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Originally Posted by Krystl
Thanks Avantman, actually, it does. I am learning so much here! I just think it is "weird" and I guess I can understand publishers' frustrations better. And it does make the thread not so "black/white".
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To be honest, I still think it's the publisher's responsibility to ensure the end result is up to a reasonable standard. As I said before, if they can't do that, they can either choose not to use that retailer, or mention the issues in the description so that buyers know what they're getting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Krystl
The boundry between "publisher" and "retailer" seems to be fuzzing out. But I guess I would have to say that the retailers are then responsible--they are not publishers and keep costs down by using automation and no live (human) proofing. That is unfortunate, as a) machines cannot 100% replace humans (but are great aids) and b) if there is a flawless text made available I want that one--and not a "meatgrinder" and yes I would be willing to pay more for the work involved.
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In the case of Smashwords, they are a retailer and distributor for independent authors. I suspect they chose to have an automated conversion from Word files to make it easier for people to publish on their platform. There is no reason why a human can't proof-read the output, and in fact, Smashwords encourage authors to do exactly that. I've got books on Smashwords that I had to tweak and submit several times in order to get an output that I was happy with.
Also, Smashwords are planning to introduce "Smashwords Direct" later this year, which will allow authors to upload ePub and other formats directly, bypassing meatgrinder.