Maps / Kindle

[Seeker]

You know what I mean. Reading books on a Kidle doesn't allow you to easily flick back to a map. When you do it's hardly legible, well it at least isn't as clear as they present in books.

What's everyone's thoughts on this? I google the maps I guess, but don't refer to them as much as I would if it were easy to just flick to a clear and purposeful map; Kindles don't seem to provide the same luxury. S

[AlmightyZael]

Ugh. This annoys me too.

I guess you could always use Google, like yourself, or use Amazon's PC software to view it in a larger resolution.

The best way I can see for it to work is to increase the screen size of the Kindle (won't happen) - or add some kind of 'jump to' feature on the menu that goes specifically to a page you predesignate. Similar to the search function, but one you choose yourself.

That wouldn't help with the readability of the maps on the Kindle being poor though ;(

It's a compromise on all fronts!

[Arry]

The best way I can see for it to work is to increase the screen size of the Kindle (won't happen) - or add some kind of 'jump to' feature on the menu that goes specifically to a page you predesignate. Similar to the search function, but one you choose yourself.

I am pretty sure at least one of my books has that (from within the Table of Contents)

That wouldn't help with the readability of the maps on the Kindle being poor though ;(

Exactly.  Best solution for me would be to look it up on a tablet (or computer).

[AlmightyZael]

Wouldn't you have you have to navigate to the table of contents, and then to the map, though?
I mean, an option to jump to a specific area from the menu straight away.

So you'd go Menu>Map
Rather than Menu>search>table of contents>map

Or something  I'm being unclear as hell!

[Arry]

It depends on what kind of kindle you have. I have a Touch, so when I tap to bring up the menu bars, I dont select Menu, but on the bottom, there is a 'Go To' button. That brings up a popup that has the table of contents as well as options to enter a specific page or location. So for me, after I tap to get the top and bottom tool bars visible, I just have to click (tap)

Go To -> Map (I might need to scroll to find the Map, but it's right there).

I checked, and my kids regular Kindle (which is newer than mine) is:

Menu -> Go To  -> Table of Contents -> Map


Looks like they have improved the interface for the higher end Kindles. So there is that, but the map is no better than it's been.

[Dornish First Sword]

There are definitely drawbacks to a kindle or any form of ereader this being one of them, the resolution is my main gripe in this area not so much the difficulty of getting to the map (though that IS annoying it is something I can simply do less often). This lack of simply flicking to where one wants to go is a major reason why ereaders will not replace books in the textbooks and educational field.

[perch15]

I happened to have written an article on this exact topic for the site. Here's the link!http://fantasy-faction.com/2012/maps-and-ereaders

[Sean Cunningham]

I keep meaning to look into what ebooks actually are under the hood. I know they're formatted in HTML. Does that mean they're effectively a specialised browser and if so, could something like jQuery be built into them?

Then you could have a little button at the top of each page. If you press it, a map unfolds over the text. You can zoom, scroll, everything. And when you're ready, you tap a corner and it folds up again. And once you start with this sort of technology, you can add notations to the maps Google Maps style. Who rules this city? How big is it? What are its landmarks? You could get really fancy and note plot-points at locations, dependent on how far through the book the reader is.

Is this the sort of thing that's feasible under the banner of "enhanced ebooks?"

Similar case: flipping back and forth to read the footnotes in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was not a user-friendly experience. I'd love to have the same sort of functionality for footnotes.

[Jeni]

Similar case: flipping back and forth to read the footnotes in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was not a user-friendly experience. I'd love to have the same sort of functionality for footnotes.

I read a Pratchett book on my kindle a while ago and it had footnotes. From what I can remember, there was a number next to the word that prompted the footnote, just like in a print book, and by clicking on the number you could go straight to the footnote and then just press 'back' to go back to the page you were reading  - a bit like using the dictionary function. I found this worked quite well. Not sure how well this would work for a map, but it would be easy enough to attach a number to a place name which would transfer you to the map, I suppose.

[tcsimpson]

I combatted this in two ways in my recent formatting for my books. I included as high a resolution as I could for the map. I also included a link below the map that takes the reader to a very, very high quality version online. The zoomable version works fine on my Nexus Tablet and other similar devices, like the Ipad, also worked on my kindle fire and my android phone. I formatted my books using Indesign then used Oxygen xml editor on the epub for whatever other tweaks I wanted before converting to mobi.

[TomTheBeliever]

Fantasy books really fall down in this respect compared to other genres ... they're just not very good on ereaders!

Take ASoIAF for example, I was constantly flicking to the character lists and maps whilst reading the earlier books ... this would've have completely ruined it for me.

Don't get me wrong, I have a kindle and use it ... just not for books that contain maps, glossaries etc.  Currently reading MBoTF, the thought never crossed my mind to read it on kindle !!!

[scottmarlowe]

Then you could have a little button at the top of each page. If you press it, a map unfolds over the text. You can zoom, scroll, everything. And when you're ready, you tap a corner and it folds up again. And once you start with this sort of technology, you can add notations to the maps Google Maps style. Who rules this city? How big is it? What are its landmarks? You could get really fancy and note plot-points at locations, dependent on how far through the book the reader is.

Amazon is looking at possibly doing something like this with their X-ray feature. You might even be able to see where the characters are currently based on your reading location. It's something they were contacting authors about (myself amongst them since I'd written some posts about maps in fantasy books). I don't know if they've made any decisions.

The first thing I noticed when I started putting maps into my books was how bad the experience was on a b/w Kindle. It's not as bad on an iPad, but still not ideal b/c it's hard to navigate back and forth.

I think the best solution for the time being is to have a link to the map online. Not ideal, I know. Paper books have eReaders beat hands down on this one.

If interested, here are the posts I wrote having to do with maps in eBooks:

http://www.scottmarlowe.com/post/How-important-are-maps-to-fantasy-books.aspx

http://www.scottmarlowe.com/post/eBooks-eReaders-and-Maps.aspx

[Sean Cunningham]

I think the best solution for the time being is to have a link to the map online. Not ideal, I know. Paper books have eReaders beat hands down on this one.

Presumably this doesn't work from the Kindle app on an iPad?

[scottmarlowe]

I think the best solution for the time being is to have a link to the map online. Not ideal, I know. Paper books have eReaders beat hands down on this one.

Presumably this doesn't work from the Kindle app on an iPad?

I think the best experience is on the iPad or similar color tablet. The link works fine. But navigating back to a map and then back to your current reading location is a problem on all devices, I think.

[Sean Cunningham]

I mean you can't link to an external website from within a book on the Kindle app. Or at least, Apple made that change a while back and I haven't checked since...