Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
Cootey, I am a little confused. Are you asking this from a reader's perspective or a publisher's perspective?
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From a reader's perspective. As a publisher, updating a book's a simple matter of uploading the new file to Smashwords or Kindle. However, I have questions about how the process affects readers. More below…
Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
On the reading side: Kobo has not told me about updates to books I've bought, and I never go looking for updates. I don't expect fiction to change, and for non-fiction any significant changes I expect to come out in a new edition (separate book). I guess it doesn't have to work like this, it's just the way I've grown up expecting it to work.
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I haven't been pushed by Kobo to update books either. I have not noticed if book updates happen during syncing with Kobo's servers. It might be a transparent, automatic process for Kobo.
Yesterday, when I opened iBooks on my Mac, I was prompted to update two books. Today, I was prompted to update three more. When I click on the "Details" link under the update pane for Cassandra Clare's "City of Bones", I see the following:
"Version History
Dec 21, 2017
Teasers added for CITY OF ASHES, CLOCKWORK ANGEL, and LADY MIDNIGHT. Author "Also by" page, backs, and registration pages updated."
You can click on "show all versions" to see more of the same. Meanwhile, Barbara Hambly's "The Silent Tower" was updated to address ebook conversion typos.
On one hand, this is a very handy feature, but some prolific authors push updates through all their book series perhaps excessively. I once downloaded 50 or so free mystery novels from iBooks. The indy published authors kept pushing updates, almost weekly, to update the ads in their books. It was a nightmare, so I removed all of those books.
Since I have updated books of my own because of typos, I wondered what the experience was like for readers on other platforms. I may have to make a change for experiment's sake and see which platforms automatically update the book without prompting, which simply leave the update on the server, forcing the reader to delete and redownload, or which prompt for an update as iBooks does.
Does that clarify things for you?