ebook "style" manual

[Lugh]

This is going to sound a little crazy but bear with me.

 

When a person is formatting a "paper" book to be published things go in a particular order....

 

something similar to:

cover (with a dust jacket and blurbs)

maps

title page

previous publications of that author through that publisher

"nice" title page with byline and publisher info

copyright page

Table of Contents (if needed)

acknowledgements

dedications

prologue

text of story

author's note

about the author

 

 

 

Now when a person is formatting an ebook, a couple of those are dropped, but the order has pretty much remained the same...

 

What I would like to know is.... why?

 

Is it just because we are used to it or no one has ever thought to change it?

 

Any thoughts?

[advocatus diaboli]

That's the standard. It's how people have been doing it for however long. We all know how we feel about change.

[comicfan]

Actually it was based off the printers. Traditional printings were cover, blank page (so that if the cover were destroyed at least one page was left to protect the title page. Title page included title, author and publishing company. reverse side included publishing info = name, date, city, etc,

[intune]

In some ways I think it makes a lot of sense. Finding information that you are looking for- publisher, maps, etc. is easier to find if it's in a consistent order in every book. I think at least that part is useful

[Nephylim]

I say that rules are made to be broken.

 

People hate change but to stay the same is to stagnate.

 

I think that the cover art pretty much has to stay on the front as it is this which attracts people to the book but as for the rest... how much of it does anyone read anyway?

 

I say experiments and see what looks good and works

 

 

Of course I am a total technological non so what do I know

[Lugh]

well depending on the format of the ebook, it doesn't make a difference... for example... the Kindle... you have "hot buttons" for table of contents and where to start

 

table of contents can be ANYWHERE in the text apparently (if that's where you want it

 

and start is where you want the reader to start reading.

 

With a little ingenuity one of those choose your own adventure books would be a hell of a lot of fun on a kindle.

 

 

 

on the otherhand, adobe, makes you look at the document from top to bottom like it's taken a photograph. in that case I would suggest following the near to tree book format. Besides you can print them and make them a tree book.

 

looking into some of the others now....