Do you split omnibuses into separate books?

[Apache]

I am to busy reading the omnibuses to take the time to split them into individual books.

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

I do the opposite, I often merge all the epubs to have the series in one file. (I am now reading L.E. Modesitt's "Recluce Saga" constructed from the 16 epubs.) I have made a bunch of 5 book or fewer "omnibusi".

Luck;
Ken

Your work is never done.
Cyador's Heirs is due to be released on May 20 of this year and another, Heritage of Cyador, is due towards the end of the year.
Apache

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by Apache

I am to busy reading the omnibuses to take the time to split them into individual books.


Your work is never done.
Cyador's Heirs is due to be released on May 20 of this year and another, Heritage of Cyador, is due towards the end of the year.
Apache

Well I should be good then, I'm only just starting "Scion of Cyador", by the time those are out, I still should remember enough to just continue on.

Luck;
Ken

[ucfgrad93]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I can't be bothered to split them up. I just read them.

That is what I do as well.

[Yapyap]

I recently started splitting them in Calibre for an easier way to mark books read. I rarely read several books in a series right after one another, so I needed some way to keep count of what I've already read and what not.

For Amazon-bought omnibuses and those originally ePub ones already on my Kindle, I am not going to reload the split versions - I just stop reading whenever I'm done with one book in the omnibus, then go and read something else and then return and continue from wherever I left off, once I'm ready to continue with that series.

For future ePub-bought omnibuses, I'll likely already send the split versions to the Kindle, since now I split everything upon buying and importing to Calibre. (I import all my Amazon books to Calibre as well for disinfecting and safekeeping but usually download them straight on the Kindle for actual reading.)

The ePub split plug-in on Calibre works just fine, although it does take a few minutes to split + download metadata & a cover for each individual book. Still, it does make it much easier to have a more accurate TBR and already-read count!

[Sweetpea]

I split them. I find it easier to browse back in a previous book if it's not the exact same file as the current book...

[meeera]

I don't much care about omnibuses; I'm just impressed that Mobileread got all the way to comment #20 without someone insisting that it should be "omnibi".

[Katsunami]

The dictionary says that it should be "omnibuses"...

[latepaul]

I've split four or five I suppose. The first one I did was a collection of HG Wells books - 38 in all. There were two reasons for splitting it, firstly because I prefer having a separate record in Calibre (I didn't know about "empty books" at the time) and secondly because my Kobo Touch was my main reader at the time and its performance takes a nosedive if an individual file is > ~250k.

I took a look at the files and found the formatting horrendous - lots of remnants of a conversion with an old version of Calibre. So I ended up converting to plain text and starting from scratch in Sigil. I did mostly very basic formatting and a few common changes such as replacing _word_ with genuine italics. I also sourced images and created a cover, a TOC and section headings (Wells was very fond of chapters with sections, sub-sections and so on). I developed a fairly stream-lined work-flow by the end but with 38 I did rather lose the will to live a little. (Especially since I'll probably never read more than a handful of the novels)

The ones I've done since then have mostly had reasonable formatting and so I've never done such a complete job again.

[Blithe]

I don't understand what's meant by 'create an empty book' (I purchase a book on my laptop or my Kindle, then I download it and start reading), but I don't split up omnibuses at all -- alright, I don't know how to, but I wouldn't do it if I could. In fact, I go out of my way to track down omnibuses published by Delphi specifically so that I can access all (or most) of a certain author's works without needing to scour my cloud for them. I love omnibuses -- I often wish that some of my favourite publishers, such as Tor and Black Library, would publish omnibuses through Amazon too!

[LadyKate]

If I don't have the book in a series already I split it out IF it is a favorite author or part of a large series. I do this always if the omnibus is not in order. IE if it is book three and five I will split it out.

When possible I like to read a series from book one to current or end (whichever comes first)

I also am considering splitting out the books from the new omnibus type (multiple books in genre usually from different series by multiple authors). These unconnected by anything but genre books can be quite irritating to read without the previous books in the series.

I have also been known to split a series story from an anthology in order to have the complete series including short stories.

[shalym]

I'm with DiapDealer and others who say that they don't split, just read. I do keep track of the books I've read, but I do it on the same spreadsheet that I use to keep track of what I've bought when for how much and from where and which device it's on. While I realize that I could do all of that with Calibre, I don't bother.

For me, Calibre is just a way to store clean copies of the books that I've bought, and to convert them and send to device when needed. Of course, I also don't do any re-formatting of any kind--if the formatting is so bad that the book can't be read, I'll return for a refund and leave a bad review. Note that to me, "formatting so bad that the book can't be read" means just that, I physically can not read the book. This has only happened twice, and both times it was because of a publisher imposed font that made the text so small that I couldn't read it on my Kindle. Margins, paragraph spacing, image size, etc only bother me if the story doesn't hold my attention.

So...this is yet another poll that I can not answer because there is no option that applies to me.

Shari

[QuantumIguana]

The only problem I have with omnibuses (at least for the ones that I have read) is that the progress bar shows the progress though the entire omnibus, rather than for the current book. I'd like if if the progress bar was based on the current book.

I read the omnibus on my bus. I don't really ride the bus that much, but I just thought that sounded funny.

[DiapDealer]

I'm one of those odd ducks who actually likes not being able to track my progress throughout a volume. Knowing how close I am to the end of a book usually makes me start assuming things I wouldn't normally assume were I closer to the beginning. I like surprises.

[Waylander]

I split them if they are too big, but if the individual books are short, then an omnibus of those three books will be as big as a normal to mid-large book, if that makes sense.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

The only problem I have with omnibuses (at least for the ones that I have read) is that the progress bar shows the progress though the entire omnibus, rather than for the current book. I'd like if if the progress bar was based on the current book.

I read the omnibus on my bus. I don't really ride the bus that much, but I just thought that sounded funny.

Yes; that's indeed a bit of a problem. It's hard to see where exactly you are in a book when reading a Delphi Classic, if you're at page 7,231 of 16,251.

Most of the time, I extract parts from the Delphi Classics I want to read as a whole, such as the Professor Challenger works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. They total 515 pages, so they can serve as one book

It's no problem stuffing a 20K page Delphi Classic on the Kindle, by the way; it's only easier to see progress in a single book and to register it as a single read if it's extracted first.

Originally Posted by Waylander

I split them if they are too big, but if the individual books are short, then an omnibus of those three books will be as big as a normal to mid-large book, if that makes sense.

Makes perfect sense. I've stacked a large buch of short stories by one author into an 800 page anthology.