Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz
Granted that there is an option to Report Content Error(s), but has anyone EVER had their book updated with corrected spelling after reporting one?
I've sent in plenty of corrections, never gotten a book updated (at least not those ones).
I don't think Amazon will actually force the publisher to update the book except perhaps in seriously error-filled books.
|
I don't think they should be able to force a publisher to update a book although they should be able to refuse to carry it if it is ugly.
I'm wondering how many books get reported and what action Amazon takes or should be expected to take. If they give an option to report content error, that implies to me that some action will be taken. But they cannot correct the book themselves legally AFAIK or force anyone else to do it either. And I would think that unless massive complaints came in about an individual book, it would be very expensive to check the truthfulness of the reports? From what I have heard they carry a lot of unproofed books.
I have bought ebooks with scanning errors, and borrowed library books with scanning errors. And library books with header/footers randomly interspersed. Luckily a minority and all but one readable, and the unreadable one was not only free but uninteresting.
I find the subject interesting as I see no way for a bookseller to effectively police this without checking every page of every book and refusing to sell it if it is not at least reasonable, and I think this would cost a pile of cash.
Overall the ultimate cost of selling ugly books is to make people like myself, stick mainly with the traditionally published or the author who has published more than one book, and this is not great for the future of literature.
I often read five or six Indie titles a year, but generally I am more of a backlist/midlist reader and I cannot remember that this has lead me to a really badly formatted/proofed ebook in the last two years.
Helen