Why publishers format ebooks differently than paper books?

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

Quite the contrary; this came from a Big Five publisher. It was especially obvious because there were lots-of-phrases-like-this that became lots-of-phraseslike-this.

That is quite a common OCR error, the original paper book probably had a hyphenated word split over two lines, and the OCR software removed the hyphen that was at the end of the line.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by VictoriaP

Another person who prefers both indents & space between paragraphs. But really only two things annoy me badly--the minimum line spacing that .azw3 files force on you (which I find too big) and publisher locked fonts. Other than that, I'm pretty mellow.

For the record though, those of us who grew up learning to type on actual typewriters well remember that both indenting at the beginning and double-spacing at the end of a paragraph was the norm well before the Web, as was the now obsolete two spaces after a period before starting the next sentence.

I remember learning on a manual back in the seventies, but I never had to double-space after paragraphs.

[GeorgeH]

Lemurion, my experience comes from the '60s and it was considered an error during exams if the double space was missed. I guess it was intended to improve the readability of the text, but like many things I was taught (and forgot) it was all a mysterious process that one was obliged to conform to if you had expectations of escaping from that particular institution. lol!

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

That is quite a common OCR error, the original paper book probably had a hyphenated word split over two lines, and the OCR software removed the hyphen that was at the end of the line.

However, this is a new release, not a reprint. There's no reason for OCR to be involved.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by GeorgeH

Lemurion, my experience comes from the '60s and it was considered an error during exams if the double space was missed.

I was taught the same style in high school in the '80s.

[Ripplinger]

The only time I used double-line spacing between paragraphs was for school papers where I was stretching out the content to get to the required number of pages ... also used were wide margins both top/bottom and on the sides.

The double spacing after a period though, I still do that and still prefer to read text that uses it over a single space. Sentences just look wrong to me and run together without it, sentence breaks are more noticeable as well. I always assumed computer programmers who didn't know the basics of typing started the "down with the double space" unintentionally and claimed it wasn't needed to defend that.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I still do the double space after a period. Does that make me really old?

Just well trained
Yep, I remember the classroom full of Royal's

[VictoriaP]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

I was taught the same style in high school in the '80s.

Ditto here on the '80's, typing was required both in junior high and high school, all on manual typewriters. I still have to consciously remember to not do the two spaces after a period--despite training as a technical writer as an adult! It's been a tough habit to break.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

However, this is a new release, not a reprint. There's no reason for OCR to be involved.

Don't count on it. Many (many) publishers, even today, only do the print layout professionally in the States, and then ship PDF's of the "new release" to a commercial converter, usually in India or another third-world country. In fact, virtually every single Indian company prices all books (from Word, RTF, you-name-it, as well as PDF) by "the page," because that's how they know how to work: from PDF pages. I know of one company, shall remain unnamed, and more than a few, from anecdotal but reliable sources, that--I s**t thee not--take a Word file, exports it to PDF via Acrobat Pro, and then runs the resulting PDF through their rote process. (Abbyy-->OCR-->Output to HTML). No: I did not make that up.

THAT is why new releases have these type of errors, very frequently. Some of the largest stateside conversion houses are actually two US citizens in a small office, with the entire staff in India; they're a paid front for Indian companies. I know of extremely few publishers who are willing to pay even steeply discounted rates for US producers, and worse: almost none of the ePUB- and MOBI-output is proofed when it's returned to the publisher.

And therein lies the problem. Trust me on this one kids, I know whereof I speak.

Hitch

[moonshot]

Originally Posted by cromag

Agreed. Everything I buy goes through Calibre. That takes care of most of the problems. Also, I've tweaked some of the parameters so the file looks that much better.

I have run into an occasional ebook that has problems that appear to need more than Calibre to fix them, but that generally indicates an incompetent job, not sloppy formatting.

I am new to e readers. I have a Kobo and the first book I downloaded from Kobo was OK but the second book I got from Google books does have issues. Large gaps between paragraphs, no cover photo, some pages are half blank etc.
How can I calibrate ? Is this done from the e reader?

Also will the same title bought from say Kobo, Google or Amazon all have the same issues. In other words is it the same copy just downloaded from 'whoever' or does each company have seperate copies.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by GeorgeH

Lemurion, my experience comes from the '60s and it was considered an error during exams if the double space was missed. I guess it was intended to improve the readability of the text, but like many things I was taught (and forgot) it was all a mysterious process that one was obliged to conform to if you had expectations of escaping from that particular institution. lol!

I was on my tablet last night, so maybe I wasn't clear, but you're saying the second carriage return after a paragraph was required as well as the two spaces after a period? That I had to do, but not two line spaces after paragraphs.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Hitch

...take a Word file, exports it to PDF via Acrobat Pro, and then runs the resulting PDF through their rote process. (Abbyy-->OCR-->Output to HTML). No: I did not make that up.

So you are telling me that someone who already has a digital file, converts it to a different format, and then redigitizes it using OCR? Oh man.

Didn't Einstein say: "There are two things that are infinite: The universe, and human stupidity." ?

They *could* try to charge by word. What if the PDF has really large fonts? You pay more for the same book.

THAT is why new releases have these type of errors, very frequently. Some of the largest stateside conversion houses are actually two US citizens in a small office, with the entire staff in India; they're a paid front for Indian companies. I know of extremely few publishers who are willing to pay even steeply discounted rates for US producers, and worse: almost none of the ePUB- and MOBI-output is proofed when it's returned to the publisher.

And therein lies the problem. Trust me on this one kids, I know whereof I speak.

It seems everybody is of the opinion:

Production -> China.
IT -> India.
Clothing -> Bangladesh.

[GeorgeH]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

I was on my tablet last night, so maybe I wasn't clear, but you're saying the second carriage return after a paragraph was required as well as the two spaces after a period? That I had to do, but not two line spaces after paragraphs.

It's a bit hazy now but I think the rule was a single carriage return between paragraphs if they were indented and two if not. As a personal preference I like a bit of space between paragraphs as well as indentation.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by GeorgeH

It's a bit hazy now but I think the rule was a single carriage return between paragraphs if they were indented and two if not. As a personal preference I like a bit of space between paragraphs as well as indentation.

That was the rule I grew up on. I only stopped double-spacing after a period in 2012, because clients required it.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

So you are telling me that someone who already has a digital file, converts it to a different format, and then redigitizes it using OCR? Oh man.

Yes. That's what I'm telling you. Because they have a routine, standard stylesheet that they use to parse the AbbyyFineReader HTML output. It's rote. It's not the type of conversion that we do. They find employees, train them to do X every time--EVERY time, no exceptions--and they have real problems dealing with anything outside of the box.

Didn't Einstein say: "There are two things that are infinite: The universe, and human stupidity." ?

Indeed.

They *could* try to charge by word. What if the PDF has really large fonts? You pay more for the same book.

We've had this come up, in-house. I charge by the Word count, plus add-ons for cleanup (90% of the time), images, text elements (lists, yadda) and the like. But I know of several higher-end conversion houses like mine that charged by "the page" for ages. I was always a bit gobsmacked by that, because of course, someone could use 8pt font in Word or whatever and send you 200K words on "400 pages." Y'know. But then I realized that one of them, one of the most well-known, was actually sourcing his/her Word fiction files out to India, and thus, the "per page" rates. {sigh}. Even back then, I was getting my pants beat off by "US Conversion houses" shipping stuff to India, when all my fiction was being made here (North America, as we have folks in CAN also). Guess where Amazon-made MOBI's are made????? That authors buy through Createspace? Hmmmmmmmmmm? And, yes, I know this factually.

It seems everybody is of the opinion:

Production -> China.
IT -> India.
Clothing -> Bangladesh.

I've actually found using India for any IT kind of frustrating. Yes, their rates are cheaper. However, there's a requirement for massive added supervision (which obviously costs more than labor, usually) at the US end, and a LOT more QA, ditto. Frankly, in my experience in contracting out everything from web work to whatever, it doesn't end up really being cheaper, unless you don't care if you get substandard work, not because the Indians want to do substandard work, but because a) there is a language barrier, b) there's a culture issue, and c) they tend to use the cheapest, least-skilled labor unless you raise holy hell about it. Oh, and d) they are culturally inculcated to always say "yes," they know how to do something, when they don't. They don't think of it as lying; in India, it means "yes, I don't know now, but I will learn on this how to do this just perfectly to make you 100% happy." In the US, of course, if someone tells you that they know how to do something, you expect them to mean NOW, not when they're done experimenting on you.

I just lost a gig to Aptara yesterday, for a one-off book (so I'm not that upset), but I asked this guy, the author, if he'd asked Aptara how they were going to handle all his "exceptions" inside the MOBI file, as the book has Greek, Cyrillic texts and fonts, inline, and other items that will require special care. Not to mention, 200+ photographs, which I KNOW they are going to slap in there at 72ppi, which means all those photos will look like dog-poo on the HDX and Fire HD devices, due to their high screen rez. It's so frustrating. Their quote was about...70%?-ish of what mine would have been, but I'm running into this more and more.

I think I said, somewhere here on MR (maybe not) that if you use a lot of keyword tools, it's easy to discover that around the phrase, "ebook conversion services," the MOST searched for full phrase is "ebook conversion services India." Not FREE, not "cheap," not anything else: INDIA. Now ask me how my mood is today?

And youse guys wonder why I'm a cranky old thing. ;-)

H