

All the Kobos work fine for Collections and Series.

Not all Kobos. The first two models don't and technically the Mini doesn't either.

Other then that, all other models do and that's a darn good record for keeping older models running with the current firmware.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by crane3

What is considered a "series": date of purchase, date of publish, chronological? or??

Do people "change the series number" when 'prequels' get published/bought? How about when the author writes a book that is "in between" a numbered series?

I have given up as I am not too concerned whether I read a book in its chronological order.

With Kindle if all books in the series is purchased from Amazon, you get whatever series order Amazon gives you. You don't have a choice. You cannot change that. You cannot change that because Amazon has locked down the database so Calibre cannot access it to use the series feature.

With Kobo you can use Calibre to set the series order however you want be it date published, chronological, author preferred, or any other order. You do this with Calibre and it works very well.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Amazon Store often gets Series numbers wrong. I don't know if it's them or the supplier.
I'm happy to check alternate sources and manually update Calibre.

However neither collections or Series works properly on my PW3, collections only work on the Kindle DXG if you never connect to Amazon and they don't work on the KK3. Connecting/Sync to Amazon messes up collections on all my Kindles.

All the Kobos work fine for Collections and Series.

I mostly manually enter the series information into Calibre and use that for CC and to side load on to the Kobo. Series in the kindle app is purely kindle books. I find series information useful in the store apps (Kindle and Apple, compared to series info on the Kobo eReader) because I can look to see which books I don't have and buy them. It's also useful when I find a new series, and am binge reading, thus buying the next book in the series as soon as I finish one. If the Kindle app worked like the Books app, then I could simply click on the button and buy it. But I only occasionally buy from Apple. Most of my Kobo books are books that I bought when it was the Sony store and then got transferred over to the Kobo store when Sony shut down their store.

One issue I have with the Kobo device is when I've purchased some of the series from Kobo and some from Amazon and side load with Calibre. Calibre shows them all in the same series, but on the Kobo app, the Kobo purchased books and the side loaded books are shown as different series.