Written by Happy Friday – this is a quick note.
I heard through the FB grapevine that Amazon may be considering taking down eBooks that had the table of contents in the back book matter (which I did). So to be proactive I reformatted the TOC, and now it will be in the front matter. Find out more from David Gaughran in his post here.
In my opinion, it looks ugly this way, but whatever Amazon wants I’m happy to comply if they continue to distribute my books. I thank David for the heads up, as usual. Let’s hope it’s no big deal, but better to be in the know.
I wanted to show you my new covers for
Breaking Cursed Bonds and Exposing Secret Sins
I took the opportunity to also update the covers. What do you think?
Other news:
I have the third book of the serial Curses & Secrets in the editors hands.
I am really excited about Seeking Redemption. I think it’s about time we hear Robert’s voice. Can such a bad guy really attain redemption? Hmm – you’ll have to read it to find out. It will be released later this year, promise.
I’m happy to be working with a new editor for this book – Richard Thomas. He’s not only a great writer and editor, but he’s just finished a Kickstarter and soon he’ll be launching a new online magazine.
Check out:
Gamut Magazine: Neo-noir, speculative, literary fiction.
It’s not too late to get your subscription.
Keep reading – Keep writing!
Hi Paula, thanks for responding. It was smart on your part to have it up front to begin with. Yes, TOC is always in front matter for print. However, it has been common practice for eBook formatters to have the TOC in back matter (I use a link in the front so reader could still access it easy enough) It was commonly accepted to do this so that the sneak preview did not have a lot of ‘stuff’ up front. Most saw this as a way to make it a better reading experience on a digital reader.
Seems some have used this option to send the reader to the back of the book as a way to scam the page views paid for KU. It was also pointed out that Amazon never pushed its preference for TOC in front matter, but it was in the guidelines, as you noted. Still others claim it has more to do with the NCX coding, which is how kindle readers hover over nearby chapter locations. I format with Jutoh software and think the NCX files are fine in my eBooks but I changed them to have the TOC up front now, just in case.
Update – it seems it may not only be KU authors that received notice from Amazon to change the TOC. There was mention from some authors in David’s blog’s comments that Amazon responded when pressed, and stated that it was because of an issue with the NCX coding.
I read the TOC thing on Gaughran’s site. Yikes. I’m not sure if I have it in the back on any of my books, but will def. check (although, none of my books are in KU, so not sure it would matter). Sigh. All because of some bad apples trying to game the system.
Good luck with your new book! Your new covers are def. eye catching 🙂
Thanks Daphne –