Quote:
Originally Posted by phillipgessert
Re: tech support rants. In my experience, a great many people default claim to have viewed a PDF “in Acrobat” after viewing it in practically anything else. My theory is that they think PDFs are created “in Acrobat” so simply viewing a PDF is always “in Acrobat” in the same way you might read a document “in English.” And certain browsers opening EPUBs natively (and poorly) is definitely a source of headaches. For whom was this a priority?
|
Y'know, that's an excellent point.
The thing that sort of makes me feel exhausted, so often, nowadays, is that I've tried everything under the sun, truly (short of bankrupting myself with minute-by-minute handholding) to provide prophylactic help. To say things like "don't open your MOBI in iOS," or "if you're going to do X, make sure that you do Y first," or whatever and they can't be bothered to read it.
I've ranted about this here, as well, even though this isn't really the place; I have 5, count 'em, 5 different articles about ISBNs in my site. I have a "FAQ ATTACK" document that I hand out to new customers, explaining, in short (very short) that you do need an ISBN for X, you don't for Y, etc. Oh, and I have a handout that shows them how to get a free ISBN from Amazon, if they choose to go that route, right?
And how many times does each new-to-us author (and some repeats, mind you!!!), ask me "do I need an ISBN?" At least once per client. I mean...WT-high-holy-F? I mean, WHY?
I am screechingly frustrated over the choices. I can either answer it, which makes me grind my teeth, or I can say "read the damn FAQ ATTACK document that we already gave you," which will not earn me "nice" points from the customers, or I can give them links to our existing articles, which, btw, they will then say that they read "but didn't understand" and so on. I typically end up quite literally copy-pasting the same exact text, from the site or the FAQ ATTACK, into the email and then--then--they're happy that I've answered them.
The truth is, most of them simply can't be bothered. I think that even though "tech support" has horror stories everywhere, in self-publishing, the unspoken reality is, most self-publishers are in self-publishing against their will. They drag themselves into it
kicking and screaming; they don't
WANT to be their own publisher. Not remotely.
They're still harboring that dream--that the Random Houses of the world will find them, will pay them big advances and all that, and do all the "icky" stuff like marketing, promoting the book, all that pesky s**t. So, they actively resist learning what they need to, to be a publisher proper. It's
a form of denial; if they can get their layout house to do that job for them, well, they can still feel like a published author in their heads.
I think that's the only explanation for the subsidy presses of the world, the Outskirts Press, where they (for example) charge 5x what we do, for the exact same eBook output. Quite literally, 5x. The only explanation is that OP is their "publisher;" they handle everything, do all that icky marketing stuff, etc. I mean, why pay, for example, $3500 for a publishing package that you could get from a midrange layout house (print, cover and eBooks) for under a grand? You're paying $2500 more for...what? For not having to think about things like trim sizes, fonts, whether you want a modern looking layout or a traditional, whether you need an ISBN or not and not having to upload. For
NOT having to think like a publisher. (For some, for erroneously thinking that OP, Balboa, etc., are going to do your marketing for you...)
I
mean it. I know, it seems nuts, but...that's the
only rational explanation that I can come up with, for this behavior. When I talk to other print designers, other eBook formatters, we ALL struggle with the same exact pattern from our customers. That
can't be a coincidence or accidental.
There doesn't seem to be any
rational explanation for it, so that, above, is my $.02 on it, for what it's worth.
Hitch