Page Numbers for Kindle

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by HBIT

Thanks, I did not understand that. So, there is no way to have page numbers on a book that is published by Amazon?

Many ebook publishers simply use always visible page numbers in the body text, usually formatted in a shade of grey or another inconspicuous color. It doesn't look great, but it does the job.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Well, THAT is a first! I have never been able to outtype you, Tex! I doubt very many can. ;-)

Well actually I had the post all typed, and wanted to doublecheck my sanity.

I did a search and read through about 10+ different topics (and you seemed to have posted in every single one) explaining similar things on the KDP Forums.

After I clicked Submit, I saw you beat me by a few minutes.

Originally Posted by Doitsu

Many ebook publishers simply use always visible page numbers in the body text, usually formatted in a shade of grey or another inconspicuous color. It doesn't look great, but it does the job.

Have any real examples of this? I must admit, I have never seen a professional book do this, although I have seen crappy OCRs that left the page numbers in the normal flow of the book (seeing this just makes me want to pull my hair out!).

What I have most commonly seen with page numbers is invisible <a id="page###" /> throughout the HTML code, which corresponds to the physical page numbers.

*insert rant about obsolete physical page numbers here*

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Have any real examples of this? I must admit, I have never seen a professional book do this, although I have seen crappy OCRs that left the page numbers in the normal flow of the book (seeing this just makes me want to pull my hair out!).

I don't remember in which book I saw page numbers formatted this way, but, IIRC, it was a major publisher who'd inserted slightly smaller grey page numbers enclosed in square brackets in the body text of a fiction ePub, which I found a bit annoying.
(I.e., the page numbers were definitely not OCR artifacts.) From a design point of view they sure looked ugly, but it still beats having no page number references at all.

[KevinH]

Hi,
I am confused. If you properly create either the pageList in the toc.ncx, or the page-map.xml with links to the page start position of a the hard copy book it was based on, and add the SOURCE metadata pointing to that hardcopy book (typically with the isbn of the print edition) and pass all of this to KDP or to Kindlegen, are you saying the proper apnx file for your book is NOT created by Amazon.

That makes no sense, as the code to match those ids to pages is properly created and stored in by kindlegen, and it can be extracted into its own .apnx file and used.

I have seen many commercial ebooks from Amazon that have done exactly that (most of the Jim Butcher series for example). Don't they support that for kdp?

Thanks,

KevinH

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Hi,
I am confused. If you properly create either the pageList in the toc.ncx, or the page-map.xml with links to the page start position of a the hard copy book it was based on, and add the SOURCE metadata pointing to that hardcopy book (typically with the isbn of the print edition) and pass all of this to KDP or to Kindlegen, are you saying the proper apnx file for your book is NOT created by Amazon.

That makes no sense, as the code to match those ids to pages is properly created and stored in by kindlegen, and it can be extracted into its own .apnx file and used.

I have seen many commercial ebooks from Amazon that have done exactly that (most of the Jim Butcher series for example). Don't they support that for kdp?

Thanks,

KevinH

Kevin:

Although I have a lot of interface with them--more than the average bear, I'd think--I don't pretend to know the inner workings of the mind of Amazon, nor its Amazonians. Just like a/v, which you can submit, working perfectly, all you want, it SEEMS that if you create a perfectly-working apnx, it disappears somewhere, somehow, between the "publish" button and the "buy" button. I don't know the where. Just as I don't know where the Start Location is altered, between "publish" and "buy," even though that seems to happen not once, but twice (once at the KDP, again sometime after that).

There are simply functions at the KDP that work differently than do that of the FTP-intake. Hell, for that matter, most of the FTP'ed books are NOT actually mobi files, they are ePUB files, that are auto-converted, in large batches, at Amazon--but NOT at the KDP. This allows for things that don't come through at the KDP, like audio/video, or automation (some gaming books, etc.). AT the KDP, if you try to upload (say video), it's simply STRIPPED (removed from the book). You can, more easily, see the same process with fonts; some fonts are ripped right out of the book. Actually, when it happens, ALL the fonts, the entire font directory and folder, are ripped from the book, in toto. (You want a fun time--try to publish a book with Papyrus. Go ahead. Drive yourself nuts. NO, not my choice, trust me.)

I haven't tried this (apnx) in quite a long time. It's possible that it may work now, but I have not seen any self-pubbed book in which it does/did. I suppose we could all cobble one together, and try to publish it, and see what happens...? But the problem is, we'd have to go to the end of the process, and actually put the thing up for sale, at least long enough to buy one, and then remove it from sale.

I suppose I could try asking. {shrug}. I suspect I won't get an answer that satisfies me (like my never-ending argument about the SRL with them), but...it can't hurt.

Hitch

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I haven't tried this (apnx) in quite a long time. It's possible that it may work now, but I have not seen any self-pubbed book in which it does/did. I suppose we could all cobble one together, and try to publish it, and see what happens...?

Since the Kindle Publishing Guidelines don't contain pagelist or pagemap examples, I assume that Amazon simply didn't anticipate the possibility that KDP authors might include page number definitions and therefore won't even check if the uploaded books contain pager number definitions.

It's also possible that "real page numbers" will only be included if the authors publish their books both as print and Kindle editions, because I've seen some books published by smaller publishing houses that have "real page numbers."

[HBIT]

Thanks again for all the replies. It was a great primer on Kindle and page numbers. It also gives me an idea of what to expect in working with Kindle to upload an ebook and I have to say, makes me a little anxious.

My wife is just about ready to publish a cookbook with CreateSpace and when she does I will try to publish an ebook that accurately matches the cookbook but with color pictures. I want to have the recipes start on a new page and to be able to easily get to them in the TOC.

I have a basic knowledge of HTML and I have found a workflow using Sigil that I hope will work, but I guess I won't know for sure how well it works until I push the publish button.

Thanks again

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by HBIT

My wife is just about ready to publish a cookbook with CreateSpace and when she does I will try to publish an ebook that accurately matches the cookbook but with color pictures.

In that case, you should definitely include page target anchors and a pagelist/pagemap, because it looks like Kindle books by authors who publish their books via CreateSpace and KDP have "real page numbers." Also since the print book will have page numbers, it'll probably be easier to convince the KDP people to enable "real page numbers."

Originally Posted by HBIT

I want to have the recipes start on a new page and to be able to easily get to them in the TOC.

The easiest way to achieve this, is to create separate .html files for each recipe. However, you can also use one of the CSS page-break properties.

[HBIT]

Thanks,

I will definitely use page target anchors and a pagelist/pagemap.

I plan to use a separate .html file for each recipe and also separate files for each picture/caption.