Typos: Who Cares?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Catlady

like discrete for discreet, or defuse for diffuse--especially if it happens more than once, which indicates to me that the author/proofreader was oblivious to the misuse. (I once read a book wherein characters kept sitting on their hunches around a campfire.)

Just reminded me of one book I read a while back where the heroine was "diffusing" an bomb (more of an IED). The image I got reminded me of the Bloater drive in Bill, the Galactic Hero so I sidelined into a re-read.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by hobnail

I'm using a Kobo but I don't install patches or whatever, I just use the options that are built in, so removing the text-align: justified does the job for me. It also allows me to correct things like font size, font face, margins, etc.

The thing to do is to install the better hyphenation dictionary on your Kobo and then you can read with full justification.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=252405

Try it,you've nothing to lose.

[Plumadona]

I’m curious: has anyone here who finds typos annoying brought those typos to the attention of Amazon by means of “Report Content Error” while reading?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Plumadona

I’m curious: has anyone here who finds typos annoying brought those typos to the attention of Amazon by means of “Report Content Error” while reading?

Only a couple of times with really atrocious amount of errors, otherwise I just don't bother. I've also reported a couple of books with truly awful formatting (authors seemed to have converted PDF to mobi and then uploaded to Amazon. One of them was fixed a while later, didn't bother to check the other).

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by Catlady

... I would be furious at ten continuity errors and send nasty letters.

Originally Posted by Plumadona

I’m curious: has anyone here who finds typos annoying brought those typos to the attention of Amazon by means of “Report Content Error” while reading?

Not to Amazon, but there were just so many errors in one book and I was just ticked off enough about it to send an email to the publishing house with my list of corrections. It wasn't a nasty email, I figured the list of errors would be enough for anyone to get the point.

And I was offered a proof reading job. Too bad I was just too busy at the time to take them up on it.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Plumadona

I’m curious: has anyone here who finds typos annoying brought those typos to the attention of Amazon by means of “Report Content Error” while reading?

When the author's email address is available I sometimes send corrections directly to them. As for Amazon, I don't feel like it's my job to be an unpaid member of their quality control team. I'm their customer, not their employee.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Plumadona

I’m curious: has anyone here who finds typos annoying brought those typos to the attention of Amazon by means of “Report Content Error” while reading?

Yes. I've also contacted the author or publisher directly when I have their email address. A couple of times, I've gotten a response. This has to take a real stinker of an ebook that appears to be an uncorrected conversion from pdf, enough errors that I'm ready to throw a manual of style at the author or similar blatant lack of regard for the reader.

[Dazrin]

I did early on but never got a response so quit doing so. Unless it is egregious spelling mistakes and other minor errors don't bother me too much these days.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I think meera's point had to do with kettles that cast pots at their own glass houses, or something like that.

Maybe a wee bit, but it was more that mistakes that change meaning give me much bigger bumps than mistakes that are obvious mistakes. (Though if the latter are too frequent - and for me two mistakes on one page would definitely be over that threshold - I might tend to put a book down.)

I really was picturing someone maybe putting a circumflex accent on a hyphen.

[Frenzie]

Originally Posted by Plumadona

I’m curious: has anyone here who finds typos annoying brought those typos to the attention of Amazon by means of “Report Content Error” while reading?

Yes, I've e-mailed Project Gutenberg about typos and they've all been corrected.

(I wouldn't say I find them annoying though.)

Doubt I would for Amazon though, unless they paid me for it.

[ShortNet]

Originally Posted by Plumadona

I’m curious: has anyone here who finds typos annoying brought those typos to the attention of Amazon by means of “Report Content Error” while reading?

I use the 'Report Content Error' when I find typos. It is a way of dismissing them from my mind. Since they irritate me I can mark them and go onwards.

Amazon used to show the 'Report Content Error' items on the My kindle page, so you could see if they had been fixed. However, I don't know where they show up now.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by ShortNet

I use the 'Report Content Error' when I find typos. It is a way of dismissing them from my mind. Since they irritate me I can mark them and go onwards.

Any typo? Even if the book only ended up having just one mistake (that didn't change the meaning of anything)?

[ShortNet]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Any typo? Even if the book only ended up having just one mistake (that didn't change the meaning of anything)?

Generally, I'll mark any typo that has thrown me out of the story. It takes five seconds - simply select the typo and mark it. And since this happens at the instant I discover the typo, I don't know if there will be 2 or 20 more throughout the book. I don't mention them in the review or any such thing, just via the content error.

[DiapDealer]

Flagging them as content errors is potentially more damaging to sales than any mention of typos in reviews might be. If 50 people flagged the same content error and it turned out to be the only one in the whole book, the book could still potentially be pulled for too many content error reports. Meaning no one could buy it. That's what we were talking about earlier in the thread. Single-error books don't deserve to be pulled for content problems because people enter each content error as they encounter them without taking the whole book into consideration first. The ability to report each error "on the fly" as it's encountered is probably one of the worst "features" Amazon has ever implemented within their readers/apps.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ShortNet

Generally, I'll mark any typo that has thrown me out of the story. It takes five seconds - simply select the typo and mark it. And since this happens at the instant I discover the typo, I don't know if there will be 2 or 20 more throughout the book. I don't mention them in the review or any such thing, just via the content error.

You should not mention the typos in your review because they can be fixed and then your review is misleading. I find a lot of eBooks with typos get fixed eventually.