every mainstream ebook i buy...

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by fugazied

Honestly it confuses the hell out of me, because you would 'think' they have these books as a bloody word document or quark express (printing software) somewhere.

Often times the publishers do not have the original electronic files; those files reside with the typesetter. I know that for the publishers for whom I do typesetting, all they want are the final PDF files to go to the printer. Although I do keep the electronic files, some are no longer usable because they were done in programs no longer available or that do not work on modern computers. Many typesetters retain the files for a set number of years then simply discard them. You must remember that ebook popularity for the mass market is a relatively recent phenomenon and that publishers are still uncertain what files they need and how to use them.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by alecE

. . . but what also seems to come out is that publishers *still* are not embedding ebook production as a primary part of their workflow. I suspect that until publishers change this ebooks will be the poor relation of the industry. . . .

This is exactly right.

[charleski]

I think it's inexcusable. Those publishers who sell amateurishly-proofed works are removing their entire raison d'etre.

[tezza]

I just downloaded several Star Trek novels. Paid about $10 each. And guess what? They are RIDDLED with typos. Pathetic.

Is Captain Kirk's best friend SPOCK, or SPECK? Hard to tell as you read William Shatner's DARK VICTORY.

My favourite passage...

"On the semen, a thin blue stream of phased energy shot from the Voyager to find its target."

Sentences are muddled, about 50% of the hyphens that should be there aren't, and there's at least one typo per page.

I've downloaded other books that have other problems (thought nothing like the Trek books). For example, in Greg Rucka's FISTFUL OF RAIN, the first letter of each chapter is omitted.

If publishers want us to pay a premium for these ebooks, rather than take the free alternative, they'd better pull up their proverbial socks.

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by tezza

I just downloaded several Star Trek novels. Paid about $10 each. And guess what? They are RIDDLED with typos. Pathetic.

Is Captain Kirk's best friend SPOCK, or SPECK? Hard to tell as you read William Shatner's DARK VICTORY.

My favourite passage...

"On the semen, a thin blue stream of phased energy shot from the Voyager to find its target."

But this is an indictment of the publisher, not the industry, and "shoddy workmanship" should not be tolerated. COMPLAIN! Not just to the distributor but to the publisher directly. They ought to fix everything (for posterity) and send YOU a corrected copy.

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Often times the publishers do not have the original electronic files; those files reside with the typesetter.

Worse: authors wrote long-hand, via typewriter, via word processors and publishers and typesetters have systems incompatible with "older" work. Hands up anyone who can open a Wordstar document created in CPM for Apple ][+ using Gutenberg formating and distribute it today in .awz?

We need to deal with what we have: original clean electronic text or some flavour of OCR or converted text which needs HUMAN proof-reading to create an "eternal" copy. I am sure we agree: once we "get it absolutely right", there is only one Declaration of Independence. Forever. Well, same for Nero Wolfe, Sam Spade, Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes. There is an absolute.

So, down the road, what do publishers offer? If not just the accurate text, what else? There is "monetization" of the experience: wrapping up the enthusiasm of Sam Spade admirers into additional commentary, pictures, ideas, riffs on the theme -- attached to the "gospel". But copyright laws currently encourage and reward the lazy: do nothing and earn big bucks decades after the death of the creator thanks to being an ancestor, or ancestral corporation.