[Mortis]

I've worked in the Publishing industry for the past 20 years and I honestly don't understand why there is a problem with the editing/fprmating of e-books, the same files used for the original p-book should be used for the e-book. I can go back through almost 20 years of material and pull out thousands of magazines that would only have to be repackaged to be sold as ebooks.
While I don't work in the book publishing industry, my understanding is that it would be the same; any book in print should have the digital files to create ebooks, it's not like we are stilling using movable type.
I suspect the main reason is that the publishers are trying to save some money and sending the final print out to be scanned rather than digging up the press files, or the publishes are getting their files from someone else, ie off the net? Just a thought.
If someone can explain it, I'm sure I'm not the only one thats curious as to why the formating in ebooks are such garbage (in some cases).

One thing about Editing and Proofreading that seems to have been forgotten is that they both require skill and a very high degree of detail, not to mention English skill (I live in a country where English is a second language, but most business is done in English, no I don't mean Canada!).

By outsourcing editing or proofing to India, for example, publishers are saying they don't care how good their product is, they just want to get the best bottom line. I think it's a shame when you consider 20 years ago proofreading or editing were considered highly skilled jobs and required an apprenticeship of 3-5 years, now anyone with a computer and an internet connection is considered a proofreader.

If I were to tell my clients that I was sending their work over to a non English speaking country to have it proofread or edited, I wouldn't have any clients left in a week.