How to get KF8 to open at the cover?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by graycyn

Amazon might have the book cover, but they DON'T generally show frontispiece artwork on their website. Or maps. Or title page illustrations. Or TOC illustrations. So, no, people won't necessarily have seen any front matter artwork on the web site. Only the cover.

I agree. That's why I said, put everythign AFTER the TOC. After all, it's not like the Traditional Layout Police will come gunning for you, right? I don't mean to say things that will get the peasants out with the pitchforks (just saying peasants because of the movie, folks, not disrespecting other people...), but it's true. There's no set-in-cement RULE about where stuff GOES. Not even the Doyens of layout will claim that there is. (And trust me: I'm a serious traditionalist. BUT, sometimes, push wins over shove.)

What tells people a map and/or frontispiece or other important information or artwork exists in the front matter if they haven't seen a TOC? How do they know to BE interested in taking the action to page back?

Only the TOC. Hopefully, publishers are smart enough to do that. Yes, that's also a bit of a Tradition break, listing front-matter on the TOC, but, hey.

It's not like any publisher wants:

Chapter 1

STOP! Page back to see the map and frontispiece image that Amazon just zoomed you past! Oh, and by the way, keep reading after the "before you go" screen that pops up after the last chapter, because more cool stuff and artwork awaits!

Begin chapter text here....

No argument here.

Do publishers just have to hope the reader enjoys the text so much that they will visit the TOC?

See, now, oddly enough, this IS something that I do, on every book, and always have. Diff'rent Strokes...

In print form, at least a reader thumbs through the front matter on the way to the text, so if something catches their eye, they can stop and view or read. But if they are simply presented with Chapter 1 or whatever the first full page of text is, I can't see many that would be paging back if there is no visible reason to do so.

And see? I'm not sure that that's true, either. Not everyone flips through, from the cover. Lots of people pick up a book, (if they're righties, let's keep this simple for my sake), and will use their right thumb to find "page 1." Which is typically the first page of the first chapter, right? And start reading there.Iv'e seen that behavior more than I've seen "flip from the cover back, page-by-page." I was recently at a bookstore, and I watched people, specifically due to this very convo. I saw more "flip to Ch. 1" folks, than scanners from the cover back. Could be that they were just trying to decide, of course.

I get that for the vast majority of current, text only fiction books, Amazon's decision on starting books probably works pretty well. But I think it really falls down when it comes to illustrated books.

Probably.

Originally Posted by graycyn

By the way, I'm not trying to argue either, just trying to figure out what might be the best way to present the stuff that Amazon prefers to skip people over.

The vintage books I'd love to publish when/if they become public domain have all kinds of stuff that would be skipped over. Maps, frontispiece images, a fan/author letter section, an illustrated bibliography page.

I'm already figuring maybe a single frontispiece image will have to go after the text it illustrates. But so much is left that falls outside the main text.

Oh well, I guess if people miss the cool stuff, they miss it.

And that's sort of the reality. I would DEFINITELY put that stuff on the TOC, though. I might even consider putting a page, at the end, saying "If you missed the illos in the frontmatter," or, heck, you could be subtle, and put the illustration/map/image/? credits there, or something like 'illustrations and maps in this digital edition have been faithfully reproduced..." Presumably, those that missed the front-matter elements would flip back and notice them. You could even put a link, in the credit, or what have you.

Just thinkin' aloud.

Hitch

[Notjohn]

Amazon might have the book cover, but they DON'T generally show frontispiece artwork on their website. Or maps. Or title page illustrations. Or TOC illustrations. So, no, people won't necessarily have seen any front matter artwork on the web site.

"Generally" doesn't hold true for me. If you look at my Guide on the Amazon store -- B00BK9TN4E -- you will see that it opens at the cover, followed by the title page, TOC, frontispiece, and page one / chapter one. That is true of 20 or 21 of my 26 books. I upload a Sigil-built epub with no SRL ("text") called for. It doesn't always work, but it does most of the time, for me.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

"Generally" doesn't hold true for me. If you look at my Guide on the Amazon store -- B00BK9TN4E -- you will see that it opens at the cover, followed by the title page, TOC, frontispiece, and page one / chapter one. That is true of 20 or 21 of my 26 books. I upload a Sigil-built epub with no SRL ("text") called for. It doesn't always work, but it does most of the time, for me.

NJ:

Are you talking about SRL, in regard to the LITB? As opposed to the actual SRL, on the file itself, when delivered to a device? The SRL doesn't affect the LITB, NJ. There was some jabber, years ago, with people thinking that it affected the LITB, and maybe it did, for about five minutes, but it doesn't now.

???

Hitch

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by Hitch

And see? I'm not sure that that's true, either. Not everyone flips through, from the cover. Lots of people pick up a book, (if they're righties, let's keep this simple for my sake), and will use their right thumb to find "page 1." Which is typically the first page of the first chapter, right? And start reading there.Iv'e seen that behavior more than I've seen "flip from the cover back, page-by-page." I was recently at a bookstore, and I watched people, specifically due to this very convo. I saw more "flip to Ch. 1" folks, than scanners from the cover back. Could be that they were just trying to decide, of course.
Hitch

You make very good points, but at this one, I'm not sure if you can extrapolate what people do in a bookstore to what they do once they've got the book home. In my old print-book days, I'd flip to the body of the work to get a taste of a new author's writing style. Occasionally, as I got older, it would even be to check the font size. Doesn't mean once I owned it that I didn't read the dedication or front stuff.

I will say that I tend to skip all the praise at the front of ebooks. They might have been useful in my more naive and print-book reading days as a suggestion on how good the book is. But I've always viewed those pages as a selling point - something to tempt you to buy the book while you're in the store - rather than anything useful once I actually own the book.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

You make very good points, but at this one, I'm not sure if you can extrapolate what people do in a bookstore to what they do once they've got the book home. In my old print-book days, I'd flip to the body of the work to get a taste of a new author's writing style. Occasionally, as I got older, it would even be to check the font size. Doesn't mean once I owned it that I didn't read the dedication or front stuff.

I will say that I tend to skip all the praise at the front of ebooks. They might have been useful in my more naive and print-book reading days as a suggestion on how good the book is. But I've always viewed those pages as a selling point - something to tempt you to buy the book while you're in the store - rather than anything useful once I actually own the book.

I don't disagree with this.

Hitch

[Notjohn]

>Are you talking about SRL, in regard to the LITB?

Yes indeed. Once they've bought it, let them read from the index backwards, if they like!

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

>Are you talking about SRL, in regard to the LITB?

Yes indeed. Once they've bought it, let them read from the index backwards, if they like!

Why do you think that the SRL affects the LITB?

Hitch

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by Hitch

And that's sort of the reality. I would DEFINITELY put that stuff on the TOC, though. I might even consider putting a page, at the end, saying "If you missed the illos in the frontmatter," or, heck, you could be subtle, and put the illustration/map/image/? credits there, or something like 'illustrations and maps in this digital edition have been faithfully reproduced..." Presumably, those that missed the front-matter elements would flip back and notice them. You could even put a link, in the credit, or what have you.

Just thinkin' aloud.

Hitch

Sorry, too busy to read forums for a few days!

If it turns out I do attempt to publish my father's childhood books when the time comes they are public domain (I think the first is only a couple years away.), I LIKE the idea of putting something on the last page of the last chapter. That's a great idea since it should be readable before the 'before you go' screen, and given the author had a bit of a penchant for self-advertising in his books, could possibly be worded in a similar fashion to fit!

THANK YOU! Good thinking!

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

"Generally" doesn't hold true for me. If you look at my Guide on the Amazon store -- B00BK9TN4E -- you will see that it opens at the cover, followed by the title page, TOC, frontispiece, and page one / chapter one. That is true of 20 or 21 of my 26 books. I upload a Sigil-built epub with no SRL ("text") called for. It doesn't always work, but it does most of the time, for me.

Would that be the Look Inside feature? I have to say, almost invariably when I go to buy a book on Amazon, I don't bother ever looking inside. Except for cookbooks, if I want to get an idea of whether the recipes are simple, complicated or call for oddball ingredients.

So usually what I see of a fiction book before buying, is a cover.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by graycyn

Sorry, too busy to read forums for a few days!

<snippage>

THANK YOU! Good thinking!

Don't worry about the too busy thing. I certainly get that way. Often, in fact.

With some 3500+ eBooks through our shop, we've had to get creative a number of times. Not necessarily "good thinking" inasmuch as simply experience at trying to please publishers in an environment in which they, like you, have additional content that they want seen. So, you get pretty good at "box? Think outside it." :-)

I hope it helps you when the PD comes.

Hitch

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Don't worry about the too busy thing. I certainly get that way. Often, in fact.

With some 3500+ eBooks through our shop, we've had to get creative a number of times. Not necessarily "good thinking" inasmuch as simply experience at trying to please publishers in an environment in which they, like you, have additional content that they want seen. So, you get pretty good at "box? Think outside it." :-)

I hope it helps you when the PD comes.

Hitch

I hope my eyesight is still good enough to work on books when public domain comes around for Dad's childhood book series!

Usually I'm not too bad at thinking outside the box, but the Amazon thing of skipping over chunks of book is rather new to me! I used to have a Kindle Keyboard to test epub conversions on, but I hated it so, I never actually read on it and finally gave it to a relative.

So the first real reading I've done on Kindle is recently, on the refurb Voyage I picked up cheap to a) have a modern Kindle device to test on, and b) easily investigate/read the hundred or so Open Road Media books I picked up when they were free.

One thing sure, this little book digitizing hobby keeps my poor 60 year old brain puzzling along. So many things to learn and figure out!





Sent from my Pixel C using Tapatalk

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by graycyn

I hope my eyesight is still good enough to work on books when public domain comes around for Dad's childhood book series!

<SNIPPAGE>
One thing sure, this little book digitizing hobby keeps my poor 60 year old brain puzzling along. So many things to learn and figure out!

:-) Most of the good folks on this thread, me included, are older than you. :-)

Hitch

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by Hitch

:-) Most of the good folks on this thread, me included, are older than you. :-)

Hitch

Making ebooks ages us faster, I'm sure of it! 😂

But hopefully it keeps our brains young ... well, at least when we aren't beating our heads against a wall.

Sent from my Pixel C using Tapatalk

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by graycyn

Making ebooks ages us faster, I'm sure of it! 😂

But hopefully it keeps our brains young ... well, at least when we aren't beating our heads against a wall.

Sent from my Pixel C using Tapatalk

I'm positive that it's aged me a baker's dozen years past my chrono age. Or, wait...maybe that's just dealing with my clients. :-)

Hitch