Quote:
Originally Posted by Oxford-eBooks
Goodness me, DiapDealer I hope you're not accusing me of shoddy workmanship there!
All our eBooks are validated properly and checked against all Kindle types before being passed to our clients.
90% of the books that are commissioned are straight text, and naturally will easily be supported on all formats without any degredation whatsoever - and yes, Fancy dropcaps and the like ALWAYS degrade gracefully on all devices.
However, some books DO contain fancy formatting, some books aren't run of the mill and contain diagrams, tables etc. There's usually a way to make such things work on the older devices but it wouldn't be commercially viable to hobble the book that will be enjoyed by an overwhealmingly large proportion of the readership.
We as content creators need to be respectful of the existing device owners as they were the early adopters that helped to build the success of the industry - but it is also our duty to responsibly push forwards, to allow our publisher clients to sell books with richer content (not all books are story books, remember) to try to make their titles stand out amongst fierce competition.
Amazon seem to be bravely trying to throw off the shackles of their old, limited format and I applaud them for doing so.
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I'm quite certain that you and Apple's iBooks Author will have a wonderful relationship. Amazon isn't "bravely" or otherwise throwing off anything. The vast majority of Kindle devices in existence are STILL e-ink Kindles of the first and second generations, plus the DX--not the later models. Take a poll of any reader group that isn't downloading free content (e.g., freebies from Smashwords or Wattpad, etc., over iPhones) and you'll find a gigantic happy block of K1 and K2 owners who have no intention of upgrading until the damn things die.
Moreover, the "issues" of conversion with tables, diagrams, etc., have virtually nothing whatsoever to do with the format, or the age of the device (barring the "oh, I forgot this was a table"-brain of mobi devices); it's the screensize, and nothing else. if I get one book a week to quote that has 20lbs. of flour trying to jam itself into a 5lb sack, I get 10. I turned down this one guy who bugged me non-stop for months, INSISTING that I "didn't get it" when he repeatedly tried to explain to me how his 10" x 10" diagrams were going to work perfectly on regular e-reading devices. Finally, to save my mind, I sent him to Josh, who I'm pretty sure will forgive me by...2014, if not sooner. ;-) (Seriously, I did. But not to torture Josh. I just figured maybe he'd believe it if a second person told him the same things. Odin knows, I couldn't get him to bloody
listen, and I won't take a book if I think it will come out like the dog's breakfast). It's not the format; it's the
size of the devices that's the major hurdle in setting diagrams, tables, and other elements. We've had hundreds of books with thousands of tables, design elements, lists, text-boxes...you name it; and they all manage to survive out there in the wastes of K-1/2 Mobi-Land. ;-) I think the idea of just chucking MOBI 7 for the ease of K8 is...well,
lacking.
Hitch