[Turtle91]

VydorScope - I appreciate loyalty and I'm sure smashwords appreciates yours!

Judging by my sales at Smashwords, and judging by the test I did (covered in the OP) ...These readers do not have any problems, which is evident by their continued purchase of more books from Smashwords.

Your OP made me wince...as I do any time I hear people talk about statistics. There are so few people who actually KNOW how to determine a proper "statistically significant difference". If you do, that's great, but then you should know that anytime you state something like that you need to provide the numbers to back it up(population, sampling size, error, etc) because without them anyone can make any statistic say anything they want...just ask a politician!

"These readers do not have any problems" - really. And you know this how? "As evident by their continued purchase of more books from Smashwords." Sorry but the arguments of logic break down at that point. Do you have numbers showing how many people re-purchase after having an issue??

I would counter with the argument that people are more likely to continue repeating the same action because it is what they are familiar with. They may not realize that what they are seeing is "substandard" (if in fact it is) and think that is the way it is supposed to be. Perhaps ebooks have not become popular as fast as I would have expected (hoped) because people look at a poorly styled ebook and say...meh...I prefer paper??

It is only a select few that will ever look at the code, and of them a small precent of them will care that the code is not as clean as they would like. That tiny group will never be happy.

You're right. Only a small percent will ever look at the code...that's a good thing! But I would be willing to bet that a MUCH LARGER percent will try and read their ebook in night mode and go What The Frak!! when it disappears on them...

============

I get the impression that some people are getting defensive. I want to assure you that I am in no way trying to attack or condemn...I started out simply clarifying what someone else meant by "hand-crafting" and then put up a description of some of the problems I found with random smashwords books that I had reviewed. My intent is to make you AWARE of the issues that I found. What you do with that awareness is entirely up to you...it doesn't bother me a bit...they are YOUR books....your sales. If you think that not being able to read your book when the user selects the "night mode" on their device is acceptable, then wonderful.

I would HOPE that someone brings these issues up to the appropriate individuals to get them fixed...a better product is only a plus for everyone involved. The fact that Mark Coker put in a comment is actually very encouraging...it means he cares...and I would think that he would be the person that could get some of these issues fixed if anyone can. I was a little concerned about WHAT he said...because it means that there is some confusion still on exactly what the problems are:

Originally Posted by Smashwords

This meme of poor formatting is a myth. Smashwords has stricter formatting requirements than most of our retailers.

I only reported what I actually SAW/WITNESSED/EXPERIENCED in random books taken from your website. You are more than welcome to take a look at more of your books and see if it is a consistent issue. Please do.

I was very concerned that what I had written was NOT a good sampling of the books...it was only 3 random fantasy books. So I went in this morning and pulled 7 more at random from random genre's (although I did keep the Adult Filter ON ) I specifically selected "most downloads" and "highest rated" to avoid any "new publications". The only other specification I used was that it had to be free. Sorry, I'm not going to pay for a book when I am just trying to help you guys out.

Every single one of them had the same flaws. Including the Style guide itself! That means that it is an error with the process and not with a particular author or book.

Anyone can open up their own book and check for themselves. Open your ePub, look at the stylesheet. You are looking for something that resembles this:

color: #000

That is what makes it invisible in night mode because it is setting all the fonts to the color black. There are other issues in there, but I'm not running an html academy here...lol

Originally Posted by Smashwords

A few weeks ago we launched our new Smashwords Direct feature, which is now in beta. Ironically, many of the "hand-crafted" epubs we're receiving are failing epubcheck, or failing other validation required by Apple, which has stricter epub construction requirements than other retailers. Books produced by our Meatgrinder conversion system don't have those problems.

"Hand-crafted" does not always equate to "well-crafted". You can have a complete beginner create an ePub by hand that does not meet standards. However, your process definitely has issues (which is expected in a BETA) when it repeatedly rejects "well-crafted" ePubs from professional book designers who get books accepted by Apple all the time. I would refer you to a different thread to get more information:https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=202111

Originally Posted by Smashwords

Also as a reminder, authors format books, not Meatgrinder. If an author follows our Style Guide, they'll get good, predictable results.

True-ish.
I read your style guide this morning. It actually did a good job on telling how someone can get a "consistent, predictable result" but not necessarily "good". It is designed to set up a document so that the meatgrinder can spit out a product that will be "usable" in all those multiple formats. That does not necessarily equate to "good" for a particular format. That is the downside to automated processes.
For example, your style guide (step 7b-a) specifically instructs authors to select a defined paragraph indent in inches. That might be necessary to get it to look good in a pdf/print format, but looks bad in a reflowable ebook. That was one of the complaints I had in my review.

Originally Posted by Smashwords

Before we distribute a book to retailers, our vetting team opens each book and reviews the epub for proper formatting and function.

That may explain why the books I reviewed had the fatal flaws. I retrieved them from smashwords.com. I do not know if they have been "distributed to retailers."

Have I mentioned my son is trying to payoff a cellphone data charge...he would be willing to help your vetters!

That brings up a question though. Why would you not vet books that are sold on your own website? Is it OK to let those books be flawed?

Originally Posted by Smashwords

Yes, there are poorly formatted books on Smashwords, but they're likely not books that are earning distribution, or they're recently uploaded books where the author is still working through corrections.

What does it matter if "they're likely not books that are earning distribution?" They made it through the meatgrinder did they not? Then they should not have fatal flaws. A book that meets all the requirements in your style guide does not have to "look pretty" for distribution, but every book that makes it through the grinder should at least be able to display in night mode...

It is not a matter of them being "new" books that haven't made it through the vetting queue yet...I specifically selected books that were from the "Most Downloads" and "Highest Rated" sort. One of the books was published over 2.5 years ago.


Again. I hope this helps people to get the issues corrected.

Cheers!