Quote:
Originally Posted by SmokeAndMirrors
Maybe I'm the odd duck out (and this seems likely - I am very spartan about my reading), but I really don't care that much, if we're talking about aesthetics.
Greet me with 300 pages of nothing but basic text, and naught but a number in giant Arial font for a chapter marker. I really don't care. I care about what's in the book. And what's in the book could often use some serious help.
It's not that I don't have an appreciation for design. I do. If there's anywhere I like to see good design, it's the cover. Cheesy and badly-made book covers are almost the rule, and I'd like to see that change.
It's just that once I'm in the book, I stop caring completely. And frankly, the e-publishing industry has bigger problems. They should spend all that time and money on fixing the damn typos and errors are that everywhere instead of adding pretty flourishes. I don't read flourishes.
|
Ditto all that. Reading a beautifully bound, artistically presented pbook is a real joy but it satisfies a very different entertainment need. I use ebooks
purely to read. Take out the fluff, fix the typos, format for all reasonable font sizes, and then I'll be happy. And please be kind enough to move the presentation elements to the CSS.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SmokeAndMirrors
You know, as a copy editor, I think I've figured out why this is happening with ebooks. And newspapers. And magazines. And everywhere else.
People editing on a screen. I'm terrible working off a screen. And as much as I'd love to go totally paperless, the fact of the matter is this: I suck at my job unless I print the thing out and have a hard copy in my hands, with my red pen.
I've tried all the software. I've tried making the font huge. I've tried just doing more run-through's. I've tried everything. Some of it helps, but none of it brings me up to par with how I work with paper. It's not the tools. It's the screen itself. I just miss stuff when I'm working with a screen. And I have met others who have said the same thing. This is apparently not just me. This is a problem with the way we interface with screens - or at least how some people do.
This is ok on a blog. It is not ok on something you expect people to pay money for.
And I am pretty sure that the sudden decline in professionalism in writing is due in large part to people editing on screens.
Print out the manuscript and edit properly, damn it!!
|
Ditto that too. I'm the same way. There's something about a computer screen that must outright hide errors. Once it's printed to paper, they stand out like beacons.