annoying typos - sigil can fix but any workable way to complain to publishers

[HarryT]

Please use a "spoiler" tag to hide long code samples. It makes the page too long otherwise.

Thanks.

[cybmole]

OK - tell me how & I will edit

[HarryT]

Just add a [spoiler] tag at the start, and a [/spoiler] tag at the end of the code.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by cybmole

for giggles here is just some of the 1360 lines of CSS in my worst ever retail example:

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

Easy-peazy
The conversion program is not at fault.

That comes from an OCR scan, page alignment variations (twist, shearing error)

It might be possible to have a pre-OCR process to 'square up the text' so that left margin remains true.

It might be nice if the OCR had a margin,indent value 'rounding' tables: eg 0 to 5px use 0, >5 to 10px use 5px

[cybmole]

what is strange about that book is that it is volume 5 of a 12 volume series. The other books in the series are not perfect but they are MUCH better than that one. maybe the publishers tried someone new, then sacked them after they saw the result. ( But never bothered to get it redone properly ). all books have the same publisher.
And the mobi & epub versions for that book were equally bad, ( I returned the mobi to amazon, got the epub instead... )

[sjkramer]

Speaking as a publisher, I know that Amazon will certainly pass along a typo report, even with just one or two "typos" without actually taking away the buy button. I put typos in quotes, because it's not unheard of for a reader to be wrong, or to call something a typo that's just, say, an antiquated spelling. On the other hand, we're always grateful when someone politely reports an error—whether in a print or ebook.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by sjkramer

Speaking as a publisher, I know that Amazon will certainly pass along a typo report, even with just one or two "typos" without actually taking away the buy button. I put typos in quotes, because it's not unheard of for a reader to be wrong, or to call something a typo that's just, say, an antiquated spelling. On the other hand, we're always grateful when someone politely reports an error—whether in a print or ebook.

Yes, they do. But let's ask ourselves:

Does anyone here--anyone--really think that they're passing those along to Random House? Soho? Any other BPH?

Hell, no, they aren't. That's bollocks-wocky. Not until/unless the book is "unreadable," and I have that on more-than-fairly-good-authority. So it's the little imprints and publishers and indies that get them. Almost all the major complaints that I hear about 'round the Net are a) BPH books, that were, natch, sent off to India to be scanned and converted, and nobody back home ran an eye over them, and b) PD books that either came through early Gutenberg or from half-assed DIY scans, and are crap-city anyway.

Now, that doesn't mean that the Indies can't put up some real whoppers; I got so angry with Amazon over (aforementioned famous-as-the-universe client) a thing with two typos that I pointed out not less than 3 indy-pubbed books that certainly weren't scans, nor produced offshore, but were simply unreadable. I mean, so rife with typos, grammar and punctuation issues, etc., that you couldn't make it through the first two paragraphs without gagging. UN-readably bad. (Not being a pedant. Unreadable for a 2nd-grader).

I told AMZ that I'd happily fix the two typos from Herself if and when they did something about books THAT bad. IMHO, if Amazon decides that they've appointed themselves the "Indy Book Quality Police," then they should do the ENTIRE damned job, because the absurdity of the IBQP is that it's only the books that are getting READ that are receiving reports. The books that are utter horse-poop are being ignored, go unread, and never get any "reports" about how every other word is misspelt, etc. That's RIDICULOUS. And, worse, it's selective enforcement. It's worse than crowd-sourcing editing, about which I've already ranted.

I've already made my point, I hope, about how badly served the reading public is by the IBQP making "republishing" and redoing and reuploading subpar content acceptable. Not to mention, enabling the already-absurd instant-gratification-entitlement mentality that's pandemic enough as it is. Now, we have selective enforcement--only on books that are actually popular--so that the really lousy books get NO enforcement. HUNH?

If Amazon says, "yup, we're the IBQP," great. Then they should do the ENTIRE job, and make sure that every book that's up there is at least readable. It doesn't have to be great storytelling, but it should at least be readable by someone with an at-least 6th-grade-education. This whole "oh, we'll enforce our [utterly unstated anywhere] WRITING QUALITY standards when some wanker complains" attitude seems peremptory and high-handed to me. And I LOVE Amazon, don't get me wrong, for many, many reasons; but this part of the self-publishing game is just...it's ridiculous. (And many--many--of the "typo" or "grammar police" reports I've seen are simply WRONG.)

</rant>

Hitch

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Yes, they do. But let's ask ourselves:

Does anyone here--anyone--really think that they're passing those along to Random House? Soho? Any other BPH?

A serious question: why would they NOT do so? They have a system in place to report content errors. What reason would there be not to use it?

[DiapDealer]

I'm not sure if they pass along all complaints to the BPH's but I do know they've pulled some BPH books (relatively big-ticket authors) due to complaints over perceived errors.

One in particular, I remember, was from a fairly well-known fantasy author who tried something "experimental" that resulted in readers thinking their ebooks were missing text/pages (if they had been paying attention to the narrative at all, they wouldn't have been confused).

What followed was a vicious cycle of "Amazon pulling the title due to reader complaints", "Amazon putting the unchanged ebook back 'on the shelves' because publisher/author insisted that it's 'supposed to be that way'", "Amazon again pulling the title due to fresh reader complaints", etc, etc...

It was a Del Rey title if I recall. And if the author was to be believed, the pulling of the title was the very first indication that there was any trouble at all.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by HarryT

A serious question: why would they NOT do so? They have a system in place to report content errors. What reason would there be not to use it?

Harry:

Simplest reason is, they have an easy, go-to contact for every single self-pubbed book; use the email on the KDP account. BPH's don't have KDP accounts, they have publisher agreements with FTP. The contact tends to be a VP in charge of digital distribution, not the head of the Editing department.

I'm not saying it never happens. Diap's memory about that one book is correct, and the same happened with Annie Lamott's Bird by Bird. But it seems to take a lot MORE to get them to nag a BPH than it does for a self-pub, no matter whether it's Barry Eisler or Joe the Garbage Guy.

That's my issue; it's a double standard with selective enforcement (and sometimes NO enforcement). And I can say factually from my own experience that, trust me, authors who've had books made by REAL formatters have far, far better books in terms of formatting and other things than BPH books sent to (insert third-world country here) for scanning & "conversion." Doesn't that seem like the enforcement is backwards? And again, what about all the utterly crappily unreadable books? That no one is reading nor reporting upon, because the LITB steers them away?

Policeman, police thyself, is my thinking. If they're gonna do it, great: but do it on EVERY book. Don't just penalize the authors who are actually being read. That seems utterly counter-intuitive and downright stupid.

Or am I the only one who thinks this way? It wouldn't be the first time. Seriously, sometimes I can get off the tracks on some weird topics....my POV on this is, obviously, biased. (Although, I don't think that plays into how I feel about the whole, "I'm gonna report a TYPO! And they'll run and FIX it!" thing. {Thinks}. Nope. I view that as a reader.)

Hitch

[DiapDealer]

Hell, a typo used to make some print book more valuable.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Hell, a typo used to make some print book more valuable.

That's exactly right.

(Anyone else here old enough to remember Bogie in the bookshop, looking for the BenHur with the errata? Ah...Chandler....the good old days of movie-making and story-telling. Now I know I'm old...any second now and I'll be telling you how I walked 5 miles to school in the snow.)

Hitch

[GrannyGrump]

in the snow... uphill, both ways!

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

in the snow... uphill, both ways!

You GO, Granny!

Hitch

(Funny part? I used to walk 3mi to school just because I liked it; enjoyed it over taking the bus. Spouse really DID walk nearly 5 miles, in snow almost over his head, as a wee lad in the mountains of NM--extremely rural/mountain town upbringing. We never tell his spoiled grand-nieces/nephews this stories, because---what's the point? <grin>)

[GrannyGrump]

I also had rural/small town raising, and the rule was you had to be more than one mile from the school to be eligible to ride the bus. We lived in 10 different towns over my school years, and I never got to ride the bus until high school. What luxury!

Sorry, cybmole et al. I'm sure this is related to poor publishing practices in some way or other... Maybe the publishers would do better if they never got to ride the bus. Make it an incentive program!