Originally Posted by Rellwood
Hi,
First I need to state that I have purchased over 1000 books from Amazon alone. I have also purchased from Smashwords, Bookstrand, Ellora's Cave (when it was still around), and other online sources. Also, I get e-books from the library. I read about 300 books a year and have been doing so for the past 5 years. I started reading at age 6 and up until 2013 when I got my first Kindle I had only been reading paperbacks purchased online, or in used book stores, or at the library. So I am not someone who is just dealing with a quibble here and there. What I am going to describe is an ongoing and often daily "problem" that I want to get your opinions on my solution. Also, keep in mind that all my books are for my own personal use and are not given away or lent.
Ok, now that I got that out of the way, in the hopes of saving time writing this out, I will try to be succinct, and answer questions later.
Since authors started self publishing I have noticed that e-book formatting has taken a dive. Too many times I download to my Kindle only to discover line heights up to 200%, spaces between paragraphs with no indentation, or double spacing with extra line height and indents. The combinations of unreadable (to me) formatting is almost limitless. This is one point.
The second point is the non-plot specific uses of words, terms and phrases that can actually cause me to stop reading a book. If they are noticed before I get into the story, I will unconsciously be on a countdown to a dnf, it can take only one more instance to dnf a book if I haven't gotten into it.
Since I read so much, and have a ton of books (like HR reading through a pile of resumes) it takes very little to decide not to finish a book. I am only talking about the use or overuse of specific terms, words, and phrases (not a set specific list, but specific to that story), forget about the plot or story.
A simple example would be an Indie Sci-fi series of about 15 books of which I started the first, loved it, then impulsively bought the next 8 books. They were cheap, and I figured they were a good deal. However by the second book I kind of noticed the author using and reusing specific phrases to describe characters, or interactions. Since I was really into the plot, I overlooked them. However they continued into the 3rd book, at which point I had to consult Goodreads to see if I was the only one to notice this (I was).
I had hoped that by the 4th book someone would have clued her in, but the same 5 or 6 points kept coming up to the extent that it seemed like the book was auto written using plugins. If that wasn't bad enough, the parts of the story that kind of saved me from those overused terms and phrases started to lag. I ended up DNF'ing half way through the fourth book. I have since consigned the rest of the books to the archives and have moved on.
These phrases and words were unique enough and so ubiquitous that I couldn't overlook them. They were literal speed bumps to my reading. After reading "trotted" for the literal 60th time in a book when used to describe any and all actions indicating a person moving using their feet I was done.
There were maybe 5 or 6 other very easy to point out and totally overused examples that were not necessary to the plot, but really got old.
That was an example of an extreme problem with use and overuse.
Finally, there is the single word, either not appropriate but used a few times more that I was willing to overlook - a New Adult Erotic Romance with Billionaire and BDSM themes shouldn't have the word "skivvies" instead of panties. However it was used 5 times in the most ridiculous ways. "He spent $5000 on clothes for me, and that didn't even count the skivvies and shoes". " If I spend my money its on art supplies and skivvies" - My apologies to the author if this gets back to her, but really, you could have used panties and it would have been so much better.
Another example would actually be something I hadn't noticed until a 3 re-reading of a series. I don't know what brought it to my attention, but once it was on my radar, I was screwed. I have wicked ADHD and a bit of other spectrum related issues so I have no control of what happens once I get to the point where I notice something. I hate it when I am into a book and then I am pissed because I know it's going to mess with me. This is not even counting plot or editing.
Black Boxer-briefs. I realized that this was used to describe the underwear of the hero in an New Adult Dark Romance series by one of my favorite authors. Since this hero tended to strip a lot, I had to read that he was wearing black boxer-briefs every time. I wasn't having it.
Because I loved this series, I was compelled to do something that I always threatened (in my mind) to do. I went into the book using Calibre book editor and did a search and replace for the term black boxer-briefs and changed it to underwear. After realizing that I could literally fix books that I couldn't read (really, its my own hangups and not the fault of the author in many cases) I went through all those books I had to dnf, or books where something bothered me enough that I would remember it being there even after putting it down for months.
I went back into that indie sci-fi series and found the word "trotted" used in each book up to 100 plus times. I changed that to "went". "She went to the other room". "They went down the hallway". "He went over to me". Yeah, there were times it didn't quite fit, but it was so much easier to read than basically doing the drinking game everytime I read the word trotted.
Finally, in order to tackle the problems with formatting, I would just reconvert the book into the acceptable format using the preferences of 125% line height, remove spaces between paragraphs and indents. Remove colors and keep the original justification, and make sure there is a table of contents.
I have to side load most of my books anyway so I can read their titles on the device series first (Amazon needs to fix that with their titles so I can actually read the series listing). The most aggravating thing is when I know a favorite author always uses formatting that I can't stand. The worst is big line height, spacing between paragraphs and no indents. I try to overlook it, but often can't. So it sucks to download a book, expecting to read it right away, but learning I have to upload it to my computer, fix the formatting, the resend it to my Kindle.
So my question is what do authors think about readers who purchased their books going into them to change small non-plot specific parts and reformatting to their desired output all in the name of actually enjoying the read and not dnf'ing what could be a great book?
I know they are your babies, but if I am able to read them, isn't that more important?
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