Proof reading errors? Arggg!

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Yeah, I was just having some fun.



I'm not championing poor formatting in ebooks. In the case you described, you should write to the publisher and push for corrections.

I'm just saying I have realistic expectations and in some cases will accept a higher percentage of errors because I'm happy there's an e-version of the book at all.

I tend to agree with you. I have a fairly high tolerance for errors for ebooks for the same reason, especially if it's a backlist book that rather obviously was scanned. As long as it is possible to understand based on the context, I'm ok with it. I probably wouldn't be as happy about a brand new book.

There is an old adage in project management - cheap, fast, good - pick two of the three. I would add to that if you are lucky you can get as many as two out of three. Many times, it's one out of the three. People seem to want cheap, then complain because the workmanship is shoddy.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I don't know if you're deliberately trying to bait me for the fun of it, or if you truly believe that minimum quality standards don't matter. If the latter, we have nothing to discuss. If the former, the fun is over, and we have nothing to discuss.

Your minimum standards are much higher than mine, it appears. My minimum standards require that words are spelled correctly. And in this instance they are. Please don't generalize that ALL English speaking or writing individuals are always correctly using all rules. Imperfection is part of what makes us human and not robots. Artistic freedom allows for introducing mistakes. One good example is dialogue that runs together as a single line as in:

"Hi." "Hi." Kiss. Kiss.

This is fantastic and says so much with simply four words. Has to be together to show the dynamic. There is no thinking allowed, no gap. Correctly separated into paragraphs would take away from the whole message and image that appears:

    "Hi."
    "Hi."
    Kiss.
    Kiss.

That one is slower. I would wonder why they had such a simple dialogue. The first one as in the book made me think about the drag of a simple ritual. With repetition it became so ingrained and automatic as to be meaningless. I would like to think it was meant to be a single line to speed it up. If it was an honest OCR mistake it still served to enhance the experience. If a section is riddled with jumping around and unfinished thought processes, then it may be done on purpose. This way the reader is forced to feel just as confused as the person thinking or talking.

The book is about brainwashing and mind control, the OCR software simply got infected by it. If you read the whole book with all the bad added and go with the flow -- who knows what will happen.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by haertig

If you would like a very specific example that counters your point:

Go read the "Look Inside" blurb on Amazon for the book I started this thread about: "Temple" by Matthew Reilly. I just scanned over about 75% of that Look Inside blurb, and didn't find anything horribly bad. So using "the tools", this books appears to be well (enough) formatted, thus appropriate for purchase.

And yet there were a couple of people in this very thread who noticed enough issues in the sample for your very specific example (some quite terrible) that they knew they would never spend their $8 on it. They were looking at different issues, sometimes, but nonetheless ...

Go figure.

EDIT: Never mind. They were talking about a different book apparently.

Sure, things fall though the cracks sometimes. There's still the refund route if you feel ripped off.

[haertig]

I got it from the library. So it was free (well, except for my tax dollars that allow the library to purchase it). I am not one who is bothered by "paying good money for poor quality". Rather, I am one who is bothered by "getting pulled out of the story by frequent errors".

My response is to switch to a different author. In this case, James Rollins. I initially found Matthew Reilly by searching for "authors like James Rollins" in the first place. So I gave Reilly a try. Not bad writing, and fun, albeit it sometimes over the top stories. But the production quality turned me back to Rollins, who has consistently delivered good production quality in the past (that's no guaranty for the future, I know - especially since over half of my Rollins reading has been paperbacks, not eBooks). This is not really fair to Matthew Reilly, because he is a good writer. However, if I can't stay in the story because of errors then I am not as anxious to read the next book. This could be a one-off too. Maybe his other books are better in production quality. I did read his "Ice Station", which was a fun read too, and I didn't notice errors in that one. They might have been there, as they are in all books, but the low quantity did not bring them up to the level where they got annoying, or even noticeable/memorable.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by haertig

It seems like the farther you go in the book, the worse the formatting gets. Things become almost a joke as you near the last quarter of the book.

I felt the same way about another book I read recently. The second half started having weird hyphens and then page numbers and the book title started showing up in the middle of paragraphs or paragraphs would be split up around the top / bottom of page headers. All are obvious OCR errors but they were only in the latter part of the book (at least they weren't nearly as common at the front, there were probably a few.)

And this book is a popular book with 4 stars and over 100,000 ratings on Goodreads.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by haertig

My response is to switch to a different author. In this case, James Rollins. I initially found Matthew Reilly by searching for "authors like James Rollins" in the first place. So I gave Reilly a try. Not bad writing, and fun, albeit it sometimes over the top stories. But the production quality turned me back to Rollins, who has consistently delivered good production quality in the past (that's no guaranty for the future, I know - especially since over half of my Rollins reading has been paperbacks, not eBooks). This is not really fair to Matthew Reilly, because he is a good writer. However, if I can't stay in the story because of errors then I am not as anxious to read the next book. This could be a one-off too. Maybe his other books are better in production quality. I did read his "Ice Station", which was a fun read too, and I didn't notice errors in that one. They might have been there, as they are in all books, but the low quantity did not bring them up to the level where they got annoying, or even noticeable/memorable.

I'd likely have less patience with the Matt Reilly errors than the Spinrad ones. The Reilly book is by a big 5 publisher whereas the Spinrad book was likely OCR'd from a paperback and self published.

I find myself wondering if the version of Mind Game Amazon is selling is better or worse than the fan-scanned version that I'm sure is floating around out there (I assume any/all old sci-fi have fan-scanned editions). Maybe he should follow the Walter Jon Williams example?

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Sometimes I just wish that the publishers had a link in the "back" of the ebook, where you could give them the author, title, and a list of errors. Then they could have a summer intern fix the errors, and do an annual push of corrected titles out to the distributors.

I know that some here will scream that they are not paying to be proofreaders, but helping out the next person who comes along is a charitable act. . . .

I love this idea. Even for books that are well edited, sometimes things slip through. Would be nice to have a standardized process to follow to get them fixed.

I can picture there being certain problems, though. I remember reading somewhere about a British author's frustration with Americans complaining about her "constant misspellings". If the interns turned out to be as ignorant of spelling differences as that author's critics, the book "corrections" could easily turn the ebook into a total mess!

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I'd likely have less patience with the Matt Reilly errors than the Spinrad ones. The Reilly book is by a big 5 publisher whereas the Spinrad book was likely OCR'd from a paperback and self published.

I find myself wondering if the version of Mind Game Amazon is selling is better or worse than the fan-scanned version that I'm sure is floating around out there (I assume any/all old sci-fi have fan-scanned editions). Maybe he should follow the Walter Jon Williams example?

One thing that I've noticed is that some people tend to scan and "publish" dead authors' books on Amazon (and I'm sure other platforms) simply based on the idea that they are a lot less likely to get into trouble. Some of these can be quite slip shod, others can be quite good. I ran across a copy of Doc Smith's Lensman book on Amazon a while back that was absolutely unreadable, it had so many errors. That's a lot coming from me. My guess is that the "publisher" did not have the rights to it. Amazon eventually pulled it.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I find myself wondering if the version of Mind Game Amazon is selling is better or worse than the fan-scanned version that I'm sure is floating around out there (I assume any/all old sci-fi have fan-scanned editions).

Originally Posted by pwalker8

One thing that I've noticed is that some people tend to scan and "publish" dead authors' books on Amazon (and I'm sure other platforms) simply based on the idea that they are a lot less likely to get into trouble. Some of these can be quite slip shod, others can be quite good. I ran across a copy of Doc Smith's Lensman book on Amazon a while back that was absolutely unreadable, it had so many errors. That's a lot coming from me. My guess is that the "publisher" did not have the rights to it. Amazon eventually pulled it.

That's clearly wrong if the book isn't in the public domain.

But the Spinrad Mind Game book, if I had bought it for $8 and it was an unreadable mess, I would check alternate sources to see what shape that file is in. Someone might be doing the author a favor if they could point him to a copy that is in better shape than what he currently has listed for sale.

[Philippe D.]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Maybe he should follow the Walter Jon Williams example?

Not sure I should revive a thread that seems to have quieted down, but I'm curious... what's the Walter Jon Williams example?

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Philippe D.

Not sure I should revive a thread that seems to have quieted down, but I'm curious... what's the Walter Jon Williams example?

He used pirate copies to self publish his backlist.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/boingbo...liams.html/amp

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

One thing that I've noticed is that some people tend to scan and "publish" dead authors' books on Amazon (and I'm sure other platforms) simply based on the idea that they are a lot less likely to get into trouble. Some of these can be quite slip shod, others can be quite good. I ran across a copy of Doc Smith's Lensman book on Amazon a while back that was absolutely unreadable, it had so many errors. That's a lot coming from me. My guess is that the "publisher" did not have the rights to it. Amazon eventually pulled it.

Yep, been scammed myself.

I had been patiently waiting for YEARS for Anne McCaffrey's Harper Hall trilogy (Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums) to show up as ebook in USA ebook stores. One day, there they were on Amazon!

I bought them, but as I knew I loved the trilogy, didn't feel any need to reread immediately. Instead, I waited for the right time, which was a year and a half or so later when my Kindle Oasis 2 arrived.

I downloaded the books, settled in for what I hoped would be a lovely reread and UGH! RIDDLED WITH ERRORS! All three books.

So, I went to look for the publisher/copyright page in order to make a complaint to the publisher and discovered there was NO PUBLISHER INFO and NO COPYRIGHT PAGE of any sort. To me, that spells pirated copies loud and clear.

I realize NOW that I should have done a 'look inside' or checked the reviews, but I bought straight from my Kindle Voyage. It never occurred to me that with a well-known author like this that Amazon would let just anybody upload their work with no proof or even indication of rights ownership. Buyer beware....

[haertig]

Originally Posted by graycyn

Yep, been scammed myself.
...
So, I went to look for the publisher/copyright page in order to make a complaint to the publisher and discovered there was NO PUBLISHER INFO and NO COPYRIGHT PAGE of any sort. To me, that spells pirated copies loud and clear.

I'm not understanding something here. Are you saying that when you buy an eBook from Amazon, that it is not Amazon that is selling (licensing, whatever) you the eBook? It could be some 3rd party pirate with stolen material doing the selling? I'm not getting this concept. Most eBooks come with DRM. That DRM, when the eBook is purchased for a Kindle, is tied to Amazons server infrastructure and your specific Kindle. Pirates can't just apply "Amazon DRM" on their own. So how is it NOT Amazon that is selling you that eBook? How could it be pirated? I don't understand...

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by haertig

I'm not understanding something here. Are you saying that when you buy an eBook from Amazon, that it is not Amazon that is selling (licensing, whatever) you the eBook? It could be some 3rd party pirate with stolen material doing the selling? I'm not getting this concept. Most eBooks come with DRM. That DRM, when the eBook is purchased for a Kindle, is tied to Amazons server infrastructure and your specific Kindle. Pirates can't just apply "Amazon DRM" on their own. So how is it NOT Amazon that is selling you that eBook? How could it be pirated? I don't understand...

They open an amazon account as a publisher and illegally upload the book(s). That is what happened in the infamous 1984 scandal.

[DiapDealer]

Except for Amazon's own imprints, "NOT Amazon" is selling you every ebook you buy from them. The ebooks are provided by the rights-holder who request DRM be applied or not.

There's no doubt that Amazon could probably be a little more proactive about weeding out the scammers, but then how far should anybody be reasonably expected to go in this regard? There is no Copyright Police force with a mandate to actively protect everyone's IP rights. The onus is still mostly on rights-holders themselves to protect their own property (through DMCA takedown notices and other legal means).

Aggressive/Proactive systems that have the ability to autonomously take down content are infinitely more scary to me than a few scammers making a quick buck here and there before they're shut down by a takedown notice or a cease & desist order. I remember a few years ago, such an automated 'bot took down the live-stream of the annual Hugo awards. The reason?? Copyrighted video of Dr. Who playing in the background when the show was being awarded its Hugo for the Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) category. Shut it down right before Neil Gaiman got up to speak, in fact (he had written the award-winning episode).