I would like clarification on where the title page information (verso/copyright) for a book should appear in a reading app. I have read that this should be in the “About” screen. However, “About” concerns the whole app rather than individual books. My intention is to develop a reading app that serves as a library of books, with new titles being added over time. This will require the About information to be updated every time a new book is added to the app (and the information will get very lengthy as each book may have different image credits, for example).
Maybe there is a better recommendation but otherwise it seems to me better to have an “About” screen for each book (distinct from the one for the whole app).
We have noticed (with paper books first) in our part of West Africa that beginner-readers get “hung” on that page with legal matters, credits, copyright, licence information. Hard to read and mostly not relevant to the enjoyment of any book.
So even in publishing on paper we are moving “all that information” to the end of books.
And when using RAB to enhance our distribution, we normally keep the books in the app rather similar to our books on paper (plus the colours which are just awesome to have - and where nobody complains of course). So I can confirm @richard 's idea to put “information” at the end of books. Works well for our project and we have done several apps already, each with several books inside.
Thank you for the suggestion. In fact this is what I am trying to do with the books in the app (though I hadn’t thought about that change for printed editions also). So then what information is still required in the “About” box of the whole app?
I cannot know what is required for your app. I depends on where you publish (Google Play?) and on your content, for example if you are using logos, icons and other artwork at app-level where you need to give credit.
For our apps, published on Google Play and directly via bluetooth sharing and whatnot, we put all that concerns the app itself (logo, copyright and licencing info, maybe a mention of the team members who actually made the app) and also some friendly blurb to help people to contact us, the publishers if they want to. All this can be found on Google Play too, but not every user even has access, we know local users who have blocked Google accounts or who struggle to pay for internet-access.
So each project needs to check their context (and their local laws, if they distribute/publish locally by sd-card for example) and learn what information and contact-details they need to provide. But you knew that of course, so mildly sorry for stating the obvious.