As a reader, I would love this! The excerpts and things, not so much, but I would LOVE to pick up an ebook with the list of other books available by the author right there at the front of the book. This is a fantastic idea!!! Someone, please do this!

And the link part would be even better. That way, when I’m done reading the book, if I really liked it, I could just click on those links and battabing, go buy the other books without going to a website, searching for the author, etc. No it doesn’t take much time, but it does slow my immediate gratification, and depending on how long it takes to get to the authors page and all that, I admit sometimes I don’t end up buying right then and sometimes not later either, life being what it is.

Samhain does put other available titles by the author and those coming soon–after the book in e-format, and right up front in the print version. It would be nice to see the covers under the titles, too. Any cross-promo excerpts are chosen very carefully to be ones that will likely appeal to readers who enjoyed the book–sometimes by genre, sometimes by sexual content.

I’ve read some print books where series titles were listed in alphabetical order. Very freaking annoying, since there was NO indication what order to read them in. I would hope epublishers are smarter than that. :)

I think what they did with Marion Zimmer Bradley before the Title Page in this case was focused to selling this book by explaining how it fit into the series. Sort of like a recap. Not just promoting any random other works by the author. That type of promotion was done at the end of the book in a list format.

Ok, can’t really remember exactly what I said but yes, I do think there’s more all epubs can do, and why they aren’t doing more, I can’t imagine. However I for one wouldn’t want pages and pages of promotional stuff before the title page, in exactly the same way I don’t want pages and pages of PS before the title page in a dead tree book (oops ;)) I would like to see:

1. Other works by this author (with active links if that’s possible, seeing as how some people like me read on a PC)
2. Other works in this series and the order you read them in.

Perhaps – like the pratchett books – pictures of covers, they are always nice to see too, but I’d prefer the blurbs and adverts to be after the book itself.

I remember that a lot of my childhood books had pages of promotional stuff at the end often as much as 20 or so pages-kind of a “if you liked this, then you’ll like these” which was hugely useful to me as a child, and some publishers do the same with paper books now, again, which I often take notice of, as I like to know more authors who are writing the same kind of style. I don’t want to search all over the internet to find another gay historical–and I can’t tell you what a boon it would be, if–for example, in the eversion of Alex Beecroft’s book–the publisher listed all the other gay historicals in their catalogue.

But I don’t want it all at the front or it becomes like that famous song from Danny Kaye’s Up in Arms where he talks about all the persiflage at the beginning of the movies and you get impatient. With the unrestricted media of ebooks, e.g. you could put 30 pages of promo or any amount, really, at the back and you aren’t killing any more trees, or costing the publisher much more to create these pages, it seems an ideal opportunity for publishers to do this.

I think eBooks and their cost in creation make keeping old content up to date, relative to new content available, not a bad investment. Updating Information Templates is simply an administrative task unlike updating cover art when I see them take an eBook to print that I think would also pay off in the long run especially if implemented across the board in an orderly fashion.

In my limited experience, they seem very reluctant to do that.

I can see both sides on this point though. There is a certain amount of time that goes into prepping a book to be ported to all its different formats, and it isn’t a wise use of man hours to do it twice. In theory, any mistakes in eBooks should be able to be corrected, too, but again, changing multiple file types every time someone points one out is not cost effective. But then, on the other side, I agree with you, it’s not that difficult to do.

I’d definitely appreciate “Other works by this author” (with active links, after all, this is technology) (if that’s possible, what do I know, I’m a cavewoman) at the front – “books in this series in reading order” as you find with O’Brian, Cornwell and the like, but not pages and pages of promotional stuff. I remember that many of my children’s books would have a section at the back, often stretching to 10 pages or more showcasing “if you liked this, then you’ll love these” and that’s a great idea, but at the back, please. Otherwise it all becomes like the famous song from Danny Kaye’s Up In Arms where he talks about all the gubbins that happens before you FINALLY get to see the movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG5KImGATL4

Authors such as George Martin have a teaser chapter for the next book, and that would certainly be great..”coming soon with a teaser” would certainly have me making notes in the TBB pile.