Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
One thing that I've noticed is that for some books, calibre does a poor job of changing from mobi to epub. I have had some books that looked like terrible scan issues, but then when I happened to read the book on the kindle app, those scan issues disappeared. Sure I have run across some books with actual scan issues, but sometimes it's a translation issue (from one format to another).
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That may be. Yet the books I purchase from Amazon tend to be the ones from the big publishers (since the price difference is usually notable). So if your assertion is right, even with Calibre converting them to ePub, they still (in general) look better than the indie ePubs I buy from Smashwords and B&N.
To give concrete examples, I recently read Black Rain from Masuji Ibuse. From a big publisher, purchased through Amazon, converted to ePub by Calibre. Book looked great.
I bought Steven Saylor's A Twist at the End. Self published (though originally a paper book from a big publisher). It looked better than some indies I've bought, but I had to clean up the formatting and the table of contents was terrible (it listed sections, but not chapters, for instance).
Or, a better example: I bought Peter Brandvold's self published A Bullet for Sartain. ePub from B&N. It was a mess (looks like it's been re-self published, with a new cover, so it may be better now).
I also bought Peter Brandvold's The Bells of El Diablo, published by Signet. The book looks great. Like the paperback I've seen in stores (I may have had to justify the text. I don't remember for sure now).
I haven't even touched on editing and spell checking.
Again, I support the indies. I just don't want to pretend that the big publishers don't add any value. Though there may be anecdotal cases, if you buy ten books from the majors and ten indie books, we all know which batch will be more professional, overall.
Sorry, this is a completely off topic conversation.
