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Old 05-08-2017, 04:59 AM   #10
Notjohn
mostly an observer
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Join Date: Dec 2012
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stumped View Post
in this case, the retail epub version of Wilbur Smith - War Cry. no headers, no chapters, just 200 ish pages of text with scene breaks.
Since my major preoccupation is as author, not as formatter, I don't think you have a right to do this. You bought a book for $14.95, and that gives you the right to read it, and within limitations pass it on to someone else. It doesn't give you the right to revise it. I'm not familiar with the book, but I see that it is indeed a single chunk of text, with the occasional break of a short line or several stars. That's the book Mr Smith wrote.

Would you also reformat À la recherche du temps perdu?

It may be of course that your judgment is superior, and that another publisher would have done it differently. A friend of mine wrote a first novel that consisted of several hundred thousand words and a single paragraph. Doubleday bought the book, cut it in halves, divided the halves into chapters and the chapters into paragraphs. It got him a good critical reception, a fellowship, and a job teaching creative writing at the state university. But HE accepted the revisions, and I don't believe Mr Smith has accepted yours.
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