ePub and Spine Order

Let's open this topic with a comment designed to split the readers into two camps.

Don't fall into extensive reordering the e-book spine trap. It has no real benefits, raises the cost of production, and reduces and devalues "The Book".

• Remove the minimum number of pages you can. That probably means Half-title page.
• All sections don't have to be in the NCX, and they don't have to appear in the NCX in the order they are in the spine. (Explained later).
• e-Up the various front and back matter section concepts rather than destroy them as irrelevant for e-books.

Fiction and narrative non-fiction are not really affected by any of this. But nearly every other publishing genre is. This post is targeted at small publishers who may be producing e-books for the first time and need a little background on why some things are done, should they be done, and do they have options or is it "e-book law".

There is a lot of brilliant consultant noise on the spine reordering - remove the title page, move the copyright to the back, delete the index, open the book at the first reading page... and sometimes a lot more.

I usually get to ask why do you want to do this shuffle-around? There are various justifications, but they are usually change for the sake of it, rather than for a compelling reason. They usually diminish the value of the e-book rather than enhance it. For some reason emerging digital book experts feel they have to change something. 

The Spine and the NCX

There are four data structures in a ePub to control how things are laid out and define some part of user interaction and navigation.

1. The Manifest. A list of all the files included in the package. It's the source of ID's to everything else.

2. The Spine. The linear reading order. When you use forward navigation - next page, the system moves through the document using the spine order. Each valid OPS content document is only allowed to appear in the spine once. Spine references can also be auxilary with a linear-"no" attribute. The reading device skips over these. This is very useful for documents with more interaction.

3. The NCX. (Navigation Center eXtended) Provides navigation to various sections. It allows you to jump to a location. Typically this is a start of a section. Device limitations restrict the use of the NCX for more exciting things than a replica of the Table of Contents.

4. The Guide. This identifies the structural components of a book with a controlled grammar.  It is optional in the spec, but Apple have made it more or less mandatory in iPad.

The spine defines the next/previous page navigation, the NCX provides section jumping. The first entry in the spine defines where the ePub will open (if the reading system is not making other decisions).

Where should a book open the first time?

It is entirely your choice as a publisher. There is no best-practice. Only opinions.

Their opinion. There are experts who say the book should open at the first reading page of the book, so you can just get reading. I can give a number of reasons why that one is plain stupid. I would also say they are mostly Gutenberg book readers.  This stuff not based on user research.It's just a load of consultant opinion noise.

My Opinion. Keep the title page and open the book on the cover or title page for the first opening. Don't open at the first text page unless you decide, for a particular book, it is the best user experience. Think only of the end-user payoff you are delivering on that first interaction. Some reading systems may provide a "remember last reading position" when opening books in subsequent reading, so this can only be reliably enforced the first time. It is potentially "one-shot".

So think about your book and the experience your reading audience will have the first time they open the e-book. Children's books, novels, non-fiction, self-help, high-touch, education and academic can and probably should all have different approaches.

Why eliminate the Title page? Why not e-Up the title page concept and increase its value to both the reader and publisher. 

Some simple section advice

Front Matter

Cover

Your cover can be the first opening page defined by the spine, does not have to appear in the NCX, but it can. It's your choice. If your cover is a talking point, get it in the NCX. If you have the e-book rights to the print book cover artwork, exploit it.  Remind the reader what a great purchasing decision they made.

Half-title

You can remove it. You can also leave it in the spine order and not have it in the NCX. Half-title on the NXC probably looks a little naff, and the book title repeated twice is overdoing it. So at least keep it off the NCX.

About the Author

Depending on the reputation of the author, this is variously retained at the front or the back. Remember there are no rules. It's your call and e-books should be crafted with the same thought as print books. So you can make up your own rules such as: Move "About the Author" to the back, except when notified to place it in the preliminary sequence.

ATA is usually kept as a simple single page for print to save paper. Seriously consider an expanded author bio, and opinion pieces, or an interview. Think "E".

Series-title | By the Same Author

There is a trend to move this type of section to the back of the book. Probably the About the Author and By the Same Author content should be kept together whether they are at the front or back. But you are the publishing genius. Create a reader experience.

Remember your ePub may end up on a colour device. Rather than a simple list of titles, put cover thumbnails in, the short blurb and at least a link to an Internet interstitial purchase page.

Title Page

So if you think the e-Bookshelf entry and cover is enough presentation of the title, you can probably remove this.

My opinion don't. It is an anticipation builder, and in non-fiction trade where strong design components have been used, it is a powerful tool to set the feel of the book.

Copyright Page

There is this eBook "thing" that the e-book copyright page is relegated to the back. It's kind-of a herd instinct thing - its an e-book so the copyright goes to the back right?  Why? Beats me. The only reason can be so it doesn't "clutter" the NCX or something.

You don't really have to move the copyright page to the end. It is a thing that started with the first generation of readers because they had hard-coded solutions - MS Reader for example. Given that the copyright page is probably the most important single section in a book (from an author and publisher perspective), it amazes me it gets so easily relegated.

Put your copyright wherever you think it should go. It can go in the NCX anywhere.

Contents - TOC (Generated)

The NCX is a type of Contents, but many books also use an internally generated Table of Contents. (So we remove the title page and double up on the contents!)

In fact, for non-fiction books it is probably useful/advisable to use an internal generated table of contents. This can have extended navigation, and allows to-and fro navigation from section titles to the generated TOC page.

This is usually better than going to the NCX in reader devices. Finding the book NCX is sometimes hard to get to and navigate. A book with more than 30 informational TOC sections definitely needs an internal Table of Contents for most mobile devices.  Again, the internal generated or created e-TOC has some serious potential for extension in ePub.

For standard fiction it is doubtful a generated TOC page has any value, but if you want it, do it.

Other List of's - LOI, LOT, LOF, LOM etc.

Ideally these are included and link to the top of their resources. Note that a lot of these cross section links will/can perform slowly in some current devices (Sony Readers). These devices will not be around forever, and your ePub probably will.

This is where it gets tough for publishers and you have to make a decision, or at least a set of guidelines. The correct thing to do is take that book with 80 figure references. Link them and test them on a device like a Sony PRS505. Normal page navigation is a couple of seconds. If link jumping in a slow device is under 7 seconds, live with it. Put an apology on your blog blaming Sony.

Dedication and Epigraph

Keep them in the spine, and I certainly like to see them in the NCX, but that's your choice. They add a human dimension to the book. Some print books even put the dedication on the Copyright page. Depending on the length and layout of the copyright waffle, that may work.

Other front matter: Foreword, Preface, Introduction

From here on there are not many controversies and the e-book axeman is on holiday. These all necessarily remain in place.

Body

Second Half-title

Definitely keep them in the spine sequence, especially if a book is a collection you will need them as navigation targets. If your front matter has a lot of sections consider bringing the Second half-title into the NCX as well even though it may result in the repitition of the book title after introduction or something similar.

Part, Chapter

Obviously these are all going to stay, and in their right place and sequence.

The only comment here is whether, and how, you link the section numbers and titles to an internally generated TOC if you have one. Your options are:

1. Don't link them. Let the user use the NCX navigation.
2. Link them with Webpage Hyperlink blue and cheapen the hell out of your book. (I personally think this looks totally disgusting)
3. Link them and use your CSS to maintain the default text styles and let the user discover the functionality. Give a hover style.

The downside of option 3 is e-Ink devices do their own XOR text inversion on links to make them stand out. iPad doesn't directly support the CSS :hover pseudo element because of the non-continuous pointer behaviour. But that is a story for another blog.

Back matter

Appendix, Notes, References, etc.

Most back matter is safe from the e-book axeman's sword. Appendices, notes, references, etc. all obviously stay.

Index

The big victim of e-book torture is the Index.

When I see a SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) that says - "Delete the Index", or "Delete the Index numbers", I cringe. We never commit this crime in production, but do when e-book formats are output and customers demand it. We hear statements like "they can use the search tools in the reader". Yeah, like they work!

Fortunately Small and Medium publishers are awake to the value of good index linking. When a book is created through retro-digitization of a PDF or hard-copy, it is easy to maintain the original page links. Therefore index numbers can get to within 2-300 words of their print position. About the same experience as a print book.

Index links are dense, and again cause limited resource devices to come to their knees. To address this we can optionally segment indexes. This has two benefits. It makes it easier to navigate through the alpha entries quickly, and it lowers the resource pressure on the device.There are no reverse links on Indexes, so this allows going round all references in an index term relatively friendly.

Next the page numbers can be turned to sequence numbers. This is not as good as the original page numbers, but is a good substitute.

The picture (courtesy Faber and Faber) shows the segmented Index in the NCX, and the index page numbers turned to sequence numbers. All of these are options in IGP:FLIP Formats on Demand and not difficult to do.  

Excerpts

Excerpts are relatively high value promotions, especially if they have a little background info with them. Not all books can support excerpts from other authors, and where possible excerpts should support some value for the reader and not be just a shameless promotion (but that is an opinion). Remember there is no castoff calculation to worry about with e-books. Take advantage of that fact.

Back Ads

Usually these are removed, but not always. It depends on their currency and relevance. You know if yours should be there or not. 

Colophon

Not very common now-a-days. It is generally OK to remove this as it contains print edition information. Of course with a little effort it could be turned into an eColophon and contain information about the design and production of your e-Edition.

That's It

So the conclusion is there is no rule or technical reason for any particular print section being included, excluded or moved. Rather than take a general approach, think it through, and put into place a strategy on a per-book basis when the content and end-user experience demands it. A continuous nail-biting novel read is not the same as browsing through a recipe-book, or a highly illustrated learning or reference book. 

And don't forget this is the next major change in publishing. Let's get some new section types defined that don't hark back to ink on paper, and the history and evolution of printed books. That is another blog.

Comments

[Liz Castro]

Excellent article, Richard. The only argument I have heard in favor of moving all the front matter to the back, which I totally agree is "consultant noise", is that downloadable samples generally come from the first section of the book and so it would be good to get some content and the TOC in the sample.

Personally, I think your argument is much more convincing: what we're trying to do is create a positive user experience, and if we plunk them down in the middle of the front matter, or move the front matter where they can't find it (or just don't), that's not so positive.

[Richard Pipe]

Thanks Liz. The point I probably missed making clearly, is that the time is rapidly approaching where e-books are actually designed as e-books; based on the content, genre, reading system and target reader (human), rather than opinion rules.

I don't object to things being moved around, left out, or changed from a print book; in fact I think there is not enough of it... but by design. Interesting times ahead here I think.

[Daniela]

Hi Richard, great article! My opinion on "Where should a book open the first time" is the same as yours, but my client asked me to make it "jump" to the first reading page of the book. I'm a newbie on this (epub) subject and I was wondering if you could help me telling how I can do that. I tried to change the navigation order on the spine toc but it really changed the hole navigation (I just wanted to jump to the page, so if the reader should hit page up, it would navigate to the previous page). I searched some articles on the web and couldn't find it...
Thanks a lot in advance!
Daniela

[Richard Pipe]

Daniela,

Sorry about the delay in replying. A hectic week (that's the excuse). You have to get the difference between the spine and the NCX. A reading device/application is meant to open the first file in the spine, not the NXC/TOC.

So you have to get your spine sequence under control, and your NCX is nothing but a random navigator.

The spec says "Following manifest, there must be one and only one spine element, which contains one or more itemref elements. Each itemref references an OPS Content Document designated in the manifest. The order of the itemref elements organizes the associated OPS Content Documents into the linear reading order of the publication."

The problem is there is no software that easily lets you define the spine sequence and properties and NCX content, so it generally has to be done with manual modification unless you are using (shameless plug) IGP:FLIP.

So the important concept is Spine gives linear up and down, previous and next navigation. NCX gives target, direct link navigation. Do ALL devices and implementations implement this? Most seem to.

Hope that helps.

[Daniela]

Thanks a lot Richard for all your help and explanation! But the thing is: I would like the reader to open at chapter five (for exemple) but I would like the navigation (linear up and down) to be the "normal" one (so, with "page up" it would navigate to chapter four for example). When I changed the spine, putting chapter five first, the navigation was changed to chap5, chap1, chap2... I don't know if I there is a way to do that. My client told me that he saw that on a book in his Kindle (don't know if it's really true though...) Thanks again!!

[Jay Prakash Khanduri]

Hi Richard,

The article is very informative. Thanks for sharing.

I also agree with you in regards to the opening page of an ePub but I am facing a problem with my epub that I have created. It opens on chapter 1 instead of cover page though I have put the cover.xhtml as first entry in in OPF file. Can you please guide how can I fix this problem.

Best Regards