Please support my Report Bad Formatting Button petition for Kindle books!

[Anarel]

**While I'm putting this in the Kindle section, I feel that it could easily apply to all other ebook stores, considering that books available from several ebook vendors (B&N, Kindle Store, Sony Store in particular) all have the same issues. (An example, B&N on the left, Kindle in the middle and how both of them SHOULD look on the right- http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/all_three-qHgVL.png)

*** Also, if you have the time, please make an "I support!" post on my thread @ the amazon discussion forums; http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/for...x1679Z2JAO6EXS

Ok, so you know how we have a; click this link to let the publisher know you want to read this book in Kindle format - button?

Yeah, well I'd like for Kindle books, just beneath the picture, a; click here to report formatting issues - button.

I've read several books recently which have had pretty bad formatting issues which made it pretty unpleasant (see not worth the money paid for it) to read.

This one book I read recently, After Midnight by Richard Laymon, the formatting was so bad.... I'll just show you. Mind you, the entire book was like this; http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/aft...side-uiZVF.png On the left is the Kindle edition, on the right, the Look Inside feature on the Amazon page.

Don't you hate it when there's a big blank space between every paragraph? Me too. It takes up more space on the Kindle screen and less space=more page turns=less battery life.

Here's an example;
http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/scr...0_pm-r4XOH.png .

On the left is how it appears on my Kindle, and on the right is the Look Inside This Book feature on Amazon's page for the print edition. It's Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick.

Here's another; http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/ano...mple-buWqx.jpg

Here's yet another; picture is in the same format as the first, this time to the tune of Anne Rice's The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty;

http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/sle...side-wdApr.png

Don't you hate it when a book lacks punctuation marks, or has random symbols/OCR errors spread throughout the text? Me too.

What about no indents for new paragraphs? Ditto. See the After Midnight link posted above for a pic.

I know that in the uploading process things happen, but if I'm expected to pay good money for a book, I want it to be legible! I swear, some books were just scanned, OCR'd and published without any kind of proofread done at all.

Let me make this clear; I know that there's a difference between layout decisions and actual formatting errors; I'm talking about the latter, and people know when they have a sloppily done edition. The ebook edition should not differ drastically from the print edition, especially in the examples that I have shown.

Again, I understand that rendering proper formatting can be difficult, but the bottom line is that I'm a consumer and the difficulty is not my concern. Just because something is difficult to do doesn't mean you can sell a substandard product and expect consumers to just suck it up. That wouldn't be acceptable with other items, so why should it be acceptable with Kindle books? (This was stated by another user, Esse, who put into words better than I could.)

Most ebooks don't have these problems. So most publishers are getting the ebook making process right, and some are getting it wrong.

What's worse,it's not just the Kindle editions that have these problems. I've checked the same books using the sample feature at different ebookstores (B&N, Sony store) and they all had the same issues, so it's basically publishers sending out less-than-satisfactory products to several stores.

Here's an example; here on the left is the B&N ebook edition of Anne Rice's The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, and in the middle is the Kindle edition. On the right is a pic from Amazon's look inside feature, and is how BOTH versions SHOULD look; http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/all_three-qHgVL.png

Sampling goes a long way to keeping people from buying these books, and reviews can help to warn people about it- customer discussions on the book in particular can also help bring this to the attention of the powers that be, but I'd like a way to get straight to the publishers that put up these less-than-satisfactory products out for sale.

So here's what I want Amazon to do. I want them to make it easy for us to report these issues, since they can't be expected to check each book themselves. They should add a Report Bad Formatting button somewhere easy to find on the book's Kindle Page. Once you click on the -Bad Formatting Issues? Let the Publisher Know! - button, there could be a little chart of yes or no questions (are the paragraphs properly indented?, are there many misspelled words? Is there an active table of contents? etc) and an area where you can report specific issues (i.e- two sentences at location 2145 are complete gibberish).
To prevent abuse of the button (though it's not a simple request button like the book request button so I don't see why people would abuse it) the forum could require several areas to be filled in, either the yes or no questions or the longer description of errors found- this might also be solved with requiring to be logged on to your Amazon account with a kindle registered to your account to fill out the form.

With people reporting these issues with books, hopefully publishers will work harder on putting out quality editions of their books. I don't know if it's that they don't care enough/see enough profit in the ebook editions because they make so little a percentage of sales or if it's pure incompetence on their part.

But with more people making noise and reporting problems like the ones I posted above, ebooks will hopefully be of a much greater quality than they are now, and a badly formatted book will be a rare occurrence instead of a semi-frequent one.

Maybe one day all books will have active table of contents and chapter marks for easy chapter jumping!

But for now, basic formatting issues are enough of a problem to deal with.

So please post if you support!

[kindlekitten]

ummmm

no.

we get together and help each other and authors when asked, but not like this

[Mike L]

Anarel,

I agree with everything you say. Like you, I find these formatting issues annoying. But I'm not sure what you want us to do. You say "So please post if you support". OK, so I've posted.

[ifonline]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

ummmm

no.

we get together and help each other and authors when asked, but not like this

Why not like this? Seems like a good idea to me.

[Anarel]

@ Mike L,

I think just a, "I support!" over @ the amazon forums will do, since I'm betting that if it's over there long enough it'll get their attention.

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

ummmm

no.

we get together and help each other and authors when asked, but not like this

I don't see what the problem is...


All I want is for Amazon to make it easy for us to get in contact with publishers
when their books aren't formatted properly. They already do it with the Click this link to tell the publisher you want to read this on the kindle button.

[osnova]

I do one of two things if the formatting issues bother me enough (not all your examples are so egregious to me to warrant any action from me):

1) If I want to make a statement, I may lower the feedback score and describe the issue in the review (at times I correct the feedback if the author/publisher addresses the issues);
2) If the formatting issues are not major and/or I see the publisher's/author's desire to improve, I may post a report in the product's forum (each Amazon product/book has a forum associated with it) and/or send an email if I have the address. If I do not see a response, I may escalate it to #1 above.

In several instances (see my KJV and WEB Bibles), I was so upset with the existing Kindle editions' typos and awful navigation/formatting that I have spent time to make my own and now share them with the others. You can do it only with the PD books though.

[pshrynk]

One problem is that some folks like the space between paragraphs and some folks don't. I agree that there should be a "bad formatting" button so that we can report problems ti Amazon, however. Some books have tons of problems.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by Anarel

Ok, so you know how we have a; click this link to let the publisher know you want to read this book in Kindle format - button?

Yeah, well I'd like for Kindle books, just beneath the picture, a; click here to report formatting issues - button.

I agree about the button or a button/link that makes it easier to report formatting problems. I think the issue is going to be the location of the button. There is no way Amazon on earth is going to put a "negative" about "bad formatting" near the top of the buy page of a book (reviews of the content excluded, which are near the bottom anyway). Amazon won't like it, the publishers won't like it, the authors won't like it. If the button or link were located on the "Manage Your Kindle" page, that would be a whole different deal.

[Anarel]

Originally Posted by pshrynk

One problem is that some folks like the space between paragraphs and some folks don't. I agree that there should be a "bad formatting" button so that we can report problems ti Amazon, however. Some books have tons of problems.

That's just preference, I suppose, but if it would never come out in DTB version looking like that, then it shouldn't look like that in ebook format, either.

[JSWolf]

If I purchase an ePub format eBook, I liberate it from it's DRM shackles and go into the CSS and fix the formatting to how I want it. If it's not ePub, I liberate it and convert to ePub and then do any fixing needed.

I have seen eBooks formatted all kinds of different ways. Some really awful. If this thread is to be a catch all for poorly formatted eBooks, then it should be moved to the Reading Recommendations forum. But if this is just for Kindle eBooks, then it's fine where it is.

Oh.. and the After Midnight sample looks to be Topaz and most people don't care for the look of Topaz. So if it's Topaz, it's a given that the formatting is not going to be good.

[KlondikeGeoff]

It might help, but I doubt you'll ever convince Amazon to do this. Meanwhile, every time I got a badly formatted book, I email Amazon's feedback. Who knows if that helps, but if enough people do that, it might.

Another thing that drives me bonkers is getting a sample book that starts off with page after page of praise for the author, a long list of thanks to editors, friends and family, then a multi-page table of contents, so when one begins reading the "sample" only a few pages of the text remain.

I never buy one of these books, and once again send feedback to Amazon telling them why I won't buy it.

Maybe won't help, but it can't hurt.

[Anarel]

Originally Posted by KlondikeGeoff

It might help, but I doubt you'll ever convince Amazon to do this

I'm not so sure of that.

People wanted a way to permanently delete items from the Kindle and Archives, things like small book samples and freebies they didn't like- now we're able to.

People wanted a way to see if the person submitting a review had actually purchased the item they were reviewing; done.

So I don't think the possiblity of something like this coming to pass is so far-fetched.

[Anarel]

Update bump!

[fugazied]

I usually just email Amazon if I'm not too happy with the formatting, but that is probably like yelling into an empty pit and expecting a response..

I must have been lucky because none of my books have been 'atrocious', just a little off.

[Anarel]

Originally Posted by fugazied

I usually just email Amazon if I'm not too happy with the formatting, but that is probably like yelling into an empty pit and expecting a response..

I must have been lucky because none of my books have been 'atrocious', just a little off.

Lol, funny analogy.