Book "Reviews" for formatting/readability

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Leesajohnson

Before purchase e-book, you must read reviews of that book. It would like to determine what type of formatting and text style that book has.

Very rarely have I seen any mention of formatting and/or text style in a review. About the only way to tell prior to purchase is to download a sample and check for yourself.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Very rarely have I seen any mention of formatting and/or text style in a review. About the only way to tell prior to purchase is to download a sample and check for yourself.

And unless they get specific, there is enough variability in text format tastes that one person's "perfectly formatted" can be another's "unacceptable mess". That is why so many resort to custom formatting their own books.

"Try before you buy" is the safest way to go if you care about formatting as a purchase criterion.

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by Leesajohnson

Before purchase e-book, you must read reviews of that book. It would like to determine what type of formatting and text style that book has.

While it helps to look at reviews, most people don't write about the formatting or text style unless it is absolutely appalling. I try to avoid too many reviews about a book because too many people put too much in and spoil the story.

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by theducks

I'm in Sirtel's camp
I fix formatting in Calibre/Sigil, to my taste (everybody else is wrong )

The only time I DO complain, is erratic formatting. One chapter has drop caps, another, big caps or none, differing indents (when no other reason)

I agree.

I use the Calibre Editor for some editing tasks and Sigil for others. Both are very good but I started with Sigil long before Calibre had an editor, so tend to use it more.


(Yes everybody else is wrong about formatting but me)

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

(Yes everybody else is wrong about formatting but me)

So if you have multiple personalities, which one is right?
Apache

[DiapDealer]

I used to see a lot format-related reviews on new-release ebooks (regardless of publisher) a few years back. It was quite popular for while. Seems to have died down a lot now that ebooks a) are more established; and b) seem to have their own production processes (as opposed to merely being slap-dash OCR offspring of their print cousins). They're (ebooks) no longer an afterthought for new-release books.

Back-list is a different story, and is still pretty hit or miss for me, format-wise (which is where I see most of the review complaints about formatting nowadays). I don't really expect that scene to improve much (unless the authors themselves are alive and take a vested interest in their own backlist e-catalog).

I can only think of three times that I formally complained about ebook formatting: once to Amazon for a refund, and twice I sent the author an email. One of the authors gave me an email address at his publishing house to send the details to ... the other passed on the details to his publisher himself. Both thanked me and gave me DRM-free copies whenever corrected versions were available (and no, they weren't self-published authors).

I reserve my official complaints for what I deem to be errors in formatting and not merely personal preferences. They have to be pretty atrocious problems to trip me up. I've got shelves full of old paper-packs to remind that there never really was a formatting "standard" (in quality or practice) in book publishing.

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I reserve my official complaints for what I deem to be errors in formatting and not merely personal preferences. They have to be pretty atrocious problems to trip me up. I've got shelves full of old paper-packs to remind that there never really was a formatting "standard" (in quality or practice) in book publishing.

This. I honestly don't pay much attention to things like margin size, spacing between paragraphs, etc. I'm not going to bother to learn how to change these things, especially since the majority of my reading is library books which I will read once and return.

I did once buy a book from the Sony store that could only be set to a very large font size. I contacted Sony and before long, I received a fixed copy of the book that had the usual variety of font sizes.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

This. I honestly don't pay much attention to things like margin size, spacing between paragraphs, etc. I'm not going to bother to learn how to change these things, especially since the majority of my reading is library books which I will read once and return.

It's pretty trivial for me to change these things. I'm quite adept at it, actually. I'm just not interested in taking the time to do so (nor do I worry about margins, indents or spacing). There's books I want (or need) to edit, and there's books I want to read. There's rarely any crossover between those categories for me these days. Like you, I'm not going to take the time to edit something I'm only likely to read once. If the formatting is really, really bad, I'm more likely to simply move on to something else.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

This. I honestly don't pay much attention to things like margin size, spacing between paragraphs, etc. I'm not going to bother to learn how to change these things,

I'm not fussed, either. The one consistent formatting error I'd care enough to fix is in the 21 Aubrey/Maturin novels I purchased from Kobo, where there's no space after italicized words (and all ship names are italicized!). But I'd rather live with it than learn how to deal with it.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

It's pretty trivial for me to change these things. I'm quite adept at it, actually. I'm just not interested in taking the time to do so (nor do I worry about margins, indents or spacing). There's books I want (or need) to edit, and there's books I want to read. There's rarely any crossover between those categories for me these days. Like you, I'm not going to take the time to edit something I'm only likely to read once. If the formatting is really, really bad, I'm more likely to simply move on to something else.

For me it doesn't matter whether I read the book once or many times. I cannot read it even once if it's not formatted the way I want. Usually it takes less than a minute to correct the formatting and as all my books go into Calibre anyway (I don't read library ebooks, they're not available in my country), it's no bother. Forced to put up with formatting I can't stand (for example, spaces between paragraphs or huge paragraph indents in a fiction book), that's way more bother. Yes, I know I've got OCD.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

For me it doesn't matter whether I read the book once or many times. I cannot read it even once if it's not formatted the way I want. Usually it takes less than a minute to correct the formatting and as all my books go into Calibre anyway (I don't read library ebooks, they're not available in my country), it's no bother. Forced to put up with formatting I can't stand (for example, spaces between paragraphs or huge paragraph indents in a fiction book), that's way more bother.

Did you have that issue with print books? I've got many examples of printed books that's exhibit all of the issues you say you can't stand in your ebooks. I mention this because it's a theory of mine that people have become more sensitive to formatting and typography preferences/issues precisely because these things can be tweaked (or straight-up edited) in ebooks (by those willing to learn how). As I mentioned, there's never been any true "standard" when it comes to printing books, and often I wonder how many people noticed or were bothered by some these typographical idiosyncrasies (margins, indents, line-spacing, space between paragraphs, etc...) which were prevalent in print long before ebooks came into being.

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Yes, I know I've got OCD.

I understand perfectly. You like what you like. I've got a mild case of it myself. I guess I'm just lucky that this is not one of the areas that triggers mine.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Did you have that issue with print books? I've got many examples of printed books that's exhibit all of the issues you say you can't stand in your ebooks. I mention this because it's a theory of mine that people have become more sensitive to formatting and typography preferences/issues precisely because these things can be changed in ebooks (by those willing to learn how). As I mentioned, there's never been any true "standard" when it comes to printing books, and often I wonder how many people noticed or were bothered by some these typographical idiosyncrasies (margins, indents, line-spacing, space between paragraphs, etc...) that were prevalent in print long before ebooks came to be.

You're perfectly right in this. I'm bothered more because I know it's possible to change these things. That said, I personally don't remember encountering print novels with spaces between paragraphs or 3em indents (they don't bother me so much in non-fiction books). If there were any, then they were vanishingly rare. Faded and tiny fonts, otoh, were common, but there was no other option than to put up with them. Still, I remember how much it annoyed me back then. And then there was the issue of paperbacks falling apart in your hands while you read (even the new ones, some were just so badly glued together). The arrival of ebooks and e-readers was a major relief for me.

[ZodWallop]

I buy my books from Amazon and read on a Kobo, so I already have to convert from azw to epub. When I do that, I always give the book at least a cursory glance with Sigil, looking for little things like spaces between paragraphs or weird indents (I use .3in for my indents).

Like Diap suggests, I edit the books because I have the ability to. It doesn't necessarily bother me to read books with different formatting than I prefer. But editing the books in Sigil is a nice time filler when I'm relaxing in the evening with the boob tube on.

Some self published books have pretty bad formatting, but if the book sounded interesting enough to purchase, I don't mind cleaning it up. For one thing, it has taught me to use Sigil.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I buy my books from Amazon and read on a Kobo, so I already have to convert from azw to epub. When I do that, I always give the book at least a cursory glance with Sigil, looking for little things like spaces between paragraphs or weird indents (I use .3in for my indents).

Like Diap suggests, I edit the books because I have the ability to. It doesn't necessarily bother me to read books with different formatting than I prefer. But editing the books in Sigil is a nice time filler when I'm relaxing in the evening with the boob tube on.

Some self published books have pretty bad formatting, but if the book sounded interesting enough to purchase, I don't mind cleaning it up. For one thing, it has taught me to use Sigil.

Funny thing is, I was not aware of Sigil's existence before joining MR. Way back before the Calibre editor (and before azw3) I used a mobi unpack plugin (can't remember the exact name), painstakingly edited the html in Notepad and then packed it together again. Now that was a bother. It would have been much easier to convert the mobi into epub, edit it in Sigil and convert back (that's what I immediately started to do after the Calibre editor arrived on the scene. I still do it this way when I get the occasional mobi file from Amazon. Azw3 files I edit directly, of course.). I've never used Sigil because when I learned it existed I was already used to editing my books in the editor.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Funny thing is, I was not aware of Sigil's existence before joining MR. Way back before the Calibre editor (and before azw3) I used a mobi unpack plugin (can't remember the exact name), painstakingly edited the html in Notepad and then packed it together again. Now that was a bother. It would have been much easier to convert the mobi into epub, edit it in Sigil and convert back (that's what I immediately started to do after the Calibre editor arrived on the scene. I still do it this way when I get the occasional mobi file from Amazon. Azw3 files I edit directly, of course.). I've never used Sigil because when I learned it existed I was already used to editing my books in the editor.

MobiUnpack is still around (but it's been renamed to KindleUnpack and updated extensively). It's been used to create plugins for both calibre and Sigil (at the risk of tooting my own horn ).