Neal Stephenson REAMDE copy editing too bad to sell?

[kjk]

From Amazon's comments:

First, it seriously damages the reading experience. I've invested many hours in the book, overlooking various format errors along the way. Now--without more--I'm told that what I've read is incomplete. Do I begin again at the beginning? Do I plow on? Either way, the reading experience is fatally tainted.

Second, this situation oozes contempt for the ebook buyer. As a published author, I'm aware of the word-by-word scrutiny that my print manuscripts receive. Why should ebooks be any different? Tossing a carelessly-formatted file out at random reflects badly on all links of the publishing chain, from author to publisher to distributor Amazon.

Third, this level of carelessness is inexcusable on economic grounds. I'd expect to find format errors and mangled content in a pirated ebook, not in a $17 Kindle edition. When I purchase an ebook at a price point so close to the print version, the publisher rakes in far more profit than from a print title. To then turn around and offer shoddy, incomplete text in that pricey Kindle title shows an arrogant disregard for economics, the reader, and the distribution channel.

[Catlady]

I'm very confused, especially by the claim that the problem is the copy editing. If that were so, it would be a problem across platforms, and the print edition would also be riddled with errors.

This sounds as though there was some computer or production problem that occurred specifically in the e-book. That is not what I would consider a copy editing flaw.

[Flub]

I found the badly formatted table someone mentioned. That bit is very poor and shows a definite lack of proof reading the finished product.

I'm still not seeing masses of other problems though. Is there a chance the US got a different ebook version to the UK?

I felt the price was very reasonable in the UK for this one. £8.54. That's what? approaching 14 dollars? Brand new book. 1042 pages. I don't feel ripped off. It's certainly more convenient than the hardcover. If it's anything like a paper copy of Anathem I'd have no chance at sticking it in my bag for the trip to work

Just checked Waterstones. A paper copy if over £12 and they don't even have the ebook edition listed.

[DiapDealer]

I found the badly formatted table someone mentioned. That bit is very poor and shows a definite lack of proof reading the finished product.

I think the table was formatted for the epub edition, but when they converted it to mobi... they forgot to check the results.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by Flub

I felt the price was very reasonable in the UK for this one. £8.54. That's what? approaching 14 dollars? Brand new book. 1042 pages. I don't feel ripped off. It's certainly more convenient than the hardcover. If it's anything like a paper copy of Anathem I'd have no chance at sticking it in my bag for the trip to work

Yes, a bit under US$14. On iBooks/Kindle Store/Nook it is US$16.99 here.

[soondai]

what is the location of the table? I'd like to check my ePub version

[DiapDealer]

It's early on in Day 2

[Flub]

The chapter called Day 2. Physically I think my Kindle said page 185

The table is laid out fine in the Cloud reader on my Mac but broken in the Cloud reader on my iPad. In the Kindle app on the iPad it actually has proper black borders making up the table (Which the cloud reader and real Kindle lack) but the text is still messed up.

In the Kindle app on my Android phone the table is utterly broken to the point where it's embarrassing.

It's very odd.

[replica145]

That's not exactly out of the ordinary though. A lot of books have maps or graphics that may display correctly but are virtually unreadable without a magnifying glass. Zooming in generally makes them worse from blur.

[soondai]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

It's early on in Day 2

thanks. Table is fine in my ePub. Hopefully not missing any content.

[Flub]

http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/amazo...eaders-revolt/

One reader produced text copies of both the old and new versions (undoubtedly having to crack DRM illegally to do so) and ran them through the diff comparison tool to find out what had been changed, and it turned out that the changes were not major: a few missing words here and there had been corrected, the spelling of the cover artist’s name had been fixed—and in one case, a new typo was introduced!

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Flub

One reader produced text copies of both the old and new versions (undoubtedly having to crack DRM illegally to do so) and ran them through the diff comparison tool to find out what had been changed, and it turned out that the changes were not major: a few missing words here and there had been corrected, the spelling of the cover artist’s name had been fixed—and in one case, a new typo was introduced!

Thanks for posting this. That's kinda what I was thinking. The higher the price tag.. the less tolerance there seems to be for typos. I'm glad someone took the time to check.

But the one guy that was ranting about random dashes appearing all over the place (in the Amazon comments) was just nuts... I guarantee those dashes were consciously put there by Stephenson:

"eight- and ten-year-old children"

they then went on to create and trademark some bee- and hive-related logo art.

So the airport luggage scanner epiphany was simultaneously dis- and encouraging. Dis- because some occupational psychologists had already beaten him to it and come up with a fix, but en- because people with Ph.D.s had vouched for the basic idea.

See what he's doing there? Those aren't errors... that's called a style/preference. Maybe you don't like it, but it's certainly intentional.

[Flub]

Apart from the messed up table I've probably only noticed one or two obvious spelling mistakes and to be honest given the low rate they're far more likely to be in the pbook too rather than being an editing and proofreading problem.

Interestingly enough after reading the article by the guy who actually checked for the differences it looks like the UK copy is the one Amazon.com are pushing out as the update to US customers.

But from what I can see the outrage is misplaced. It has a few issues yes but not to the degree some people are shouting. Certainly far less than some of the books Amazon are selling right now that haven't been fixed that most certainly are issues with the OCR process.

[DiapDealer]

But from what I can see the outrage is misplaced. It has a few issues yes but not to the degree some people are shouting. Certainly far less than some of the books Amazon are selling right now that haven't been fixed that most certainly are issues with the OCR process.

I agree completely. But I will say that Amazon should be a little more careful about sending emails that say that things are "missing." They obviously don't know what changes were ultimately made/fixed, but there should have been a little more detail about what exactly was missing. I can certainly see a customer being upset if they are three-fourths of the way through a 1000 page novel and they suddenly get an email claiming that stuff might be "missing" from their copy.

[replica145]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

The higher the price tag.. the less tolerance there seems to be for typos.

I guess that's why no one raises hell about Signet's electronic editions of Stephen King's books.