E-readers and page breaks

[Legendary Sidekick]

A quick question...

I'm making a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure type e-book. I've uploaded to Kindle in the past, so I know all about hyperlinks and bookmarks.

But what I don't know is what it's like to actually use an e-reader.

Basically, I'm asking this: do you scroll or turn pages? (Or do you have the option to do either?) My concern is that if I have three choices available, it's possible that two hyperlinked choices appear at the bottom of the page, while the third choice ends up on the next page, making the reader think s/he only has two choices.

If this is a possibility, the obvious solution is to have a page break before the question and choices. But if you would normally scroll until there's a page break, this is unnecessary.

 

[Butterfly]

On my kindle, you turn the pages with a button on the side.

 

[Hans]

My e-book reader (Pocketbook) has no scroll option. I have been told that this is not possible, because e-ink is not fast enough to scroll.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Perfect... I actually prefer that there is no option! The only thing that made me think that changed was when I was researching other Choose-Your-Own-Adventure type e-books and the preview on Amazon seemed to be scrollable.

I'll probably add page breaks before choices come up then, just to be sure there's no confusion.

Thanks for the replies!

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Come to think of it... one more question about e-readers.

About what size should the document be to simulate the screen size of an e-reader? I just want to have a rough idea of how much text can be seen on a single page. Obviously, 8.5 x 11 with a 12-point font and 1-inch margins is considerably larger.

I realize readers can change text size and all that, so I'm looking for something that's about the same as the default setting.

 

[Devor]

Unfortunately, Sidekick, it may be harder than that. Page breaks on a kindle usually aren't set. You're reading a certain number of "locationss" based on your text size and a few other factors. You may want the question to look like its own chapter.

 

[Steerpike]

Devor is correct. Also, the amount of text shown on a single screen varies across different devices (even across different Kindles). If you're worried about making sure that certain text always starts on a new screen, you can code that into the HTML. That way a new "page" will begin where you want it, regardless of how much text was on the preceeding page.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Devor, that's exactly what I'm thinking. A separate page for the question/choices, as if it's a tiny chapter.

Steerpike, I'm using Pages for the Mac, which has an "export to e-pub" function. I'm hoping that means not having to enter a line of code to force a page break. But I appreciate the warning, and am mentally prepared that I may need to use some HTML code. (I know hyperlinks to bookmarks work.)

Thank you both, by the way!

 

[Lord Darkstorm]

epub is not kindle, kindle is more of a mobi format that amazon has latched onto..which is a shame because some people only target kindle and ignore those of us who have other readers that primarily do epub. If you want to create your own epubs, then you should look at sigil (google it). It's a free epub creator that has a version for quite a few os's including mac. I've put together quite a few things for my ereader with it and it's pretty simple to use. Sadly, epub won't be supported by kindle. Kindle fire maybe, but not as a kindle book.

 

[Steerpike]

I formatted mine for both .mobi and .epub. I agree Sigil is a good program. Right now I am in KDP Select, so I'm not selling the ePub version, but I may go back to it at some point.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

some people only target kindle and ignore those of us who have other readers

That's a mistake I won't make--especially since what I'm doing will probably not be released on paper.

And thanks, Darkstorm and Steerpike, for the clarification. I find the incompatability of all these different formats to be annoying, when this should really be as simple as "type in MS Word and upload." But it's a fact that I'll have to deal with for the time being.

I'll definitely need to make sure I know how everything works before I upload, and I'll avoid doing anything too fancy. I know that the hyperlinks and bookmarks work, so at least I know I can get a choose-your-own-adventure type book to function properly even if the pages don't break they way I want them to.

My only concern about forcing a page break is that there will be one line of text, then you flip the page and see three lines of text (a question + 2 choices). In Word/Pages, a table with invisible borders would solve this problem easily, because a table would never be displayed on more than one page unless it's bigger than a page. I can only assume that this tactic will not work with epub or mobi.