When ebook passes EPUBcheck am I done?

[Turtle91]

As I understand it there are a few authors that have pet readers...and their book has to look perfect in that reader. Unfortunately the client is a major driver in what needs to be produced, even when the client is under-educated.

For my personal books, I use the full capabilities of html5/css3...and will use epub3 when I get a good reader that supports it. It helps me to learn, and I enjoy reading my books. I'm still trying to compile a list of workarounds that I need to incorporate to make my PUBLIC books readable in the most devices.

Ideally EVERYONE would just produce a clean well constructed ePub that follows the standards, and then the users would learn that it isn't the book, but the reader that looks so ugly. IMO that is the only way to get those sub-standard apps to get fixed.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

As I understand it there are a few authors that have pet readers...and their book has to look perfect in that reader. Unfortunately the client is a major driver in what needs to be produced, even when the client is under-educated.

For my personal books, I use the full capabilities of html5/css3...and will use epub3 when I get a good reader that supports it. It helps me to learn, and I enjoy reading my books. I'm still trying to compile a list of workarounds that I need to incorporate to make my PUBLIC books readable in the most devices.

Ideally EVERYONE would just produce a clean well constructed ePub that follows the standards, and then the users would learn that it isn't the book, but the reader that looks so ugly. IMO that is the only way to get those sub-standard apps to get fixed.

Turtle:

The vast majority of big publishers are outsourcing their books (to India). They don't even PROOFREAD them, much less worry about how they're looking on some obscure or semi-obscure Droid reader. A "movement" by the small bookmakers of the world won't make a dent in what some reading app does, as together, we all don't put out a tiny percentage of the books. (And that doesn't even count all the self-published books that are DIY from Word files.)

So, while I'm all for the idea, I don't think it will amount to one mouthful of whale spit in the ocean. Not to discourage you, or anything. ;-)

Hitch

[JSWolf]

So what is it about India where they just can't get how to make a well formatted eBook?

[PeterT]

Presumably the standard; people not being given time to learn how its done; local management setting unrealistic targets for the work to be done; unrealistically low prices being charged for the work; people claiming to have the knowledge and skills.

[JSWolf]

Given that a lot of BPH eBooks are using very similar code. My guess is the makers of these eBooks are using a preset InDesign template that is crap.

[Notjohn]

There are days when I wish I had the email address of one of those cut-rate Indian bookmakers!

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

There are days when I wish I had the email address of one of those cut-rate Indian bookmakers!

Hang out here long enough and I bet you will see posts from at least one of them

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

There are days when I wish I had the email address of one of those cut-rate Indian bookmakers!

Trust me, you don't want anything to do with them. I can do it much better then they can (overall).

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Trust me, you don't want anything to do with them. I can do it much better then they can (overall).

Yes, Wolfie:

But you can't do it as cheaply, and therein lies the rub. Trust me when I tell you I am well-acquainted with this issue. I receive at least one email or Linked-In or Tweet or FB post per day, with companies in India seeking work. The biggest issue is that because the larger publishers and other humongous retailers Who Shall Not Be Named don't proof the output, the Indian companies have an extremely unrealistic view of the quality of their work. No proofing means no revision cycles, so, they think that the results are perfect! I mean, in fairness, why wouldn't they?

I assume, routinely, that these guys and the other countries like China that are coming along with cheap labor and books will finally put me out of a job, but...for the moment, we still manage to crawl along.

They're still not as bad as the guy who scammed that elderly client for $6K and put out a book that was so bad it didn't even reflow (every line was a paragraph, and he left the PDF page numbers in it), but on the other hand, they charge a lot less.

Hitch