The concept of the "finished" text

[teh603]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

I think the interesting thing here is the use of the term beta reader.

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Because it abandons the notion of a finished text.

Ok, so normally I find Giggleton's posts a bit like koans, but this one actually made sense. Smashwords and BookieJar both allow someone to upload an "updated" or corrected text. So does deviantArt. I've never tried doing it with Amazon, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was an option there as well.

The thing is, print books don't allow these kind of version updates the same way an ebook does. They're "fixed" at a moment of time when they're printed, and later versions require another print run, thus "fixing" them at another moment.

So should we really abandon the concept of the "finished" manuscript, and adopt something like a software version control version with alpha, beta, and RC releases; versions with numbers ascending from 1.0, an all that?

[Lazybones]

Amazon does allow uploading new versions and even lets you mark them with edition numbers.

I try my best to make every book I publish "finished" in the traditional sense, but there have been a number of cases where I have had to make updates. In one instance a reader let me know of some formatting issues that had crept in during a conversion process, in another I found a few minor mistakes that I'd missed during my editing.

As long as the ability to update isn't used an excuse to sell crappy first drafts, I think being able to upload new versions of texts is useful for both authors and readers.

[mr ploppy]

The problem I think, unless it is widely pirated, is that the original version will disappear forever. Though that doesn't stop me from doing it myself

[SeaKing]

Perhaps most of those here are too young to remember the "addendum's" that used to be inserted into print books.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by SeaKing

Perhaps most of those here are too young to remember the "addendum's" that used to be inserted into print books.

No, but I do remember picking up an RPG sourcebook which had a good three pages of Errata stuffed inside.

[charlesatan]

As much as possible, it's best if the text for sale is the final copy. It will reflect, after all, in the initial reviews, and can be an inconvenience to consumers (ie having to re-downloaded the book). And if you do this, I recommend sticking to fixing typos as opposed to other types of edits (i.e. changing a character completely). That's not to say you can't release a different version of the book but do just that: release a different version of the book labeled appropriately.

[gmw]

Technical books have been doing revisions (editions) for ... ever? Some fiction books have seen re-release in substantially different revisions well before ebooks became popular enough to warrant the "e" prefix (Stephen King's The Stand comes to mind).

So it's not a new idea, ebooks just make it more convenient. I personally would rather that most fiction continued to come out as finished text, with only ever minor (spelling and significant grammar) corrections made, but my preferences aren't going to make much difference - the capability is there and it will be used. It will be interesting to see how much it is used, and how such revisions are sold.

Would - to take my previous example - the new edition of The Stand be considered "v2", and like most commercial software require a significant upgrade price for purchase? While spelling and grammar revisions would be v1.1 (or v1.0.1 build 01234 ) and could be a free upgrade to existing buyers? And how will be buyers know whether a "major" version change is really worth the money. It might be like upgrading pick-your-bugbear-software-package to the next major version only to discover it's essentially the same thing with the screen colours changed. The possibilities boggle the mind.