I'm posting this from my blog, as I had to go thru several steps to get the updated version on my Kindle (epub stores only required a quick re-download) and I thought others might have run into the same problem.
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It turns out that getting the updated edition of
Hour of the Hunter: With Bonus Material may not be as simple as it should be. Usually with a book, you can delete it manually from your account (as outlined in this post), then re-purchase the book to get the new edition. In my account, though, this didn't work (more later on how you can tell if you have the fixed edition). I went thru this process several times, including while on the phone with Amazon Kindle support, but still the old version kept being redownloaded. She even tried setting the book to the new version manually (still, it didn't work). Finally, the customer support rep had me remove it from my account (for about the 6th time, I think), then she "reset the last page read" on the book and she added the book to the account from her end. This finally worked and I have the new edition on my Kindle. Definitely more work than at Sony, where all I had to do was delete the book from the library on the PC and re-download from inside the software. I wasn't able to check on the nook, since I hadn't downloaded it to my PC before today and the new version downloaded when I opened it.
Also, the book is now free again at B&N (although it won't appear in searches),
HERE, joining
Sony and
Kobo in giving away EPUB versions. Don't forget that with Kobo, if you don't click on "Add to Library" under the cover picture, you won't get access to the book later on, when it is no longer free, although you can download it right now without adding it to your library.
So, how do you tell which version you have? Open the book to the Table of Contents (menu, Go To, Table of Contents). If it says
Quote:
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
....
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without any other text added, you have the new version. The old edition included part of the first line of each section after the chapter numbers (and didn't have the word "chapter" in the TOC at all). This one check will tell you which you have. There are other problems, including OCR'd typos, as was explained on JA Jance's blog:
Quote:
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... for the "free" promotion, they had to do a "new" edition. To do that they scanned the old file of the manuscript using an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program. Since this was "a very old pre 2005 file," as my editor called it, the OCR didn't exactly recognize lots of the words. The resulting file was sort of like reading the book in not quite English. For instance, where I said "that" the free edition said "mat." Where I said "him"; the free edition said "nun." Where I said "thud," OCR said "mud." Where I said "truth," the free edition said "tram."
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If you have the old edition and have already gone thru permanently deleting (not just removing from the Kindle) and re-purchasing, then you'll need to contact Kindle customer service (on the Kindle Support page, reached from any Kindle book page, go to the very bottom and choose Contact Us, then use the phone option for the fastest results). Once you go thru the introductions with the rep, ask them to reset the last page read on the book and to set the book to the current edition (this may require them to have you remove the book from your account, just as I did, although it shouldn't). Make sure you have the current edition by checking the table of contents before you get off the phone.
This is definitely one that Amazon should be contacting us on and giving us the option to get the new version substituted easily (usually all you have to do is reply to an email or forward it to a special address, but since this one is a screw-up by one of the Agency publishers, Amazon isn't technically involved in getting the replacement version distributed, as they are when they are the ones selling the defective editions).