Amazon Kindle discussion

Hi, is there a way that I can stop the kindle paperwhite from jumping straight to chapter 1 when I commence a new book? I have searched through the kindle site but no luck. I was hoping there might be a trick to make it happen.
It just annoys me as you can miss out on valuable information, you don't know how many chapters in a book, or even if there is a dedication.
Thanks

Tracey,

I suggest that most readers, starting the paperback/hardcover-only days, tended to open the cover, and quickly flip through the opening pages to get to the prologue, if there is one, or to chapter 1 if not. Thus when ebooks came along, the programming is set to get you to that first page.

But the reality is you don't have to miss anything. I use a Kindle Voyage, and if you tap the top of the screen a toolbar appears. One of the icons is "Go To." You tap that and you get to a screen that allows you to go to a specific location in the book, the beginning (which is usually the cover, I think), and then there's a table of contents which allows you to tap and go to a particular chapter.

It only seems logical that PaperWhite would have the same feature.

Just my USD .02.

Eric

it's the publisher who chooses the location (their definition of the beginning) at which the book opens (chapter 1 or prologue or actual beginning.

you can always tap in the upper half inch of the page, tap Go To and tap Location and enter 1

Tracey, I have always preferred to start at the cover so I can see everything. In addition to the methods described in the posts above, it is also possible to jump straight to the cover from the home page when you first open the book. It’s not as simple as opening to the cover by default, though.

On your home page, there are three vertical dots associated with each book. If you’re in list view, the dots are to the right of each book. If you’re in grid view, the dots are a bit more hidden in the bottom-right corner of the book cover picture. Touch the dots, then touch “Go To”, then touch “Cover”.

So that’s similar to the method Eric posted, but you save one whole finger press. Even though it doesn't save much time it is, for me, slightly less annoying versus just touching the book to open it and ending up in the spot I don’t want to be, then having to position to the correct spot.

YouKneeK wrote: "Tracey, I have always preferred to start at the cover so I can see everything."

that won't work very well in a few of my Kindle books. In them the cover is the last page of the book, so essentially going to the cover would put me at the end of the book

CBRetriever wrote: "that won't work very well in a few of my Kindle books. In them the cover is the last page of the book"

It’s the same “Go To” menu, though. It’s just a slightly faster way to get to it if you aren't already in the book. You have all the same options, including selecting the location.

I'm curious if you've verified those e-books actually have that cover defined as the “Cover” location? Did they originate in a Kindle format or did you convert them? If the "Cover" location hasn't been defined, it has no way to know some random image at the end of your book is actually the cover so I would expect it to go to the first location by default. That's what it does on some of the documents I've read with no cover at all.

nope, they were bought from Amazon

whomever the publisher is/was decided to put all the front matter at the end of the book and they weren't self published either. The Go To menu was something similar to this

Chapter 1
Chapter 2'
.....
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Front Matter
Cover

Ah, ok. I haven't encountered any e-books like that. Not yet, anyway. I guess not seeing the Cover at the very top will be a dead giveaway if/when I do get one like that, so at least I'll know not to select it.

Thanks for the all the help. I was just hoping there was a 'magical' way for me to always have it open at the cover (or close to) whenever I open a new book instead of being thrown straight into chapter 1.
Looks like I will have to contnue to choose the 'Go To' option. :)

This morning I woke up to find that my fourth book has just been published overnight. Naturally I bought one to test it out and I noticed that it opened at the title of the book and took me through all the front matter before I got to the prologue.

I don't think any of my other books are like that - I'd need to check. I think the difference may be that when typing it, I selected a box that composes the title in the same way as a similar box composes the chapter headings.

In the past, I think I just typed the title and chose the font size etc.

So it may not be Amazon, it may be the way the authors put their books together OR maybe Amazon have taken notice of you, Tracey.

I'll put links to the book on another thread later today, in case I'm not allowed to on this thread.

What a shame. I know I can go back to the start, but I was hoping there was a setting I could change so that I would automatically start at the very beginning with all my books. I'm the type of reader of who likes to read everything. I self-publish and format my own books, and I haven't knowingly made people skip to the first chapter. Now I wonder if they do...

I've seen books formatted to skip past the prologue and go straight to the first chapter. I've seen books with the cover and table of contents at the end of the book. And, there was a "scandal" a while back where self-published "authors" (??) were formatting their books to open and go to the last page, so the book would be marked as fully read and they'd get more money from Kindle Unlimited

CBRetriever wrote: "I've seen books formatted to skip past the prologue and go straight to the first chapter. I've seen books with the cover and table of contents at the end of the book. And, there was a "scandal" a w..."

Whoa. That's shocking. I wish the formatting automatically took everyone to the start, whatever that is - I personally prefer the cover like with a physical book.

unfortunately that is something that is left up to the publisher/self-published author. I've acquired the habit of automatically using the Go To function to go to Location 1 when I open a new book

Same. It seems the only way.