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#1 |
Wizard
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for my own reading, I have taken to using sigil to fix annoying typos ins what should be good quality sold books.
but is there any method that actually works when it comes to feeding these back to publishers Two examples from current library loans, which I'll be returning soon 1. the book is called SLIVER OF TRUTH, but the title page has, in huge letters, SILVER OF TRUTH. how did that one slip through the net ?. ( it also has a forced embedded font which is very hard to read, compared to my e-readers default font, but I have to hack the book in order to be able to change font) 2. the book is Cloud Of Sparrows, It has a character called Hidé, with the accented e. That's fine, but much of the time he's called Hid#233; which is very annoying. I see that that's almost the correct html for an accented e special character, but not quite, it needs a & in place of the # I assume. I checked that one in 3 programs, sigil book view, Sony reader for PC, and my actual Sony T3 reader. that's how it is in all 3 views! would it be a total waste of time to compose emails to the publishers, assuming I can even find an email address ? |
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#2 | ||||||
Wizard
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Luckily, almost everything I read is CC3.0 or in the Public Domain, so I just release my Fixed copy for the world (and hope the publisher updates their copy on their site/Amazon/B&N/elsewhere). This is actually how I got my job! I kept bugging the publisher with all of my emails with fixed EPUBs.... and they finally decided to give in to my conversion superiority! ![]() ![]() Quote:
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Embedded fonts should only be used extremely sparingly if at all. Quote:
This could have just been crappy conversions from previous material (let us say they had an old .lit file, ran it through a converter, and popped out an EPUB). Or maybe something went wrong when flipping between different encodings. Or it could have just been a horrible search/replace. This whole horrible conversions reminds me of a few books I purchased from B&N. I read the entirety of the Wild Cards series (22 books so far). There were two in the series published by "Ibooks, Inc." which were HORRIBLE conversions:
Here is a screenshot of #17... You can see they fed it right into calibre with all the wrong settings: I mean.. chapters weren't event split! There was no TOC! And they were just riddled with errors/typos left and right. Quote:
If you can't get a hold of the publisher, maybe leaving your complaints/fixes in an Amazon Review? If that fails, maybe just put it up on a site somewhere. (I really wish that there was a large Typo Database, where everyone can submit the mistakes they find). I settled on this format for physical books/PDFs: Quote:
(Forgive the self-promotion) Here is an example of it in action for this book that I took off of Archive.org and converted, "Speeches, Arguments, Addresses, and Letters of Clement L. Vallandigham": http://misesbooks.blogspot.com/2013/...esses-and.html (Forgive the self-promotion) For digital books... if there are a massive amount of typos, I typically use a code comparison program (I personally use Beyond Compare). And I compare the before/after. Then I would email that to the publisher + your fixed version + an explanation. "On Doing the Right Thing" by Albert J. Nock was a conversion that I was paid to clean up. Attached to this post:
Last edited by Tex2002ans; 02-06-2014 at 06:08 AM. |
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#3 |
Wizard
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a "most annoying typos " repository would be a great addition to this site, if practical
just a simple 1 thread per book place to dump findings so that someone else could maybe benefit IBSN + format would suffice to uniquely identify ? quoting extracts of copyright books purely to show errors should be legal ? |
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#4 | ||
frumious Bandersnatch
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#5 | ||||
Wizard
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(Be sure to see my edited post above, I added some stuff at the end)
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![]() I know if I am informed of any typos, I fix them up ASAP and get new versions up. Quote:
I tried a Wiki, but it was pretty crappy... people don't have the same standards:
A gathering of typos in books doesn't really exist anywhere (at least to my knowledge).... which is why I just started posting them on that blogspot I put up. Maybe:
If you have a book club, and a lot of people are reading the same book... make sure everyone just jots down any mistakes they find. Combine + post. Or if you have a class where everyone is reading the same book, promote reporting errors! Combine + post! If there is no digital copy of the book yet, it would be extremely helpful if there was a list of typos that people have already ran into in the physical/PDF, so when someone comes along in the future to digitize it, they can use it! For example, in my case, I work mostly on books that have never been digitized (besides the PDF scan). I want to put out the highest quality HTML/EPUB copy of the book, and the typo reports would help me towards that goal. ![]() Having the typos out in a public place might be able to warn others of the crappiness, or push the publishers towards fixing the version... as a last resort, it can help others fix their own copies of the ebooks. Quote:
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Side Note: I see that the A Song of Ice and Fire books came out with a few newer versions since I last downloaded them off of B&N. Time to compare them and see what they changed. ![]() My Nook has crappy highlighting, and I don't trust it to save the highlights correctly (I typically overwrite the EPUB as soon as I fix it in Sigil)! Now if only there was a way I could have Sigil while laying in bed reading... now that would be ultimate! Last edited by Tex2002ans; 02-06-2014 at 07:14 AM. |
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#6 |
Ex-Helpdesk Junkie
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If you report books to Amazon for typos, they will sometimes pull the book down until the publisher updates a corrected version. I imagine that is a pretty good incentive...
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#7 | |
Bookmaker & Cat Slave
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IF a book is put up that is just unreadably bad, Amazon will remove it from sale until fixed, but there seems to be no realistic, logical, pattern-recognizable methodology for this. I had a client (I've told this story here) that had a book that was an anthology of character studies. Instead of an inline TOC called, "TOC," she had "Cast of Characters." The doofi (doofuses) at Amazon actually removed it from sale until she "fixed" it, and I gave them what for on that, as the book met the tech specs, the CoC was set as the TOC on the Guide, and those geniuses didn't have the sense to LOOK at the thing to see that on the GoTo, it went to the "Cast of Characters" and figure it out from there. I posted here on MR recently that while I am certainly no fan of typos, I think the craze for fixing every little typo in a BOOK has done no one any favors, particularly the authors OR the readers. I said, and I stand by the idea, that this concept that books can be fixed instantly leads writers to think that it's okay to put up substandard work and "fix it later," or that a book isn't a fixed (as in, completed, not as in repaired) creation, but rather, a WIP posted on Amazon et al for a form of crowd-sourcing editing and proofing. This means that we, the readers, get stuck with crap that should never have been published, and it's considered acceptable. Don't believe me? Read the Amazon forums, and see how on nearly every "need editing" post they talk about how they'll "get it edited after some sales when I can afford it." Or the authors who "help" others with "republishing" and "updating" their books, bragging about how they've updated theirs "ten times." ![]() This is a DIRECT result of the whole silly, self-satisfied cycle of "reader finds typo, reader complains about typo, publisher races to satisfy need for instant gratification of reader and fixes typo, rinse-repeat." NONE of us would have done this 10 years ago, nor would we do it NOW with print books. We wouldn't, and we all know it. This whole system does nothing but reinforce the idea that digital books are nothing more than Word documents, typed any which way. I find it really vexing. I personally won't bother to fix any typo I find in a book I've purchased; why should/would I? I wouldn't take a John Sandford hardback down to a copy shop, whiteout a typo, type over it, copy the book and rebind it, would I? No, I'd infer what was intended and read on. Nor would I send the publisher a list of typos. I mean, when did this "send the publisher a list of typos" mindset even start? I find this fix every typo in Calibre and Sigil thing kind of obsessive, to tell the truth, particularly for one's own library. I mean, how many times are you going to re-read something? Would 5 typos in 100K words really kill off the whole book? If it bugs you (generally--I'm not addressing anyone individually or specifically) so much that you feel like you have to break the DRM, put it in Sigil/Calibre, fix it, well, great if that's what makes you happy, but what type of numbers are we talking about here? (I can see that the "Hid#233;" thing would, indeed, annoy me to the point of making Amazon or whomever take it back and tell them I wanted a fixed copy.) Do we mean 10 typos per book? 100? In how many words? What's really a valid number to complain to a publisher? And, bigger question: would you return the book if the same typos were in the print edition? Because that's MY standard. Just because MR'ers think it's easy for an author to fix a book doesn't mean that's so. Not everyone makes their own books. I certainly found more than 20 typos in Annie Lamott's Bird By Bird, when it came out in MOBI. It neither scarred me for life nor impaired my ability to enjoy the book. I didn't complain to the publisher, nor post bad reviews about the formatting. There were patent formatting errata, as well; broken paragraphs, and the like. Somehow, I suffered through. ;-) I don't know...again, if people see books that are rife with typos and formatting errors, they certainly should complain. But reporting 2 typos, (like the story I told about our superstar author's 350K-word novel), 1 of which wasn't even a typo, but a Brit spelling, and complaining about that to Amazon seems petty. And I don't believe that most of it is trying to "help" the author or the publisher. In that instance, certainly, it felt supercilious; a type of showing off. (n.b.: this type of supercilious showing off seems to have emerged as a consequence of both the advent of user reviews AND self-publishing. It seems that now that everyone is both a reviewer AND an author, they feel the need to indulge in some type of schadenfreude-based nitpicking of typos in other author's books. This is merely a theory of mine, obviously; worth what you paid for it, natch.) And the "showing off" thing isn't intended to apply to anyone here on MR. Not the same crowd at all. @Cyb: the font thing...sometimes you can talk them out of it, sometimes you can't. I have a book in right now with {sigh}, NINE fonts. NINE. Oish. Hitch |
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#8 |
Wizard
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my theory - could be wrong:
in ye olden days of printed books, publishers paid humans to read them and point out errors BEFORE book went to final print. so there was a trade called "Proofreader " & you could get paid - probably badly - for doing it. That seems to have gone. I can be quite forgiving of new/self-published authors ( except for those who would fail a basic grammar exam- they poured over the text, looking for mistakes before uploading to there web sight ) but there's no excuse for it in high priced books by famous authors ( especially when other famous authors, with different publishers, achieve a far higher standard. as an example ,I've read a lot of Frederick Forsyths e-books - I don't ever recall an annoying typo in those. it not just the typos, its books with 57 flavours of indents/ margin settings each with its own CSS, because it's a sloppy scan, so a page or two of dialogue looks like it was set by a drunken typesetter. So it we would be good to have a way to name & shame the worst offenders. & to list the funniest examples ![]() I have on 2 occasions "returned" books to amazon because the layout was so bad, but I'm not aware that any new-improved versions have been produced since. |
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#9 | ||||
Wizard
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In the case of software (digital): Olden Times: Before the internet age, you would not get every minor revision, you would have had to wait for a major revision of your software (or not get an update at all). The "marginal cost" of getting a fix out there would not be trivial. You would have to print CDs/floppies and physically ship those to your customers. Modern Times: Having computers connected to the internet lowers the "marginal cost" of fixing bugs to (less than pennies). This means that you can spend a hell of a lot less time bug checking your code... because it is trivial to get updates out to users (you can release v1.01 of your software and have it out to everyone in seconds). This has a tendency to push towards faster iterations, and less money spent on initial bug testing/squashing, and not as strict standards. (If you DO make a mistake, it will be quick/cheap fix). We also discussed software in vehicles, software in medical appliances, and a general recalling of physical products: BECAUSE it costs the company a massive amount to actually recall/fix these products if something in the software goes wrong, manufacturers are willing to spend much more INITIALLY in development to squash as many problems as possible in the first place. Software in these tends to be run through much more rigorous product testing, more stringent standards, etc. etc. Quote:
![]() For those who read public domain books, it can be released so those who come after won't have to suffer through the same buggy code typos in the book. For those who read purchased titles that are in copyright.... well that is up to you. You may share the copy with a friend (they will not have to suffer through the typos), if you reread it at a future date (not a high chance, but you might!), or for those who are more gray in their alignment (and we cannot ignore this), those who wear pirate patches and want quality!! ![]() Bugs Typos must be squashed... no matter how miner minor... Quote:
![]() I must admit though, it has turned my reading into a snail's pace... Quote:
I see typo reporting as being especially helpful in the case of books that have yet to be digitized. I am just one set of eyes looking the book over while OCRing, it would be better to get two, three, four sets of eyes.... and what better way than having a bunch of eyes who actually READ the book (not just scan it quickly like me). Also, reporting the typos can't hurt if they ever do decide to come out with a second edition of the book. Wow... Nine fonts... nine different characters talking? All with their own fonts? Last edited by Tex2002ans; 02-08-2014 at 07:15 AM. |
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#10 | |
Guru
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#11 |
Grand Sorcerer
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It couldn't be easier to find an email address for a publisher and send off your comments about typos and/or formatting errors in a title they released. I've done it myself on occasion (only for egregious cases -- because like Hitch, I believe ebooks tend to be judged way more harshly than their print counterparts ever would have been). In each case, I sent off the email (CCing the author thinking they may know better who to direct the complaint to) and then promptly forgot about it. Because my part as the reader /consumer was done.
I think a big part of the problem with this sort of thing is that those readers "reporting" the typos/formatting don't seem to understand their role in this particular show. They seem to want some sort of feedback from someone--to know they made a difference. It's not enough to let the publisher know; they want everyone to know that they let the publisher know. You know? ![]() I'm not suggesting cybmole suffers from that particular affliction or anything, just an observation. The pat on the back isn't going to come. The online, crowd-sourced, proof-reading, instant-revision-resulting engine isn't going to happen. Not for already (traditionally) published, revenue-generating books, anyway. So fix it for yourself, if you like, and jot an email to the publisher and/or author, if you feel so compelled, and move on. Whether it's effective or not isn't all that relevant, really. |
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#12 |
eBook Enthusiast
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Some publishing imprints encourage readers to support errors. "SF Gateway", for example, a Hachette imprint, ask people to tell them about errors, and promptly fix them when they are reported.
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#13 |
Well trained by Cats
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9 Fonts
![]() When I took 'Print Shop' in High School, we were taught that 6 was the maximum for any single document. Sorry, but releasing a book with ragged indents is just sloppy and a refund is due. (looking at the stylesheet will tell the tale) Typos (spelling), Homonym errors ![]() And my all time hate: Maintaining 'Hardback' layout for chapter heads. margin-top: 12em; margin-bottom: 9em; Is 'No thinking Allowed' the rule for the contractors used by BPH's? |
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#14 |
Bookmaker & Cat Slave
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Alas, my best friends:
No, 'tis not one or two fonts with all their faces, 'tis 9 unique fonts, and all THEIR faces. I have tried, quite earnestly, to talk them out of it, using my last-resort tactic of pointing out what it will weigh in terms of book size, but....to no avail. I am perfectly willing to embed chapter head/title page font. That doesn't faze me. Body font, though...I really try to wriggle out of that. Or using special fonts for text-messages, IM's, email, letters, mostly because of all the devices that won't support them. Of course, we create fallbacks, but people don't think about that, about what a fallback MIGHT look like on someone's old Sony, or what have you. Newer readers are increasingly either overriding the font choices to begin with (yes, I'm talking to you, B&N!!!) or allowing the reader to do it, even with embedded fonts, so...it's hard to know how the Great Font Wars of 2013 will turn out, in the end. ;-) @Exalted: no, t'was not Comic Sans, but, bygod, I was certainly expecting it by the time I got to the bottom of the fonts list in the PDF. Hitch |
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#15 | |
Wizard
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let's assume the publisher worked from a PDF or similar, I cannot figure where they found such a BAD conversion program. I think they have not quite but almost used very possible margin left value from 1px up to 99px, and a similar range of margin-right values Spoiler:
Last edited by cybmole; 02-09-2014 at 06:17 AM. |
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