Quote:
Originally Posted by meeera
Yes, the majority of ebook formats should be as fungible as possible. (Obviously, this is not "endless". There are limits. See below.) Lots and lots of us are reading ebooks mostly or partly because of the flexibility in layout and display. When people who think they know our eyes/brain function and aesthetic preferences better than we do elect to do a whole lot of unnecessary hard-coding, it's irritating and can be frankly disrespectful to the customer. The beauty of the e-format is its flexibility. Why impose artificial restrictions on that? Use it to advantage! That's what good design - real, capital-D Design - is about.
It reminds me of the early days of the Web, when people kept presenting fixed-width and fixed-layout pages, basically online brochures rather than real websites. Even to the point that some would present text as images of text, because that's "exactly how they wanted it to look". These sorts of formats (which are still around, though decreasingly so thank goodness!) break in all sorts of situations that the web "designers" refused to anticipate: smaller browser windows, enlarged text for people with visual impairment, text-to-speech for blind folks, mobile devices, and so on.
Ebook designers need to learn the lessons of web design, not their pre-loaded lessons of print design. They're different animals. I think a fair few ebook producers (and I have no idea whether you're counted among them; I haven't seen your ebooks) are still in the mindset that ebooks are for presenting fixed-layout print-like pages on a screen. Those people are, on the whole, wrong. About the only time this sort of imposition of layout is reasonable and appropriate design, that I can think of right now, is a children's picture book, some graphic novels, or perhaps a few textbooks. It's gotten to the point where I now run every book through a Calibre conversion before reading, because so many of them force their own design choices on me, choices that don't work for me. Ugh.
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Well, Meera:
For ebook producers who want their books to look like unstyled, plain word-processed uploads, there are a zillion different ways to do that. I know that while I try not to "force" my taste on the reading public, I personally can't abide a
book that looks like an uploaded Word file on Amazon (or Nook, Smashwords, etc. In fact, it was that aspect that most put me off of Smashwords, when I first came to digital books). To me, it looks like an 8th-grader's essay, not a BOOK. It may suit your preferences, because you can restyle it to your heart's content, but to me it screams "amateur!" That's only to be expected, given what I do for a living.
Now, granted, that's personal preference, but I don't hear anyone suggesting that all printed books should all be made as vanilla as possible, so that...what? Readers can change those, too? Or perhaps we should start getting POD houses to offer options (A: get your text in serif, b) in sans-serif, c) with spaces between paragraphs, d) w/o spaces between paragraphs)...I mean, after all, it wouldn't be that big of a technological leap to do THAT, either, to satisfy the endless whims of readers, would it? It would be nothing. Have the publisher upload 4 or 5 or ten different options of interior, and Createspace or Lulu or whichever could just pump out the desired choice. No?
Plenty of websites still "force" various layouts, options, etc., on to their visitors, and the more popular the website, the more convoluted and unforgiving the site is. I can think of several, that are so busy cramming adverts down the reader's throat that scant attention has been given to whether or not the site will fit on a smartphone. There are fewer endlessly-fungible websites than there are ebooks, of that, I'm pretty sure, given how many "bloggers" use Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, and all their set templates for their CMS's. Just sayin'.
I think that this is where there is a distinct difference of opinion. Some folks want to be able to change everything
digital to suit their own whims. They don't think twice about wanting the same thing for a print book, simply because it's not easy or cheap. That doesn't affect their ability to enjoy the reading material.
So why does it cause such a ruckus in an eBook? Just because the reader CAN change the layout, etc., doesn't mean that it's an absolute "must-do." I realize that on MR this is heresy, but the average person who buys and enjoys ebooks mostly just changes the font size; they
don't run them through Calibre, they
don't change the CSS, they
don't change the HTML, they
don't rip them apart with ePUBTweak and change them to suit them--they
just buy them and enjoy them, as they would paperback books.
That's why I find the whole thing somewhat...whatever. A mere 10 years ago, this discussion wouldn't be happening. People would buy books that were put out by publishing houses, and if they didn't like the font, they wouldn't buy it, or they'd buy the large print edition. Now, they want to be able to dictate to the publisher how the publisher should present HIS material. I can tell you what many authors or publishers would say: "When people who think they know our creativity, creations and artistic vision better than
we do elect to do a whole lot of unnecessary complaining and re-coding, it's irritating and can be frankly disrespectful to the creator of the content."
So...each side has its own ideas. I can't tell you how many times we've had clients get their knickers in a twist, because something in our layout interfered with or contradicted their "artistic vision" for the layout of their book. You can think what you will, but authors and publishers have very clear ideas as to what they want, and HOW they want it presented. So: is the customer always right, and every book should look like a plain text Word file, so that the 1% of ebook readers who DO know how to customize their books can do so, OR, is the publisher/artist correct, and entitled to present their creative work, in accordance with their artistic vision?
This isn't the same thing as websites...now we're talking about what the creators of the works consider their ART. They don't think that you have any right to endlessly tweak the visual aspects of the book any more than they'd think that you should be able to Gumby Rodin's "The Thinker" around because you believe that he'd look better with his OTHER elbow on his knee. ;-)
Just sayin'.
Hitch