Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
Are these books from Fictionwise multi-format eBooks? I did purchase starrigger's eBooks from Fictionwise and found a number of errors that should not have been in them. They are multi-format. So I am wondering if their multi-format system is seriously flawed.
And the first two Bean eBooks in the Honor Harrington series are a problem. On Basilisk Station has a problem with missing section breaks. Not all are missing but some definitely are and it's obvious for a lot of them. And the second one, The Honor of the Queen has section break issues as well. Instead of using the blank line spacing, they decided to use a centered * * * and I've found some (in the ePub) not centered.
All of the errors are errors that should never have been there.
And starrigger to lower the chance of your eBooks being messed up during conversion, send in a clean HTML copy (not one from Word as you'll have to spend weeks cleaning it up). It will convert better then RTF.
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Jon, you're assuming the author has some choice in the matter, and that there's some kind of personal attention given to the books when they go through the conversion process. RTF is what they take, and it has to be formatted to fairly restrictive guidelines. There's a work flow at ereads, and after that there's a work flow at fictionwise and all the other shops. The problem is a combination of outdated mass-production conversion software, and too little attention to quality control at the retailers.
Also, what writer can afford to spend the time fine-tuning an html file for an ebook retailer? (And in truth, you can get perfectly good conversions from the RTF saved to compact html in Word. I tested my own files before they went in, and I got good ebooks. The problem was not in the files, it was in the conversion.)
And to put it in perspective, let's remember that it's a rare
paper edition that doesn't come through with some typos, these days. Sometimes the typos are introduced during the final error-correction pass, as has happened to me.