Mini Rant lol

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Yapyap

Anyway, yes, most books these days tend to have a decent enough table of contents, and even if for some reason your bought books start at the cover and don't skip automatically to chapter one (I'm not sure if that's a reader or shop thing? on my Kindle, both Amazon-bought and sideloaded books tend to start on the first chapter - I assume there's a publisher-specified "start here" in the books?), all that front matter is easy enough to skip completely, if one is impatient and knows it won't hold anything of interest.

If you were to build a book in Sigil, you'd notice the ability to semantically mark a file as "Text". This gets translated by KindleGen and calibre convert-to-MOBI/AZW3 to the "Start" reference point which is where your Kindle will link to in the "Go To" link "Beginning". Which is automatically used when you first open a book.

Sometimes the publisher is irresponsible and doesn't do this. I don't think Amazon will go through all Kindle books integrity-checking for this - and if they did, they would be doing a lot more.


@bla, If you are the type to fix up your books, you could get rid of the front matter AND also fix this/set it for wherever you want.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

...

@bla, If you are the type to fix up your books, you could get rid of the front matter AND also fix this/set it for wherever you want.

Or it would be equally as quick to just move all that content to end of the book, where it wouldn't be in your way, yet still available. It would minutes really, nothing difficult at all about it.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Kindle books do that, but there's no equivalent (to the best of my knowledge) for ePub. ePub books always open at the first page.

There's a setting in Sigil for it that does get picked up when the epub is converted to mobi (I've used it to specify starting after the "What has gone before" section), so it appears that ePub supports the feature but that most readers don't implement it.

ETA: I should have read the second page of this thread first, I see eschwartz beat me to it.

[kennyc]

and there are SO MANY WORDS in books!

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kennyc

and there are SO MANY WORDS in books!

I can just hear it now.

"You failed to index MY WORD"

[DiapDealer]

I gave the book three stars--but I probably would've given it four had it not been for all those annoying words at the beginning.

[treadlightly]

As an aside, what is the point of the "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1" at the beginning of ebooks?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

As an aside, what is the point of the "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1" at the beginning of ebooks?

Same as in paper books - it indicates the edition. When the book changes, the lowest number gets removed.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

As an aside, what is the point of the "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1" at the beginning of ebooks?

Originally Posted by HarryT

Same as in paper books - it indicates the edition. When the book changes, the lowest number gets removed.

As Harry says, it's a hang-over from when actual metal plates were used to print from. they would just file off the previous edition number before printing the next edition....

[treadlightly]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Same as in paper books - it indicates the edition. When the book changes, the lowest number gets removed.

Thanks HarryT and kennyc - I knew it was some sort of holdover from printing and was curious why they continued to use it for ebooks.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by kennyc

and there are SO MANY WORDS in books!

Depends on the genre of the book.

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by bla

I have noticed a continuing bloat with ebooks as regards all the crap you have to wade through to get to the actual book.....Acknowledgements.. reviews... etc maybe I didn't notice it all with a paper book but it's becoming very annoying .. sometimes 10-20 pages I care not if you, Mr/Miz author feel the need to thank everybody including your granny who wiped your bottom when you were a snotty nosed brat.... but I don't need to know.. seriously....

I'm with you. It takes a lot longer to page through all that junk in an ebook than to flip past it in a paper book.

What I want to see at the beginning of the book:

- Copyright - because I'm often reading library books and the library site doesn't show the publication date. If it's an author I'm unfamiliar with, I like to know before I start reading when it was written (this year? 1990? 1975?).

- Author's notes, if they are intended to be read before the rest of the book.

What I'd rather have at the end of the book:

- Acknowledgments

- List of other books by the same author

- Sample chapter from next book in the series (but please, if I'm reading book 3, don't give me a sample chapter from book 8 that includes spoilers if I haven't read books 4 through 7!)

What I don't need at all, front or back, paper or ebook:

10 pages of mini-quotes from reviews of other books by the author. You know the kind of thing -
"A masterpiece" - Bob Smith, Anytown News
"I couldn't put it down" - Jane Doe, Anywhere Times

[4691mls]

Edited to add - yes, I do know how to use the table of contents to find chapter 1.
But most books I read don't have a lot of junk in the front, so I'm used to just paging through the copyright and author's note and getting to Chapter 1 quickly, so I get frustrated with the occasional book that throws in more junk.

[meeera]

And I'm one who dislikes having a chapter from the next book at the back of the book - at least until ebooks+ereaders come up with a way to mark them as separate somehow. I really dislike it when I'm reading happily along, I see that I have forty pages to go, and then the book suddenly ends.

Just give me a link to the sample chapter online, or a link to download a preview.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by meeera

And I'm one who dislikes having a chapter from the next book at the back of the book - at least until ebooks+ereaders come up with a way to mark them as separate somehow. I really dislike it when I'm reading happily along, I see that I have forty pages to go, and then the book suddenly ends.

Just give me a link to the sample chapter online, or a link to download a preview.

I'm like you about that and I'll even remove those extra pages. I'll never read those short excerpts just to have to re-read it if I do purchase the book. Even if I did read them, it would never be a deciding factor if I purchase a book or not, especially since the beginning of a book is generally the slowest moving. If it's an author I like, I'm already going to look for more books by them, that short chapter will never factor into my decision, it's just a waste of space to me.