What Would You Like to See Different About Books

[Tomas]

Kindle X-ray is a good feature. Unfortunately, many self-published authors don't use it.
Illustrations and maps could be nice. I agree that a link to a website to see them on in full detail sounds nice but it's not like you could just copy the link from e-reader to your PC. If the author links his/her website and states that there's extra content - maps, character bios, whatever - then it's something I'd give a look.

What also irked me recently was lack of consistency in a series. 4 of the 5 books had a character name below chapter number, to see from which char's PoV a chapter is. One of the series (not even the first or the last) missed that and it felt weird.

For Sci-Fi, maybe sketches of some hi-tech stuff (machinery, exosuits, spaceships, you name it...) could be useful as well. These wouldn't even need too many details - just a simple greyscale sketch. Which would work for e-books as well.

[Shomeret]

I would like to see the policy in the traditional publishing community that books should all be longer than they once were ended. Some books need to be long, but there is also a great deal of unnecessary padding. This trend leads to my skipping books because I don't have time to read them. It also leads to my reading YA novels because they tend to be shorter.

[OldSchoolScholar]

I'll agree with long books being overrated, if that's what you were saying. But nothing beats a long 1000+ page book that is well written. They are few and far between. One great one that comes to mind was IT, by Stephen King. Because it is so well written, you just don't care that of the last 200 pages you read, only 50 mean something to the actual story. You could actually cut them from the book and it wouldn't make a difference.

As an old schooler, I simply can't abide cover art today. I lurk around Barnes and Noble (sad that it is predicted to die shortly. It's actually on life support now) and browse the books. But the cover art is just basically a collage of images culled from internet. They just scream LAZY to me. 99% of art has no relation to the actual book you have in your hands.

I'd much rather see a Boris Vallejo painting of an actual scene from the book or one of Darrell K. Sweet's interpretations of a scene than some cut and paste sky, castle, scary tree, shadowy figure.

I just can't take it anymore.

[Kateb]

OldSchoolScholar wrote: "Continuing with this thought, One of the worst cases I came across about deceased authors "living on" was this. On pure impulse, I bought a newly published Western Book in Walmart. The author, Will..."

I so agree, I have been caught a few times when buying a book in a hurry. No more I now have to check thoroughly

[Shomeret]

OldSchoolScholar wrote: "I'll agree with long books being overrated, if that's what you were saying. But nothing beats a long 1000+ page book that is well written. They are few and far between. One great one that comes to ..."

Perhaps you simply can't relate to having limited time to read. I thought there might be others out there with this problem.

A long beautifully written book with numerous repetitive pages that aren't adding anything to the plot, characterization or even world-building isn't a great book or even a good one. I think there's nothing more wonderful than a great short story because it's actually more difficult to write.