LOTR ebook erratum and ebook quality

[HarryT]

I proofed and corrected my copy of LOTR years ago, but unfortunately didn't save a list of all the errors. There were rather a lot, though.

I also added to my copy all the Alan Lee illustrations from the 3 volume hardback illustrated edition which I have.

[John the Miner]

Are you proofreading that book for profit or for fun?

If for fun, then the peeing in the wetsuit simile comes strongly to mind.

[HarryT]

The Haggard book? For fun - Haggard is one of my favourite authors. You may have noticed that I've posted his complete works here to MR.

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by John the Miner

Are you proofreading that book for profit or for fun?

If for fun, then the peeing in the wetsuit simile comes strongly to mind.

You will find there are a lot of books here >> Patricia Clark Memorial Library that have been 'cleaned' up voluntarily for the enjoyment of others .... and go here if you'd like to help the wider e-reading community ...

[John the Miner]

No, thanks.

It's getting more and more obvious, since electronic typesetting and word processing programs came in, that the world can exist without professional proofies. As far as non-professional ones go, anybody who "publishes" something on the web obviously doesn't need them, either.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by John the Miner

No, thanks.

It's getting more and more obvious, since electronic typesetting and word processing programs came in, that the world can exist without professional proofies. As far as non-professional ones go, anybody who "publishes" something on the web obviously doesn't need them, either.

I must respectfully disagree, John. Many eBooks are very much in need of proof-reading, which is precisely why I spend so much of my time proof-reading and correcting the public domain classics, and posting them here to MR for everyone to benefit from.

[John the Miner]

I must also respectfully disagree with you, Harry.
What does the fact that ebooks contain so many literals (as evidenced by the plethora of grizzles about them on these forums) tell you?
Do the publishers know or care?
Do they really take notice of the complaints about their books in these pages? And how long does it take (if at all) for the publishers to correct them?
If you take the time to correct the books you've purchased or downloaded for your own satisfaction and then notify others about them on this forum, that's fine. How many of those others do you think will fly straight to their own copies of the book/s in question on their readers and correct them in accord with your findings? That's supposing that they have them in the first place.
The whole point is, surely, that the mistakes are glaringly obvious and they stand out like dogs' whatnames.
They are there for anybody who understands the language to find and the publishers simply don't care what their products look like when they put the books out there.
If they did ...

[BookCat]

Personally, I believe you're trolling. However, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt by saying that, regarding books in the public domain where no one profits, voluntary proof-reading by people like Harry (thanks H) is often necessary; on the other hand, if I paid for an ebook - and they're not cheap - I would be complaining to the seller if it had not been thoroughly proof-read, and I would demand my money back.

If you genuinely wish to learn more about ebooks, fair enough, you've come to the right place; but I somehow have the impression that you like arguing. Use your Eco reader more and you'll be spending time reading and learning about the properties of your ereader.

[HarryT]

John - the books that I (and others) proof-read are public domain classics, not commercially-published books. Improving the accuracy of such books benefits everybody.

[John the Miner]

Dear all: I'm not trolling; I have no need to start an argument and then sit back and smirk and watch what develops, no matter what anyone thinks.
My sole starting point is that, as a professional proofie since 1957, I'm appalled at the literals on display in downloaded public domain manuscripts and, apparently, in purchased ebooks.
Whether those mistakes are a result of malfunctioning OCR programs or malfunctioning "editors" or proofreaders in the publishing houses is of no concern to me as I don't buy anything from the ebook purveyors.
It doesn't worry me in the slightest if consumers of these texts get upset at the mistakes they find in them, the answer is in their hands (or their wallets).
The whole idea of people buying ebook readers and putting books on them, seeing the mistakes they contain, complaining on this forum about those mistakes and then sitting down and spending time correcting them for their own (and others') benefit is exceeding strange to me.
Why should the customers fix up the publishing houses' mistakes?
If a text costs 99c or $1.99 or $5.99 or $9.99 from a company selling ebooks (let's call it the ABC Company), while the old-fashioned paper version costs many dollars more, then caveat emptor! Isn't that the name of the game? Don't you get what you pay for? Why complain at the shoddiness of the goods you continually pay for?
If the ABC Company puts out material that's riddled with mistakes and the customers find enough of those mistakes to upset them and broadcast those concerns on forums like these, why should those same customers continue to support the ABC Company?
How soon would it take the ABC Company to straighten up and fly right if, all of a sudden, their sales dropped dramatically because somebody in the organisation happened to take notice of continual posts on this forum wherein the company's name was liberally highlighted as being a seller of rubbish texts?
Has that happened?
Yet?
No?
If not, why not?
Well, then ...

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by John the Miner

Why should the customers fix up the publishing houses' mistakes?

Because we can.

[Hellmark]

The problem is that most ebooks cost as much, or in some cases more than the paperbook. I shouldn't be forced to deal with problems with one version that the other doesn't have, when they cost the same for either one.

As far as not buying from companies that have shotty ebooks, well, problem with that is many the quality differs. One book from ABC will be full of errors, and a second book from ABC will be great. If you knew every book from ABC was junk, it is easier to avoid them. Big issue comes in when you buy one book, had no issues, and then buy more from them to find that they have issues.

Many of us will fix issues in our own copies, because we still want to read the book and glaring errors hamper our ability to do so. I am reading a book that has question marks randomly inserted, and it is making it hard to read the book. Problem is, it was part of a series, and the last 3 books I read in it were great. Going off the quality of the previous books, I had no problems buying more because I was expecting similar quality. The next book may be back to the quality of the old ones, or may be bad again, how am I to know? I complain to the publisher, but often I don't even get a response back, and seeing how I am 4 books into a series I like, I want to finish it. So, I remove the issues, and continue reading, and hope that the publisher fixes it eventually.

[John the Miner]

Absolutely incredible!


Bye-bye.

[Hellmark]

Now, I am confused. No rebuttal or anything.

You say we should vote with our dollars, and use the example of if a company has bad quality don't buy from them, yet when you are countered with the more likely scenario where each of the publishers have issues with quality not being uniformly good or bad, you won't talk. Same when you say that if the ebook costs less than the paperbook, but offer nothing when confronted with the issue where the ebook cost as much or more.

I wasn't thinking you were trying to troll, and genuinely was interested in an honest debate with you, however this behavior is crazy.

[John the Miner]

OK, Hellmark, try this:
Let's assume you buy the books or continue to buy later instalments in the series, knowing full well there are (or there are likely to be, going on previous instances) mistakes galore in them.
Once bitten, twice shy? Or are you hoping against hope that this time will be different?
So, you start to read and, if good fortune smiles on you, there are very few literals this time in the text and you can get down to having an enjoyable experience with your book, as it's supposed to be.
If, on the other hand, the pages are littered with mistakes, you have to interrupt your reading and/or enjoyment to do somebody else's work in correcting them for your own pleasure. After doing that, I suppose you go back to page 1 and start all over again to get the gist of the book.
Why should that be so? Does doing your own proofreading and wasting some time make the book more valuable to you as a finished product, knowing that the author or the OCR software didn't get it right in the first place?
There's a very good saying around: You can't polish a **** (I guess you've heard it? Starts with T, ends with D).
To my way of thinking, doing the author's job is pretty much a waste of time. It didn't help him or her produce a better book this time and there's no proof it will help him or her produce a better one next time.
If Joe Blows burst into print and his publishers put his work up for viewing/purchasing on their site, and you like the carefully chosen snippet or precis you see in the come-on, you probably expect the rest of the book to be the same ... and why shouldn't you?
Once upon a time, like all good fairy stories start off, there used to be a masthead on publications giving the author's details and contact particulars. Now you get a faceless publisher's company name, if that.
Does a letter of complaint sent to the publisher get passed along to Joe Blow?
Does Joe reply to you? Should he? Shouldn't he?
If he doesn't reply in person to your letter, at the very least, wouldn't it make good business sense for either or both to put up a disclaimer on the company's site saying "Sorry"?
Yair, right!
Oops! What's that? A flock of pigs just flew past my window ...