Publishers 'completely divided' over e-book pricing - Page 2

AnemicOak · 09-30-2009, 11:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ahi

I keep hearing anecdotes like this on mobileread... but to date I have yet to come across a single non-vanity-published paper book that has the sort of errors seemingly every eBook I've read contains.

I just spent 2 hours correcting and proofing a book produced by St. Martin's for a friend of mine. It had spaces in the middle of words, paragraphs run together and other errors a simple spell check would have caught.

I haven't run across it a lot, and I'm probably a bit more picky than average, but it does happen.

ahi · 09-30-2009, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I just spent 2 hours correcting and proofing a book produced by St. Martin's for a friend of mine. It had spaces in the middle of words, paragraphs run together and other errors a simple spell check would have caught.

I haven't run across it a lot, and I'm probably a bit more picky than average, but it does happen.

Is St. Martin's a small/independent/recent publisher? Or, alternatively, is your friend exceedingly small-fry in the literary world? I'd be surprised to see the sort of errors you are talking about, if the answer to at least one of those questions wasn't yes.

Traditional publishers of paper books aren't perfect, and they can produce shoddy work too... but books from established publishers by authors that are likely to have a 2nd book down the road are, as a general rule, prepared with notably more care than eBooks of any sort by anyone.

- Ahi

AnemicOak · 09-30-2009, 11:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ahi

Is St. Martin's a small/independent/recent publisher? Or, alternatively, is your friend exceedingly small-fry in the literary world? I'd be surprised to see the sort of errors you are talking about, if the answer to at least one of those questions wasn't yes.

Traditional publishers of paper books aren't perfect, and they can produce shoddy work too... but books from established publishers by authors that are likely to have a 2nd book down the road are, as a general rule, prepared with notably more care than eBooks of any sort by anyone.

- Ahi

St. Martin's is a major label of Macmillan publishing. My friend isn't in the literary world at all. She's a consumer. This is a book she purchased. I fixed it for her so it would be readable.The author of the book is a NY Times bestselling author with a couple dozen books out.

ahi · 09-30-2009, 11:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

St. Martin's is a major label of Macmillan publishing. My friend isn't in the literary world at all. She's a consumer. This is a book she purchased. I fixed it for her so it would be readable.The author of the book is a NY Times bestselling author with a couple dozen books out.

There's basically nothing I failed to misunderstand then. %) Sorry!

Edit: I mean... clearly I misunderstood everything!

Is that a book or an eBook? If the former, thanks for the example... that one does sound like eBook-caliber errors in a paper book.

- Ahi

AnemicOak · 09-30-2009, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ahi

There's basically nothing I failed to misunderstand then. %) Sorry!

Is that a book or an eBook? If the former, thanks for the example... that one does sound like eBook-caliber errors in a paper book.

- Ahi

It's an ebook. It's Mine Till Midnight by Lisa Kleypas. It's sold in print with a list of $7.99 and in e-format with a list of $14.00

Hellmark · 09-30-2009, 12:23 PM

At twice the price, I'd expect there to be no issues, what so ever.

DMcCunney, I took the poll question as being ebooks should be more expensive than the paper version, since the poll showed "More expensive than the printed book" as an option. If they want to have it being the same price as the paper book, ok, but I will not pay more than the paper book, especially with DRM restricting what I can do.

brecklundin · 09-30-2009, 12:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hellmark

This part I don't get at all. Why should it be more expensive? It doesn't cost any more to produce (arguably cheaper), and the person is not getting anything tangible, plus have to deal with DRM that makes it difficult or impossible to do what they could with a paper book.

ever watch any of those "man in the street" question/interview things? I am not surprised by these things anymore. People in general just make up answers rather than simply say they have no idea...heck, most people probably didn't even know what an "ebook" was in reality...device or hardware?

Hellmark · 09-30-2009, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brecklundin

ever watch any of those "man in the street" question/interview things? I am not surprised by these things anymore. People in general just make up answers rather than simply say they have no idea...heck, most people probably didn't even know what an "ebook" was in reality...device or hardware?

These are supposed to be professionals though, they should know.

zerospinboson · 09-30-2009, 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ahi

I keep hearing anecdotes like this on mobileread... but to date I have yet to come across a single non-vanity-published paper book that has the sort of errors seemingly every eBook I've read contains.

- Ahi

See this post for the books/editions in question, and then this comment: (both by me)

Quote:

I've recently purchased A Hero of Our Time, The Double & The Gambler, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Portable Chaucer.
Of that list of minor classics (which you might hope went some care into), the first contained a few indentation issues as well as a few typos/errors, the second contained about a half-dozen glaring typos, as well as a (superfluous) whitespace following every first letter of every chapter (as well as numerous other issues), in the third the footnotes/endnotes were missing, and the last one I have not looked at yet. While Fictionwise promised to forward each of my issues to the respective publishers, there is no mechanism to tell me an updated version is available on their website, so I'll most likely 'just have to guess' (if it happens at all in my lifetime).

For a list of the issues I found while reading The Double:

tome < should be: to me
bein < should be: be in
there'sa < should be: there's a
stupe-faction < contains an unnecessary dash
...Ina < should be: ...In a
Byall < should be: by all
'we all"(' < should be: 'we all" ('
Most if not all endnotes were preceded by a whitespace (i.e., “And one doesn’t get ahead in our age by imposture and shamelessness, my dear sir. Imposture and shamelessness, my dear sir, do not lead to any good, but end in the noose. Grishka Otrepyev 24 alone got ahead by imposture, my good sir, having deceived the blind people, and that not for long.”) [mobileread editboxes don't appear to support superscript yet ]
"T HE NEXT MORNING, at exactly eight" < this happens to every first/second character of every chapter throughout the entire book

And that's in a 140p or so short novel.
Sure, more popular titles might get more proofing, more recent titles might get more proofing, (I emphasize might because most of the books I bought in that batch were fairly recent ebook publications) but in all I have to say I've run across darknet copies that were better-proofed (and formatted similarly, apart from artwork).

Phogg · 09-30-2009, 07:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ahi

I keep hearing anecdotes like this on mobileread... but to date I have yet to come across a single non-vanity-published paper book that has the sort of errors seemingly every eBook I've read contains.

- Ahi

Then you never read the paperback versions of Ian Flemming's Bond series in the 70s.

Often replete with skipped pages and duplicated paragraphs.

LDBoblo · 09-30-2009, 09:13 PM

I have found more typos in general in my ebooks as well, but they're by no means exclusively messed up.

With ebooks, the kind of errors can be more bothersome to me...I11 tind problems llke keming and vvordspadng and OCR enors, whereas in books, there tend tobe more spacing and some technical Errors; like (inappropriate) punctuation , and speling omitions to. Some times repeted paragraphs andtend tobe more spacing and some technical Errors; like (inappropriate) punctuation , and speling omitions to.

Crowl · 10-01-2009, 03:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/98...k-pricing.html

So 73% think the price should be somewhere between 10% cheaper than the paper version and the $9.99 price of amazon, so get on with it and stop taking the piss by charging the same or more than paper prices.

brecklundin · 10-01-2009, 03:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hellmark

These are supposed to be professionals though, they should know.

there is your answer...though I wonder how many just answered higher to screw with the survey...I know I probably would.

Xerxes · 10-01-2009, 03:55 AM

Quote:

20 per cent cheaper 17%
30 per cent cheaper 14%

How about 25% cheaper than the paperback? And that's that. The price of admission wasn't free.

DawnFalcon · 10-01-2009, 04:35 AM

DMcCunney - Yea, the "ARC" versions of Baen books are like that, but well... they're ARC's. The final ebooks are, ime, better than trade paperbacks from other publishers.

I don't get why you wouldn't use the same source text for the ebook...sure, the structure will need fixing, but spelling?

(And one reason I buy more Baen eBooks is that they're typically $6!)

09-30-2009, 09:13 PM	#26
LDBoblo Wizard Posts: 1,385 Karma: 16056 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Asia Device: Kindle 3 WiFi, Sony PRS-505	I have found more typos in general in my ebooks as well, but they're by no means exclusively messed up. With ebooks, the kind of errors can be more bothersome to me...I11 tind problems llke keming and vvordspadng and OCR enors, whereas in books, there tend tobe more spacing and some technical Errors; like (inappropriate) punctuation , and speling omitions to. Some times repeted paragraphs andtend tobe more spacing and some technical Errors; like (inappropriate) punctuation , and speling omitions to. Last edited by LDBoblo; 09-30-2009 at 09:16 PM. Reason: woops, forgot something.

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09-30-2009, 12:23 PM	#21
Hellmark Wizard Posts: 2,592 Karma: 4290425 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Foristell, Missouri, USA Device: Nokia N800, PRS-505, Nook STR Glowlight, Kindle 3, Kobo Libra 2	At twice the price, I'd expect there to be no issues, what so ever. DMcCunney, I took the poll question as being ebooks should be more expensive than the paper version, since the poll showed "More expensive than the printed book" as an option. If they want to have it being the same price as the paper book, ok, but I will not pay more than the paper book, especially with DRM restricting what I can do.

10-01-2009, 04:35 AM	#30
DawnFalcon Banned Posts: 2,094 Karma: 2682 Join Date: Aug 2009 Device: N/A	DMcCunney - Yea, the "ARC" versions of Baen books are like that, but well... they're ARC's. The final ebooks are, ime, better than trade paperbacks from other publishers. I don't get why you wouldn't use the same source text for the ebook...sure, the structure will need fixing, but spelling? (And one reason I buy more Baen eBooks is that they're typically $6!)

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