LOTR ebook erratum and ebook quality

[ghostyjack]

Originally Posted by John the Miner

On one's other hand, one does get what one pays for, one supposes ...

Really? I paid £12 for my ebook copy of Lord of the Rings (a lot I know, but it is my favourite books after all), for that much I'd expect the book to be as good as the paper version.

If I'd paid £12 for the paper version, I'd also expect it to be free of these errors.

One is not getting what one has paid for.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by John the Miner

On one's other hand, one does get what one pays for, one supposes ...

One does not pay for an eBook full of errors.

[Quexos]

One agrees with this statement. Which is why one has ... oups, one cannot say that here.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

One does not pay for an eBook full of errors.

[JSWolf]

It doesn't matter how much one pays for an eBook. If it was legally obtained, then it should be without errors that do not also exist in the current print edition.

[John the Miner]

Unfortunately. that depends on whether or not the "publishers" of the books use proofreaders; I don't think they do (as a matter of fact, I'm sure they don't) and it seems, from what I've read in the short time I've been reading these threads, that this profound fact has suddenly burst upon the ebook world to the amazement of the buyers of same (at a much cheaper price than the old-fashioned book store's price).
As I said earlier, you pay for what you get.
People continually letting the world know about how they're "proofreading" ebooks and correcting the mistakes they find, maybe in hopes of getting the suppliers to fix them up and return whatever they paid for them, are missing the whole point ... that is, the publishers couldn't care less about the literals their books contain. Why should they?
They've already got your money.
Wasn't it a Mister Barnum who said, "There's one born every minute"?
There are always buyers out there who will pay less and expect more.
And I'd love to compare the results of what amateurs consider as "proofreading" to what a professional can find in the same text.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by John the Miner

And I'd love to compare the results of what amateurs consider as "proofreading" to what a professional can find in the same text.

Please feel free to use any of my Dickens novels here at MR as examples.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by John the Miner

People continually letting the world know about how they're "proofreading" ebooks and correcting the mistakes they find, maybe in hopes of getting the suppliers to fix them up and return whatever they paid for them, are missing the whole point ... that is, the publishers couldn't care less about the literals their books contain. Why should they?
They've already got your money.

Since we're in a LotR thread, I hope you've noticed that the publishers of the LotR ebook DID care about the errors and HAVE fixed them (well, all but one).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

(well, all but one)

That we know of.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by John the Miner

Unfortunately. that depends on whether or not the "publishers" of the books use proofreaders; I don't think they do (as a matter of fact, I'm sure they don't) and it seems, from what I've read in the short time I've been reading these threads, that this profound fact has suddenly burst upon the ebook world to the amazement of the buyers of same (at a much cheaper price than the old-fashioned book store's price).
As I said earlier, you pay for what you get.
People continually letting the world know about how they're "proofreading" ebooks and correcting the mistakes they find, maybe in hopes of getting the suppliers to fix them up and return whatever they paid for them, are missing the whole point ... that is, the publishers couldn't care less about the literals their books contain. Why should they?
They've already got your money.
Wasn't it a Mister Barnum who said, "There's one born every minute"?
There are always buyers out there who will pay less and expect more.
And I'd love to compare the results of what amateurs consider as "proofreading" to what a professional can find in the same text.

We don't buy eBooks and hope they don't have any errors. We buy eBooks and they shouldn't have any extra errors introduced. Why is it you think we are suckers for buying eBooks? That's rather insulting. You should be apologizing to everyone who's ever bought an eBook.

[CallOfCth'reader]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

We don't buy eBooks and hope they don't have any errors. We buy eBooks and they shouldn't have any extra errors introduced. Why is it you think we are suckers for buying eBooks? That's rather insulting. You should be apologizing to everyone who's ever bought an eBook.

Ebooks are like anything else that is bought: you expect them to be of a minimum saleable standard, compared to the rest of the products a seller puts out.

The difference is with a totally amateur seller, where they state that their attempts are possibly not going to be brilliant.

Edited to add: for example, with the Harper Collins edition of the Lord of the Rings (the publishers of a money spinning collection), I'd expect the epub text to be at least as error free as the paper version.

[John the Miner]

So, if people find some literals in an ebook, they can call themselves "proofreaders"?

That's like saying if you slap a Band-Aid on a cut, you can call yourself a doctor ...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by John the Miner

So, if people find some literals in an ebook, they can call themselves "proofreaders"?

That's like saying if you slap a Band-Aid on a cut, you can call yourself a doctor ...

Seriously, what is your problem?

[Quexos]

Finding errors and misspellings in a book is all "proofreading" is about whereas slapping a band-aid on a cut is a very small and insignificant fraction of what being a doctor is all about, therefore your comparison is a fallacy.

Originally Posted by John the Miner

So, if people find some literals in an ebook, they can call themselves "proofreaders"?

That's like saying if you slap a Band-Aid on a cut, you can call yourself a doctor ...

[John the Miner]

Oh, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I thought we were talking about "proofreaders", those people who read words and get paid for finding mistakes in them, not those people who read words, find mistakes in them and call themselves "proofreaders".

But then, after being in this trade since 1957, what do I know?

[Quexos]

The difference would then be "professional proofreaders" on one side and amateur proofreaders on the other. What is your point ?
Because mine would be that in this issue, it seems amateurs are often better at proofreading than professionals. The real question is why ...

Originally Posted by John the Miner

Oh, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I thought we were talking about "proofreaders", those people who read words and get paid for finding mistakes in them, not those people who read words, find mistakes in them and call themselves "proofreaders".

But then, after being in this trade since 1957, what do I know?