Quote:
Originally Posted by Cootey
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…
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?
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Very clear. Agreeing I would just delete them too. Oh you said mostly freebies. You probably aren't missing much especially if the author is taking all that time to change things.
Now my opinion on authors that redo their books after publication (and there are some out there), I won't read more than one of their books. That said I have seen books that just needed pulled and totally redone due to errors.
I think the record was 8 errors in a 12 word sentence.