Copyright page necessary?

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by PandathePanda

Most of my fiction pbooks don't have a TOC, two trilogies have a basic TOC (book 1: page no# book 2: page no# book3: page no#) only one have a "valid" TOC, so an ebook with no/barebones TOC looks like a lot of my pbooks.

Oh, very definitely! None of my backlist novels had a TOC. I only retrofitted them when Amazon introduced the Look Inside preview.

And agreed also that nothing looks more stupid than a Daniel Silva thrilla with fity chapter links: CHAPTER 1, CHAPTER 2, CHAPTER ...

And as I mentioned, here or elsewhere, the epub of Tom Wolfe's Back to Blood (with good chapter titles) appears at the back of the book. I think Mr Wolfe's and Mr Silva's formatters should swap their tools.

[rewyn]

Thanks for all the responses to my post. Unfortunately our Academic books must have interactive TOC's. My original query has been lost.

I was trying to get comments regarding the Copyrights location? Moving that to the back of the ePub.

[BryanK]

Originally Posted by rewyn

Thanks for all the responses to my post. Unfortunately our Academic books must have interactive TOC's. My original query has been lost.

I was trying to get comments regarding the Copyrights location? Moving that to the back of the ePub.

I apologize for hijacking. My bad.
Returning to the Copyrights discussion...

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by rewyn

I was trying to get comments regarding the Copyrights location? Moving that to the back of the ePub.

What more do you want us to say? Put it in the back if you like; it won't hurt anything, except that you lose the opportunity to display an enticing list of chapters in Amazon's Look Inside preview or the equivalent on other shops.

[Turtle91]

I hate copyright pages at the front....most people skip right over, never reading them. They are the legalistic fine print of the book...put it at the bottom(back). If anyone actually wants some of the info on there, they can click on the link in the TOC - which should be at the front of the book if it is in there at all - not both front AND back.

[Notjohn]

When I first moved the copyright etc to the back, I would link to it on the title page, by putting the year after the publisher's name, hotlinked to the copyright page. I figured that was a hint that something momentous had happened in 2015 (whatever).

Lately however I have gotten away from that. I feel very comfortable about moving it, now that I've seen mainstream publishers do it. (Not many, but some.)

And I do of course list it at the bottom of the TOC, which is up front.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by rewyn

Thanks for all the responses to my post. Unfortunately our Academic books must have interactive TOC's. My original query has been lost.

I was trying to get comments regarding the Copyrights location? Moving that to the back of the ePub.

To answer this without all the kibbitzing:

There is zero legal reason, and, given everything you've said, no reason whatsoever NOT to move your copyright page to the back of the book. The copyright assertion is required by law, but only custom dictates where the page goes. Traditionally, it's been in frontmatter, but the legality of it, and its effect, is impacted not one whit by being moved to the very last page (or, for that matter, the inside cover, if you felt like it!). You are good to go.

Hitch

[rewyn]

Thank you all for responding to my posting. After much discussion we have decided to move the copyrights page to the back of all future ePubs.

[Notjohn]

Please let us know if you get any feedback.

I'm leaving the TOC where it is for the moment. I think it's great advertising for the book.