[avantman42]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

The obvious answer to the question asked is yes. Whoever puts the e-book out to the market place, publishes it, is responsible for the quality of that e-book. This is no different than for a paper book, or any other product. Now as far as e-books go specifically there is no excuse for putting out a book with misspelling, grammatical errors, punctuation errors (unless any of these were the author's intent), nor with missing or misplaced passages of text. I can be a bit more forgiving of errors of formatting related to appearance given different e-book file types existing. Still it is still the case that whoever publishes the book is responsible for the quality of the product. Large publishing companies should do proofing of books that they put out as should authors that self publish.

I thought that was the obvious answer, but apparently some publishers don't agree. This thread was prompted by an e-mail exchange after I complained to a publisher about errors in their e-book. The person I dealt with was generally very helpful and professional, but I was rather annoyed when she said that they couldn't do anything about conversion errors. I still don't understand why a publisher doesn't consider it their duty to ensure that the final output is in a reasonable state.

Originally Posted by flipreads

Sometimes, as a publisher, even when you've done everything right, it's erroneous because of conversion from the retailer. That's why a lot don't like Smashwords--the "meatgrinder" conversion it does could lead to conversion errors.

In cases like that, I'd say the publisher has several options:

1. Tweak the input file until it works (I've had to re-submit some books for Smashwords several times before Meatgrinder converted them correctly)
2. Decide not to sell with that particular retailer
3. Explain in the product description that there are errors that were introduced by the conversion process. Optionally, set a lower price at that retailer. At least this way, the buyer knows about the issues and can make an informed decision whether or not to buy.

Originally Posted by flipreads

And sometimes, the retailer doesn't give you tools to test the output. Amazon, for example, in this case: http://blog.ksaugustin.com/2011/10/0...e-third-world/

I have to admit I had no idea about situations like the one faced by the person you've linked to. Obviously, in cases like that, the publisher does have a perfectly reasonable reason for not checking the output.