What are eBooks?

[issybird]

New York Review Book Classics is a publisher where I'm willing to get books on spec. The major university presses are others. FS&G? The ones where when I cruise OverDrive, I can find new-to-me books by a publisher which tends to publish books I'll like.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'll happily concede that the worst traditionally-published books are, on average, marginally better than the the worst independently published books, if you'll concede that such a comparsion is silly and pointless for the vast majority of readers and book-buyers out there. Unless, of course, you see anything productive about a "my worst is better than your worst" argument.

I must disagree. The worst trad-pubbed books are far better than the worst indies, because the worst indies seem to me to be the product of functional illiterates. The worst are poorly conceived, written, spelled, produced, and so forth. At least the worst trad-pubbed books have the sheen of having been processed by more than one pair of eyes* (belonging to someone who thinks s/he's the next great discovery). I'm not arguing that there isn't trad-pubbed carp out there; I don't read much mainstream fiction anyway, so my bar is pretty high in that respect. Unreadable (for me) is unreadable, publishing method be damned. But at least the trad-pubbed carp doesn't offend me on the basic grounds of literacy.

*And yes, the glaring exception is OCRed books that go out as is, and that's an appalling practice.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by issybird

New York Review Book ClassicsI must disagree. The worst trad-pubbed books are far better than the worst indies, because the worst indies seem to me to be the product of functional illiterates. The worst are poorly conceived, written, spelled, produced, and so forth. At least the worst trad-pubbed books have the sheen of having been processed by more than one pair of eyes* (belonging to someone who thinks s/he's the next great discovery). I'm not arguing that there isn't trad-pubbed carp out there; I don't read much mainstream fiction anyway, so my bar is pretty high in that respect. Unreadable (for me) is unreadable, publishing method be damned. But at least the trad-pubbed carp doesn't offend me on the basic grounds of literacy.

That's fine. My point is that I don't distinguish between literate and illiterate crap. The end result is still books I don't want to read--a list to which there is no end (regardless of pedigree). In other words... when I buy and read (or attempt to read) a book that I didn't enjoy at all, I have never once been comforted by the fact that it had a traditionally published "sheen."

I'm not trying to encourage people to read more independently published works/authors. I don't read that many myself. I'm just trying to point out that pointing out the size of a crap-pile that no one ever need wade blindly into (a crap-pile that was of considerable size before the explosion of e-indie-publishing, mind you) serves very little purpose.

"I like/don't like this book" is--and always will be--a better critiquing method. "These books are mostly crap" is no different than any other sour-grapes comments from people who feel their* tastes are more important than others'. I say; if a publishing method produces ANY quality works, then the size of the pile of crap that work had to climb to get noticed is irrelevant.

The only thing indie-publishing has done is put a few great books in front of my eyes that I wouldn't have had the chance to read had it been left up to traditional gatekeepers to decide. The size of the crap-pile those books crawled out of (a crap-pile one never has to go wading into) is completely irrelevant to that fact.

*That's a very rhetorical and non-specific "their" right there.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

"I like/don't like this book" is--and always will be--a better critiquing method. "These books are mostly crap" is no different than any other sour-grapes comments from people who feel their tastes are more important than others'.

Fair enough. I do agree that no one should be judging what others like. But I'll quibble that it's not really sour grapes, which seems to me a shining example of what you just deplored. I tend to think myself that anyone's dismissal of grand swaths of books, whether because they're indie or because of genre or whatever consideration, is mostly just to save time and effort, if not money also. Those 99¢ books eventually add up to something you really would like to read.

Speaking for myself, with my first dedicated ereader I ventured into the cheap/free indie stuff (I read ebooks before that on various devices, but only public domain), only to find my Amazon account in particular cluttered with books I'd never read. Easier just not to go there at all. I think we all have rules of thumb. Maybe we miss out some gems as a result; I'm sure we do. But that doesn't mean the rule doesn't serve a purpose.

Finally, I like to see other posters' rules of thumb, which help me decide if their recommendations are worth anything to me. If someone likes/recommends a lot of indies (which is great; I know there's a big audience who appreciates it), I know his/her tastes are not mine. Good information.

[DiapDealer]

That's fine.
As I said, my only real beef is with the perpetuation of the idea that "these books are mostly more crap than the crappiest of these books" contributes much of anything to any discussion. Nobody reads for the crap, and very, very few choose blindly. So why bring it up at all? We all have filters, and pointing the size of the crap pile would only be relevant to someone who doesn't. *shrug*

EDIT: ...and for the record, I don't consider myself pro-self-publishing. There's only a handful of self-published titles I've read--and even fewer that I've liked. But I do consider myself staunchly anti-anti-self-publishing. Mostly because I always prefer to leave myself completely open to being pleasantly surprised. I find it ... pleasant.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That's fine.
As I said, my only real beef is with the perpetuation of the idea that "these books are mostly more crap than the crappiest of these books" contributes much of anything to any discussion. Nobody reads for the crap, and very, very few choose blindly. So why bring it up at all? We all have filters, and pointing the size of the crap pile would only be relevant to someone who doesn't. *shrug*

There is an important differentiating factor, to my mind:

When someone recommends a traditionally-published book to me, I can be assured that (unless it's a bad OCR scan) it will be free from errors of spelling and grammar, and is likely to have been reasonably well edited.

When someone recommends a self-published book to me, I always approach it with trepidation, knowing that in all likelihood, none of the above will be true, and that there are many people who don't care about such things.

Therein lies the difference. To many people it may not matter. To me, it does.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Which is still the case, of course. Although there certainly are good self-published books out there, the overwhelming majority are complete crap. Being traditionally-published still imbues status to an author.

I don't read a lot of self-pubbed stuff and most of what I do read comes from recommendations and the like, but what I have read has ended up being stuff I enjoyed.

What I'm wondering from the claim that the overwhelming majority of it is crap is have you read a lot of it? I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, it just seems to me that for that claim to hold much weight you'd need to have read (or at least tried) an awful lot of self-pubbed books. I know for many all/most self-pubbed = crap/junk/etc., but when I actually talk to people I know making that claim I come to find out that they've never actually read any or only one or two titles over the years. One of their filters is to simply skip anything that's self-pubbed which is fine, most of it doesn't hit my radar either. If you have read a lot of it I'd love to hear some of the horror stories about your worst finds.

I do agree that being trad-pubbed holds a certain cachet in many eyes and probably always will. It's definitely the majority of my reading list.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

What I'm wondering from the claim that the overwhelming majority of it is crap is have you read a lot of it?

I've certainly looked at a lot of it. I look at the Amazon sample of every book that goes in the "Self-Promotion" forum here at MR, for example. The overwhelming majority contain sufficient errors of spelling, grammar and punctuation - or just plain poor production - in those sample pages, that I feel no wish to read them.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I've certainly looked at a lot of it. I look at the Amazon sample of every book that goes in the "Self-Promotion" forum here at MR, for example. The overwhelming majority contain sufficient errors of spelling, grammar and punctuation - or just plain poor production - in those sample pages, that I feel no wish to read them.

That's hardly a representative sample, nor definitive. You of course are welcome to your opinion.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kennyc

That's hardly a representative sample, nor definitive. You of course are welcome to your opinion.

In what way is it not a representative sample, kenny? Why would books promoted on MR not be representative of the wider market? Is there some reason to suppose that MR attracts particularly inept or illiterate authors?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by HarryT

In what way is it not a representative sample, kenny? Why would books promoted on MR not be representative of the wider market? Is there some reason to suppose that MR attracts particularly inept or illiterate authors?

You know this yourself Harry. I'm not going to explain it to you or argue with you. It's your opinion, and based on a non-representative sample, that is all.

[ekbell]

I noticed that the OPs original question goes unconsidered. What are ebooks? Are they defined by format, producer or content? Or is it intent?

Am I creating a proper ebook everytime I dotEPUB a page? What about the fanfic author who provides mobi, PDF and/or ePub versions of her works? If it's format that's important what about the University of California Press which provides web pages of their older books? Or is an ebook simply something we know when we see it?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kennyc

You know this yourself Harry. I'm not going to explain it to you or argue with you. It's your opinion, and based on a non-representative sample, that is all.

No, I'm afraid I don't know, and without any shred of evidence to support it, I see no reason whatsoever to place any credence in your claim that self-published books that get promoted at MR are not representative of the wider market. You appear to be suggesting that only inept authors would come here; given that we are a site dedicated to readers and reading, that's a very peculiar idea.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by ekbell

I noticed that the OPs original question goes unconsidered. What are ebooks? Are they defined by format, producer or content? Or is it intent?

Am I creating a proper ebook everytime I dotEPUB a page? What about the fanfic author who provides mobi, PDF and/or ePub versions of her works? If it's format that's important what about the University of California Press which provides web pages of their older books? Or is an ebook simply something we know when we see it?

At the simplest an ebook is nothing more than a book delivered or accessible electronically. This would mean anything including text based books available on the internet well before the Web or ebook readers. Of which I accessed and read at that time.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

There is an important differentiating factor, to my mind:

When someone recommends a traditionally-published book to me, I can be assured that (unless it's a bad OCR scan) it will be free from errors of spelling and grammar, and is likely to have been reasonably well edited.

When someone recommends a self-published book to me, I always approach it with trepidation, knowing that in all likelihood, none of the above will be true, and that there are many people who don't care about such things.

Therein lies the difference. To many people it may not matter. To me, it does.

Why would you accept the recommendation of books blindly from someone whose tastes/preferences are unknown to you? I know from WHO recommended a book to me if I have to worry about basic grammar, spelling or proofing.

And again ... I would be just as disappointed in the recommendation of a flawlessly proofed book I hated, as I would be in a shoddily written, unproofed book I couldn't read. There is no consolation prize in "couldn't stand it." shrug*

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Why would you accept the recommendation of books blindly from someone whose tastes/preferences are unknown to you? I know from WHO recommended a book to me if I have to worry about basic grammar, spelling or proofing.

And again ... I would be just as disappointed in the recommendation of a flawlessly proofed book I hated, as I would be in a shoddily written, unproofed book I couldn't read. *shrug*

There are many people here at MR who I know share my liking of mysteries from the "What am I reading?" thread, but I don't know how tolerant those people are of errors of the type that I describe.

Of course you can be disappointed by a flawlessly-produced book; all I'm saying is that there's an extra "layer" of "reasons to be disappointed" in a self-published book which is absent from a traditionally-published one.