New versions of Kindle books

[bob315]

I just made my first bug report on a Kindle book. The reply was positive:

Thank you for writing to us about the difficulty you had recently
reading Singularity Sky on your Kindle. I've looked at the item
myself, and it appears that there is a problem with that file. I
apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.

Because there is a problem with this title, I've requested that it be
corrected as soon as possible. If you are still interested in a
working copy of this title, you can redownload it at any time and see
if a corrected version is available.

Something more proactive than my checking periodically would be better. I wrote Amazon suggesting they notify purchasers whenever updated versions are released. So, I'm curious:

- who has reported book bugs?
- who has gotten a reply like that above?
- who has a book and would like an updated copy?
- is there currently a way to track this?
- etc.

Cheers,
Bob

[Alisa]

What I would like to see is an option to flag errors in the book. When you connect back to Amazon, this information could be automatically sent. When a new version of a book you own is available, ideally it should be able update and preserve your bookmarks with a minimum of fuss. I don't think I'd want it to be completely automatic just because I don't want them overwriting stuff without asking. However, if you had an updated version of a book available, the next time you connect to Whispernet it should tell you and ask you if you want it. None of this seems terribly difficult to do so maybe they'll figure that out for a future release. At least the error flagging thing should be a fairly high priority in my mind. After they gauge the quality issues and see how responsive the publishers are to releasing new versions of the books they can figure out if it's worth it to invest time in an update system. JMHO.

[bob315]

Originally Posted by Alisa

...see how responsive the publishers are to releasing new versions of the books ...

That raises a question: who actually produces the ebook files? Given the existence of errors that *look* like scanned paper converted with OCR and inadequate proofreading, is it Amazon or the publisher who is doing the conversion? It is mildly amazing to me that there isn't a flawless transfer of some master electronic copy of the book into each new format, printed or electronic. I can't think of a good reason for new errors to appear well into the life of a book.

[Gideon]

There seems to be no shortage of poorly transferred books. I ordered the Tanach (Jewish Bible) which was the old 1917 JPS translation...

There was no table of contents. Honestly... that'd take, what, 2 minutes to create? Their QA may need some tightening up.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by bob315

That raises a question: who actually produces the ebook files?

The publisher.