Reporting to Amazon.com of an e-book with printing errors.

[carmine65]

Hallo Folks, good morning.

that's my first question on the Forum :-)

I bought an e-book on Amazon.com, Kindle format. Now it has in the text some errors and I would like to report that to Amazon.com staff to eventually get a correct copy. How can I do?
Amazon.com Kindle site and my account page is very crowded... I couldn't find the right link (if there exist one...)
Can you HELP me?

Thanks to aaalll of you. Greetings!

[WT Sharpe]

Try this link to send them an email. Let me know if it works for you.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/conta...node_id=557204

Some time ago, I reported a book whose Kindle advertising was misleading. It took a while, but they removed the book from their site.

[Barbara1955]

Most pages on Amazon have a Contact button! Just use that! BTW it seems from others it takes a 2-4 weeks to get a corrected copy! So be Patient! Once they correct it they will email you asking for the bad copy to be returned Then you order the corrected copy AT the price you paid for the Org!!

[HarryT]

It's down to the publisher to correct any errors, and they may take months to do so, or not do so at all. I certainly wouldn't assume that it will get done in a matter of weeks.

All that you can do via Amazon is request a refund of your purchase price if you feel that the formatting is so bad as to render the book unreadable.

[WT Sharpe]

The Amazon Help Page is here.

You can choose from these topics:

[DiapDealer]

I contact Amazon if the formatting of the ebook is horrible enough to warrant a refund, but I usually try to notify the publisher and the author that there is a problem as well. Many authors have forwarded my emails to editors/publishers who then contact me to ask for specific examples/locations of the errors.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by carmine65

Hallo Folks, good morning.

that's my first question on the Forum :-)

I bought an e-book on Amazon.com, Kindle format. Now it has in the text some errors and I would like to report that to Amazon.com staff to eventually get a correct copy. How can I do?
Amazon.com Kindle site and my account page is very crowded... I couldn't find the right link (if there exist one...)
Can you HELP me?

Thanks to aaalll of you. Greetings!

here's what i do for that issue:

1. strip the drm
2. import the drm-free mobi file into calibre
3. convert it to an rtf file, if it errors when i try to open it with openoffice i reconvert to txt.
4. in openoffice i edit the file and save it as an .odt. then import that file into calibre
5. convert the odt into a mobi.

there's a learning curve to editing it properly in openoffice. if you attempt this method feel free to ask questions.
--
Alan

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by alansplace

here's what i do for that issue:

1. strip the drm
2. import the drm-free mobi file into calibre
3. convert it to an rtf file, if it errors when i try to open it with openoffice i reconvert to txt.
4. in openoffice i edit the file and save it as an .odt. then import that file into calibre
5. convert the odt into a mobi.

there's a learning curve to editing it properly in openoffice. if you attempt this method feel free to ask questions.
--
Alan

Why not just extract the html from the mobi file and edit that? Saves lots of steps, and you could still use a spell checker on it if that's the idea.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Why not just extract the html from the mobi file and edit that? Saves lots of steps, and you could still use a spell checker on it if that's the idea.

i don't know, i've never tried it.

openoffice has spell checking so that's not an issue.

hmmmm....i just tried to convert a mobi to html with calibre and there was no choice for html output. so how does one 'extract the html from the mobi file'? edit the html with what?
--
Alan

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by alansplace

i don't know, i've never tried it.

openoffice has spell checking so that's not an issue.

hmmmm....i just tried to convert a mobi to html with calibre and there was no choice for html output. so how does one 'extract the html from the mobi file'? edit the html with what?
--
Alan

I use mobiunpack and edit with wordpad if it's just to fix a few typos, or MS word if it needs spell checking too. Or Dreamweaver if it's bad formatting that needs fixing. Then Mobicreator to turn it back into mobi.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I use mobiunpack and edit with wordpad if it's just to fix a few typos, or MS word if it needs spell checking too. Or Dreamweaver if it's bad formatting that needs fixing. Then Mobicreator to turn it back into mobi.

ah ha....i didn't even know that that script was in the 3.8a tools archive. works fine.

but, since i've developed a knack for (the learning curve i spoke of) the rtf/odt method, i feel more comfortable using it at this point. maybe i'll experiment further, later.
--
Alan

[carmine65]

Hallo everybody,

thanks for your suggestions. Should decide which one apply...
the quickest seems the 'strip DRM, et. etc. method...'
someone so kind to send me baby-level detailed instructions in my mailbox or in private?

Thaank you!!

[cybmole]

acquire & install your tools : calibre, sigil ( free programs), drm plugin for calibre ( also free)
then
1. add book to calibre library - drag & drop from Kindle documents folder while Usb connected. DRM plug-in will kick in automatically.
2. convert the de-drm'd mobi to epub with calibre.
3. use sigil ( epub editor- v easy to use) to correct typos etc.
4. convert epub back to mobi with calibre & send back to Kindle.

PS sell checkers are not a lot of use with Novels as most contain hundreds of proper nouns ( people & place names ) which spell checkers will flag as "errors".

I find it best to read on e-reader with a notepad handy & jot down any annoyances. then do a repair on the book once it's read ( if I'm likely to ever want to read it again )

there is a free spellchecker that works with sigil ( called microspell) but I found it awkward to use & quit using it.

another route is to use MS word in place of sigil & convert mobi to/from .rtf ( with calibre) instead of to/from epub. that is a more drastic conversion though, so you can lose table of contents & lose some headings & margins structure.

PS the forum does not allow an idiots guide to drm stripping to be posted, so you have to follow hints in other threads until you get hold of what you need.

[carmine65]

Originally Posted by cybmole

acquire & install your tools : calibre, sigil ( free programs), drm plugin for calibre ( also free)
then
1. add book to calibre library - drag & drop from Kindle documents folder while Usb connected. DRM plug-in will kick in automatically.
2. convert the de-drm'd mobi to epub with calibre.
3. use sigil ( epub editor- v easy to use) to correct typos etc.
4. convert epub back to mobi with calibre & send back to Kindle.

PS sell checkers are not a lot of use with Novels as most contain hundreds of proper nouns ( people & place names ) which spell checkers will flag as "errors".

I find it best to read on e-reader with a notepad handy & jot down any annoyances. then do a repair on the book once it's read ( if I'm likely to ever want to read it again )

there is a free spellchecker that works with sigil ( called microspell) but I found it awkward to use & quit using it.

another route is to use MS word in place of sigil & convert mobi to/from .rtf ( with calibre) instead of to/from epub. that is a more drastic conversion though, so you can lose table of contents & lose some headings & margins structure.

PS the forum does not allow an idiots guide to drm stripping to be posted, so you have to follow hints in other threads until you get hold of what you need.

Thank you a lot Cybmole,

this is a lot appreciated and suggestions will be followed. Even though I think vendors (and book's author) should know about errors and mis-types. Just to sell a perfect printed product.

glad I met you. my kindest regards.

[cybmole]

FYI, I've yet so see a 100% perfect e-book. that could be true of paper books also but the business of learning to fix up "bad" books makes you hyper conscious of details that you'd maybe never thought about before. things like punctuation of nested dialogues, use of ellipses, dashes, scene breaks, indents ...

then there's the whole world of detecting & fixing incorrect line breaks. lots of good how-to advice on forums which I will not re-type here

I've "bought" several free Kindle books, I reckon to find at least one typo or faulty line break per book;
& I have a theory that maybe Amazon makes some books free as they can't be bothererd to clean up overall bad formatting