Heard back from Tor on why Topaz for some books...

AnemicOak · 03-13-2009, 01:38 PM

A couple days ago I emailed Tor with some questions about Topaz and why they use it for some of their books. Today I got a reply from Pablo Defendini the producer for Tor.com. Since this has been discussed in a few threads I thought I'd share his message.

Quote:

I'm Pablo, the producer for Tor.com. I'm also charged with eBooks on Tor.com and am involved in the larger eBook strategy for Macmillan.

Unfortunately, there isn't too much we can do about Topaz books. I hate 'em too—they're a pain to parse on the Kindle, and will sometimes crash the device—but there's just some books that we don't have electronic files for, and the only way we can get them on to the Kindle at all in a speedy fashion is via Topaz files created from OCR'ed PDFs.

Going forward, we're obviously converting new books into AZW format directly, and hopefully we'd like to be able to rectify backlist titles at some point in the future. However, right now, our priority is our more recent books, as you can imagine. In the meantime, the people who actually handle these conversions is Amazon themselves. You might want to drop them a line and register your displeasure with the Topaz format. As I understand it, you wouldn't be the only one, and the more people they hear from, the more responsive they'll be, hopefully.

As to the store rumours: well, they're just that, and I can't talk about that for now. But I will be able to start talking soon, so stay tuned.

Cheers,

[p]

Pablo Defendini
Producer
Tor.com

So all of you who are hating Topaz, be sure to let Amazon know.

When I replied to him that one of the books I specifically mentioned in my email, Kushiel's Dart, had been a Webscriptions book so they should have a good copy of that, he replied...

Quote:

You'd be very surprised as to the state and consistency of digital archiving at a lot of major publishers, is all I'll say about Kushiel's Dart...

Hope this info helps or was able to answer questions for some of you.

igorsk · 03-13-2009, 01:49 PM

Quote:

But I will be able to start talking soon, so stay tuned.

"soon"... hmm, where did I hear that word before?

AnemicOak · 03-13-2009, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by igorsk

"soon"... hmm, where did I hear that word before?

From Tor, probably eariler this year, last year and the year before.

I did read something on Baen's Bar about someone at Tor saying things were almost ready. Who knows.

kwjones · 03-13-2009, 02:27 PM

I suppose it's too soon to wish for the Wheel of Time (with the final book) to be released huh?

whitearrow · 03-13-2009, 03:00 PM

This surprises me WRT the new Juliet Marillier series available only in Topaz -- The Dark Mirror and sequels. The first one was released in 2004, so you'd think a digital copy would be available. It doesn't help that the map is illegible (my pet peeve) and that there's a huge misplaced comma on the second page of the sample.

AnemicOak · 03-13-2009, 03:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by whitearrow

The first one was released in 2004, so you'd think a digital copy would be available.

As crazy as it sounds, most publishers have only recently (last year or two) keeping a copy in digital format.

sirbruce · 03-13-2009, 03:26 PM

If they have to OCR it, why not just OCR it to text rather than PDF? What, does the OCR software construct it's own font based off letterforms and store them in a PDF which is why it has to be converted to Topaz? I'm afraid I don't follow the reasoning that OCR means PDF means TPZ.

tompe · 03-13-2009, 03:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sirbruce

If they have to OCR it, why not just OCR it to text rather than PDF? What, does the OCR software construct it's own font based off letterforms and store them in a PDF which is why it has to be converted to Topaz? I'm afraid I don't follow the reasoning that OCR means PDF means TPZ.

I think they meant "PDF->OCR->Topas". As i understand it Topaz avoid the actual character recognition by using the scanned image of letters. They then just have to do a categorization and do not have to map the categories to actual letters.

TallMomof2 · 03-13-2009, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

When I replied to him that one of the books I specifically mentioned in my email, Kushiel's Dart, had been a Webscriptions book so they should have a good copy of that, he replied...

If you're looking for Kushiel's Dart it's available as a free online book here. I c&p'ed it into Word, saved it as an html file and then added it to Calibre to convert to mobi and my copy ended up quite readable.

AnemicOak · 03-13-2009, 09:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

If you're looking for Kushiel's Dart it's available as a free online book here. I c&p'ed it into Word, saved it as an html file and then added it to Calibre to convert to mobi and my copy ended up quite readable.

Unless I'm just not seeing it that only goes to chapter 24 of 96 chapters.

Elsi · 03-13-2009, 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwjones

I suppose it's too soon to wish for the Wheel of Time (with the final book) to be released huh?

On the TOR website, they've been having "read-through" discussions of the Wheel of Time books. I posted a message complaining that the first books in the series were not available in any electronic version so I couldn't read them on the Kindle or Sony and thus participate in the discussions. And, I tried to point out that if I bought electronic books, they and the copyright holder would get paid, but if I found a used paperback, they'd get nothing at all.

sirbruce · 03-14-2009, 11:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tompe

I think they meant "PDF->OCR->Topas". As i understand it Topaz avoid the actual character recognition by using the scanned image of letters. They then just have to do a categorization and do not have to map the categories to actual letters.

But I thought Topaz books were searchable. So they have to be actual character sets, custom fonts or not; not just images.

pilotbob · 03-14-2009, 12:51 PM

I agree with @sirbruce. I don't understand that. If they are doing OCR then the document is converted to text. That text could be made into a mobipocket format.

I just guess that he doesn't understand the process fully.

BOb

nekokami · 03-14-2009, 12:59 PM

Aren't older versions of Webscriptions still available? It doesn't make much sense to me that they can't get the text for Kushiel's Dart that way. Unless only an excerpt was ever published in Webscriptions, but that's not normally how that publication works, is it?

tompe · 03-14-2009, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nekokami

Aren't older versions of Webscriptions still available? It doesn't make much sense to me that they can't get the text for Kushiel's Dart that way. Unless only an excerpt was ever published in Webscriptions, but that's not normally how that publication works, is it?

It makes not sense. Especially if the web scription files are in formats that they easily can extract the text from (html).

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03-13-2009, 02:27 PM	#4
kwjones Groupie Posts: 178 Karma: 1546 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Rising Sun, MD Device: Sony PRS-505; Motorola Droid	I suppose it's too soon to wish for the Wheel of Time (with the final book) to be released huh?

03-13-2009, 03:00 PM	#5
whitearrow Guru Posts: 808 Karma: 2260766 Join Date: Apr 2008 Device: Kindle Oasis 2	This surprises me WRT the new Juliet Marillier series available only in Topaz -- The Dark Mirror and sequels. The first one was released in 2004, so you'd think a digital copy would be available. It doesn't help that the map is illegible (my pet peeve) and that there's a huge misplaced comma on the second page of the sample.

03-13-2009, 03:26 PM	#7
sirbruce Provocateur Posts: 1,859 Karma: 505847 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Columbus, OH Device: Kindle Touch, Kindle 2, Kindle DX, iPhone 3GS	If they have to OCR it, why not just OCR it to text rather than PDF? What, does the OCR software construct it's own font based off letterforms and store them in a PDF which is why it has to be converted to Topaz? I'm afraid I don't follow the reasoning that OCR means PDF means TPZ.

03-14-2009, 12:51 PM	#13
pilotbob Grand Sorcerer Posts: 19,832 Karma: 11844413 Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Tampa, FL USA Device: Kindle Touch	I agree with @sirbruce. I don't understand that. If they are doing OCR then the document is converted to text. That text could be made into a mobipocket format. I just guess that he doesn't understand the process fully. BOb

03-14-2009, 12:59 PM	#14
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	Aren't older versions of Webscriptions still available? It doesn't make much sense to me that they can't get the text for Kushiel's Dart that way. Unless only an excerpt was ever published in Webscriptions, but that's not normally how that publication works, is it?