There’s been some discussion on forums and the blogosphere recently about the different parts that should make up an ebook, and what order they should be in. J.A. Konrath just did an interesting blog post on the subject, in which he picks his own books apart and gives some advice. At the moment, here is how I’ve structured mine:
- Cover image (600×800). Usually the same as the high res one I upload separately to publish, but may be different.
- Copyright page. Very brief.
- Table of Contents, with hyperlinks to each chapter.
- The book blurb, which also appears in the book description on most retail sites.
- The book itself. When you open up the ebook for the first time, this is where it automatically starts.
- A brief author’s note, in which I tell the story behind the story–how I came up with the idea, what the writing process was like, and any other relevant influences worth mentioning.
- The acknowledgment page, in which I list my first readers and anyone else who helped out with the book production.
- A couple of sample chapters for other books. I only put these into the novels, though–for the novellas, they would take up more than 10% of the total ebook content. That’s pushing it.
- A page promoting the Writer2ePub plugin which I use to build my ebooks. It’s a really awesome plugin, and I figure the developer deserves some acknowledgment for his work.
I don’t totally agree with all of Konrath’s advice. For example, I think the copyright page is small enough that it can go in the front without inflating the sample too much. Then again, I keep the copyright page pretty brief–none of these ridiculous “unauthorized reproduction of this content is piracy and piracy is evil blah blah blah.” Not that I want to be pirated, but I figure my readers are smart enough to know all that stuff already.
In general, though, I think Konrath’s advice is mostly right, especially the part about not padding the end of the book with sample chapters. I’ve seen a lot of readers complain about getting to the 90% mark of an ebook, only to find that the story is over and the rest of the content is filler. As a reader, I’ve experienced that disappointment myself.
However, I do think it’s important to include at least some sort of mention of other available books in the back matter. Until now, that’s meant sample chapters, as long as they take up less than 5% or so of the total content. Since my Star Wanderers novellas are so short, I haven’t added any sample chapters to them–just a brief plug to sign up for the email list. And for my novels, I only add a prologue or first chapter, so as not to take up too much space.
Recently, though, I’ve started to rethink this strategy. When I finish a book, I’m not usually in the mood to read a sample chapter of the next one unless it’s a direct sequel that picks up right where the end of the book leaves off. I will eagerly browse through book blurbs, though, especially if they’re in the same series or genre. A good book blurb is much more likely to influence my decision on what to read next than a sample chapter, which I usually just skip over.
For that reason, I’ve decided to take out the sample chapters in my novels over the next few weeks, and replace them with a much shorter page containing a thumbnail cover image and book description for the next book. I’ll still keep the author’s notes, since I enjoy writing them and I think they’re a good way to engage my readers. It’s one of those things that makes it a Vasicek book. But yeah, the sample chapters are gonna go.
This also opens up the possibility of trading book blurbs with other writers. For example, my friend Kindal Debenham writes space opera stories in the same vein as my Gaia Nova series. He shows up in my Also Boughts every now and again, so I know there’s a bit of a crossover in our readership. I haven’t approached him with this idea yet, but if we both included short book blurbs for each other in the back matter of each of our books, we could cross-pollinate our fan base and point readers out to some books they’d be likely to enjoy.
That’s just a thought. It will be interesting to run with it.
As for the sneak peek I promised in the title of this post, I’ve been playing around in Gimp the last couple of days, working on the cover art for the next Star Wanderers novella while waiting for my editor and illustrator to get back to me on Stars of Blood and Glory. Here’s what I came up with:
What do you guys think? That’s a pretty cool nebula, isn’t it? Hubble is so friggin awesome. 🙂 I took this from a new image of NGC 5189 that was featured on APOD a few months back. The moment I saw it, I knew I’d be using it in a Star Wanderers cover. 😀
Dreamweaver is a parallel novella to Outworlder, and covers the events of that story from Noemi’s point of view. I wrote it back in the spring of 2012, and put it on the back burner while I focused on finishing the other ones in the series. In the author’s note of Fidelity, I think I referred to it as “Star Home,” which was originally its working title. I was going to do all the other parallel novellas from Noemi’s point of view, but I’ve since decided to branch out with the other characters. Right now, I’m writing a novella from Jakob’s point of view, which is turning out to be quite interesting.
After Stars of Blood and Glory is published, I plan to put up Star Wanderers: Dreamweaver, hopefully within a month or two. After that, I’d like to bundle parts I-IV into an omnibus and put that up as The Jeremiah Chronicles, in ebook as well as print-on-demand. A lot of that depends on cash flow, though, since I plan to hire an illustrator and go all out. If any of you have any suggestions for a good artist / cover designer, please let me know! The Star Wanderers books take place in the same universe as the Gaia Nova series, but they have their own distinctive feel and I’d like to find someone whose art reflects that.
That’s just about all for now. It’s getting late, and I plan to wake up early to write. President’s day is kind of a useless holiday–in fact, most one-day holidays are kind of useless when you’re a freelancer. So yeah. Later!
