poorly formatted toc's in ebooks

crich70 · 06-18-2015, 05:18 AM

I just bought a copy of the works of Robert W. Chambers over at Amazon for .99 and I have to wonder how people get away with uploading such shoddy work. The toc was all run together so you couldn't see where one book ended and the next began, links went to quotes that were either repeats of the text or were supposed to be accompanying illustrations that weren't there. Just a plain mess. It looks like someone got some pd epubs, used something like calibre to stitch them together and after generating a toc page and cover just uploaded the kindle file without making things look neat. Why do people do such shoddy work? Even at just .99 I for one expect a bit more neatness in an ebook.

HarryT · 06-18-2015, 05:22 AM

What you describe is precisely what people do: they grab a few public domain works and use Calibre to put together an omnibus. They don't give a damn about quality. I avoid such books like the plague - I haven't come across one yet which is worth the trouble of downloading.

I'd suggest you request a refund from Amazon and leave a suitable damning review on Amazon to warn other people about it.

crich70 · 06-18-2015, 05:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

What you describe is precisely what people do: they grab a few public domain works and use Calibre to put together an omnibus. They don't give a damn about quality. I avoid such books like the plague - I haven't come across one yet which is worth the trouble of downloading.

I'd suggest you request a refund from Amazon.

I just might do that. I have already sent them a complaint about the poor formatting. Here's a link to the actual book page so others know which version to be wary of.

Click

Ghitulescu · 06-18-2015, 05:28 AM

Why paying for bad formatting when you can have the same bad formatting for free?

pwalker8 · 06-18-2015, 05:28 AM

Because they are basically scamming Amazon customers. They are trying to throw out as many books as possible trying to generate some money. Since Amazon has outsourced the quality control to it's customers, they can get away with it. In the Amazon model, you are suppose to go on line and give that book and provider a bad review. In theory, over time, people will stop buying books from that provider. Of course, like a telemarketer, the provider will just start using a different name and start over again. Not getting the scammers under control is one of my pet peeves with Amazon.

JSWolf · 06-18-2015, 05:31 AM

Stuff like this is one of the reasons I advocate Amazon manually approving eBooks from KDP instead of just letting the eBooks in without any checking. It would mean each eBook would be seen by a person and could then be denied when they are poorly made.

HarryT · 06-18-2015, 05:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Because they are basically scamming Amazon customers. They are trying to throw out as many books as possible trying to generate some money. Since Amazon has outsourced the quality control to it's customers, they can get away with it.

Can you name any retail store which is responsible for the quality of the goods it sells? Don't blame Amazon for what is 100% the responsibility of the book creator!

crich70 · 06-18-2015, 05:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

Why paying for bad formatting when you can have the same bad formatting for free?

Well I didn't expect it to be badly formatted at the time. I have bought collections from Amazon in the past such as one of Robert E. Howard and one of William Shakespeare's works as well as one of the Harvard Shelf of Fiction (as opposed to the Harvard Classics) and not had any trouble. I've made some omnibus books myself here at MR and it isn't difficult to do a good job. Sigil and calibre are my friends there. I will probably go back and write a review for it later. I have already sent off a notice to Amazon about the problems with the book.

crich70 · 06-18-2015, 05:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

Can you name any retail store which is responsible for the quality of the goods it sells? Don't blame Amazon for what is 100% the responsibility of the book creator!

True enough HarryT. In the old days of paper only if there was an error in a book it wasn't the fault of the book seller but of the publishing house that didn't catch the error til after the books had shipped. I remember seeing a book of The Secret Garden once that had pages from one of the Sherlock Holmes novels mixed in. It wasn't the fault of the book seller. It was an error from the printers. Likewise if I buy something at the store that turns out to be defective it's not Wal-Marts fault, but the fault of the manufacturer. Of course it isn't so easy to say the maker of an appliance is sloppy as it is with a poorly made ebook like the one in my OP. When I get the wideside freebees I often open the epub up in Sigil and make my own toc so I know that it will work right and be easily readable. Generally I don't have to do much but I do sort links out for my own tastes.

Apache · 06-18-2015, 06:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

Can you name any retail store which is responsible for the quality of the goods it sells? Don't blame Amazon for what is 100% the responsibility of the book creator!

If a retail store does not stand behind the quality of the merchandise it sells then it's customers will find another place to shop.
Apache

HarryT · 06-18-2015, 06:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apache

If a retail store does not stand behind the quality of the merchandise it sells then it's customers will find another place to shop.
Apache

That's not the same thing at all. Amazon have a "no questions asked" refund policy for anyone who is dissatisfied with the quality of a product, and they will, for example, withdraw a book from sale if a significant number of people complain about problems with it. That's not the same as saying that they are responsible for that quality. They don't create the products they sell.

Compare that to Apple, who have an "all eBook sales are final" policy. No refunds, no matter how bad the quality of the book is.

patrickt · 06-18-2015, 08:24 AM

A. I find Amazon to be quite responsible. If I buy a book, start it, and simply don't like it, I can get my money back within seven days of purchase. If I simply make a mistake I return the book and get my money back.

B. I have complained to publishers about poor quality, often on older books that were copied with optical readers and had zero effort into corrections. There would be repeats all through the book of nonsense combinations of letters and symbols where the OCR erred and no one even did a search and replace. What I got from publishers were excuses. I didn't understand the publishing business. Maybe not, but I learned. But, now, if I want a Chester Himes book I either download a sample and look for gross errors or I buy the book and do my own sampling before the seven days is up.

C. I also use the provided process for advising Amazon of the problem in the hope that they will convince the publisher to do better.

Katsunami · 06-18-2015, 09:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

What you describe is precisely what people do: they grab a few public domain works and use Calibre to put together an omnibus. They don't give a damn about quality. I avoid such books like the plague - I haven't come across one yet which is worth the trouble of downloading.

I'd suggest you request a refund from Amazon and leave a suitable damning review on Amazon to warn other people about it.

The Delphi Classics are generally good for the money, though; very few problems as far as I've been able to see.

Turtle91 · 06-18-2015, 10:06 AM

I downloaded a sample...and while it is the standard calibre renaming/creating of classes with unnecessary spans and such, the 'book' appears to be formatted 'OK' - certainly not the worst I've seen. However, I agree with Crich70, the TOC was atrocious. Most of the links just point to the same point at the end of the book. There's no way to actually find the books you are looking to read!

I personally would spend some time cleaning it up because I can't stand that amount of bloat in my coding - which would reduce the 18MB file to something reasonable like 5MB...

HarryT · 06-18-2015, 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katsunami

The Delphi Classics are generally good for the money, though; very few problems as far as I've been able to see.

Agreed - Delphi Classics are wonderful. I buy virtually all of them.

06-18-2015, 05:18 AM	#1
crich70 Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,310 Karma: 43993832 Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Monroe Wisconsin Device: K3, Kindle Paperwhite, Calibre, and Mobipocket for Pc (netbook)	poorly formatted toc's in ebooks I just bought a copy of the works of Robert W. Chambers over at Amazon for .99 and I have to wonder how people get away with uploading such shoddy work. The toc was all run together so you couldn't see where one book ended and the next began, links went to quotes that were either repeats of the text or were supposed to be accompanying illustrations that weren't there. Just a plain mess. It looks like someone got some pd epubs, used something like calibre to stitch them together and after generating a toc page and cover just uploaded the kindle file without making things look neat. Why do people do such shoddy work? Even at just .99 I for one expect a bit more neatness in an ebook.

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06-18-2015, 05:22 AM	#2
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383099 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	What you describe is precisely what people do: they grab a few public domain works and use Calibre to put together an omnibus. They don't give a damn about quality. I avoid such books like the plague - I haven't come across one yet which is worth the trouble of downloading. I'd suggest you request a refund from Amazon and leave a suitable damning review on Amazon to warn other people about it.

06-18-2015, 05:28 AM	#4
Ghitulescu Fanatic Posts: 563 Karma: 403106 Join Date: Aug 2014 Device: PRS-T1	Why paying for bad formatting when you can have the same bad formatting for free?

06-18-2015, 05:28 AM	#5
pwalker8 Grand Sorcerer Posts: 7,196 Karma: 70314280 Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Atlanta, GA Device: iPad Pro, iPad mini, Kobo Aura, Amazon paperwhite, Sony PRS-T2	Because they are basically scamming Amazon customers. They are trying to throw out as many books as possible trying to generate some money. Since Amazon has outsourced the quality control to it's customers, they can get away with it. In the Amazon model, you are suppose to go on line and give that book and provider a bad review. In theory, over time, people will stop buying books from that provider. Of course, like a telemarketer, the provider will just start using a different name and start over again. Not getting the scammers under control is one of my pet peeves with Amazon.

06-18-2015, 05:31 AM	#6
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 79,749 Karma: 145864619 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	Stuff like this is one of the reasons I advocate Amazon manually approving eBooks from KDP instead of just letting the eBooks in without any checking. It would mean each eBook would be seen by a person and could then be denied when they are poorly made.

06-18-2015, 08:24 AM	#12
patrickt Wizard Posts: 1,221 Karma: 8381518 Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Oaxaca, Mexico Device: Paperwhite 4 X 2	A. I find Amazon to be quite responsible. If I buy a book, start it, and simply don't like it, I can get my money back within seven days of purchase. If I simply make a mistake I return the book and get my money back. B. I have complained to publishers about poor quality, often on older books that were copied with optical readers and had zero effort into corrections. There would be repeats all through the book of nonsense combinations of letters and symbols where the OCR erred and no one even did a search and replace. What I got from publishers were excuses. I didn't understand the publishing business. Maybe not, but I learned. But, now, if I want a Chester Himes book I either download a sample and look for gross errors or I buy the book and do my own sampling before the seven days is up. C. I also use the provided process for advising Amazon of the problem in the hope that they will convince the publisher to do better.

06-18-2015, 10:06 AM	#14
Turtle91 A Hairy Wizard Posts: 3,348 Karma: 20171571 Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Charleston, SC today Device: iPhone 15/11/X/6/iPad 1,2,Air & Air Pro/Surface Pro/Kindle PW & Fire	I downloaded a sample...and while it is the standard calibre renaming/creating of classes with unnecessary spans and such, the 'book' appears to be formatted 'OK' - certainly not the worst I've seen. However, I agree with Crich70, the TOC was atrocious. Most of the links just point to the same point at the end of the book. There's no way to actually find the books you are looking to read! I personally would spend some time cleaning it up because I can't stand that amount of bloat in my coding - which would reduce the 18MB file to something reasonable like 5MB...