Publishing practices that drive me crazy

[JSWolf]

And the problem is that the publishers still make the same stupid formatting decisions.

[DiapDealer]

Sure. And some people still pointlessly rave about "mistakes" in ebooks that they never even noticed were in print books, too. So it goes.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

Sans-serif is also commonly used, either Futura-like, or a special font for children's books.

In novels/fiction? In the US I don't think I've ever seen a novel that's not set with a serif font. For non-fiction, technical, etc. sans serif is fine, but for novels sans serif is like nails on the chalk board to me.

[Quoth]

Though with ebooks you can customise the format and make corrections without tippex and fine ballpoint pen

There are ultimately three levels of annoying publishing practices:
1) Publishers having copyright and not even using ebooks or POD to make out of print available. Now inexcusable.

2) What you think is annoying formatting and poor proofing. You might be wrong, or it can be a regional variation. But at least ebooks are usually amenable to changes.

3) DRM. It's stupid and doesn't stop piracy at all.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Quoth

1) Publishers having copyright and not even using ebooks or POD to make out of print available. Now inexcusable.

This. Once it's digitized, I can't imagine it costing that much to keep a several-kilobyte file on their server in case someone wants to buy it.

Also, if they can't find the book legally, where do you think they're going to turn?

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

This. Once it's digitized, I can't imagine it costing that much to keep a several-kilobyte file on their server in case someone wants to buy it.

Also, if they can't find the book legally, where do you think they're going to turn?

Yep, 100% agree.
Geez, they don't even have to do the conversion work. Hunt around and find a copy that is already out there, update the formatting and structure, and officially release.

I once downloaded a sample. When I went to purchase the full ebook it was no longer available. What... they ran out of digital copies??

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by hobnail

In novels/fiction? In the US I don't think I've ever seen a novel that's not set with a serif font. For non-fiction, technical, etc. sans serif is fine, but for novels sans serif is like nails on the chalk board to me.

Wasn't Helvetica all the rage about 15 years ago? I vaguely recall some of the more "hip" novels using that font back then. But then again, my memory is less and less trustworthy.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Wasn't Helvetica all the rage about 15 years ago? I vaguely recall some of the more "hip" novels using that font back then. But then again, my memory is less and less trustworthy.

Yes, but again I think that was not in books that are novels/fiction. If you go to archive.org and look at old magazines they used serif fonts. But nowadays it's all sans serif in magazines.

[JSWolf]

One thing that really needs to be banned forever is the use of Vellum to make eBooks. Anyone who uses Vellum should be banned from writing and/or releasing eBooks.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Wasn't Helvetica all the rage about 15 years ago? I vaguely recall some of the more "hip" novels using that font back then. But then again, my memory is less and less trustworthy.

Maybe 60 years ago. Released in 1957.
Very few UK or Irish novels (fiction) use it. I can't find any examples.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Karellen

I once downloaded a sample. When I went to purchase the full ebook it was no longer available. What... they ran out of digital copies??

That can be because they thought they had ebook rights and hadn't. Other times it's stupidity.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

One thing that really needs to be banned forever is the use of Vellum to make eBooks. Anyone who uses Vellum should be banned from writing and/or releasing eBooks.

But, Jon....THINK, MAN! THINK! That means you'd never see me again! You would miss me! You would cry! You would feel lost! Abandoned! Disheartened! And so, so alone! *


* This post was made using Vellum! And who else would dare use asterisks in every sentence!

[disconnected]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I find when they put "a novel" in as part of the title that really is annoying. I'm not stupid and I know I'm reading a novel.

I’m not usually bothered much by typography (or even a small number of OCR errors) but I do like to have the correct title, series info, and book description in Calibre. I’m lazy so I really wish the publishers could just upload the stuff correctly (and preferably not in all caps).

I’ve bought several old mysteries re-issued by Joffe, which I guess must be a small publisher. I happened to just buy one today and the metadata that came down with it was –

Title: MURDER ON SEA a gripping cozy crime mystery full of twists (Rina Martin Murder Mystery Book 1)
Author: JANE ADAMS
Series and Series Number fields were blank.
Comments field was blank.

Predictably enough, Calibre was unable to even locate the book online to download any additional data. Even after I edited the title to take off all the excess stuff, Calibre could only find two possible matches, one a different book by the same author and one which was a previous edition of my book but with a former title.

That’s been a pretty common occurrence with this publisher and I was annoyed enough to actually email them today to suggest that they try to find instructions on how to upload their books. I don’t imagine they’ll bother though. Their books are all priced really well so they probably figure people won't expect them to be perfect. And I guess most people that buy ebooks don't use Calibre and don't care about any of this stuff.

[hobnail]

Even though I have a Kobo I buy all my books from Amazon and I don't think they ever put the series information in the metadata. But why should they? Unlike the Kobo the Kindle doesn't really use the series information in a useful way. Fortunately with calibre I only need to fix the series info in calibre's database and do not need to edit the book's metadata/opf file (which I could do in Sigil after I've converted it to EPUB). Although calibre appears to be adding the series info into the EPUB's metadata when I convert it to EPUB, if I added the series info to the book before I converted it. I could swear that it didn't do that but maybe I'm misremembering it. Or maybe calibre is adding the metadata info to the EPUB when I change it in calibre? Again, I thought it didn't do that.

Edit: I just did a test and it looks like it's doing it (adding the series info) during the conversion from Kindle to EPUB. Thank you Kovid!

[disconnected]

Originally Posted by hobnail

Even though I have a Kobo I buy all my books from Amazon and I don't think they ever put the series information in the metadata. But why should they? Unlike the Kobo the Kindle doesn't really use the series information in a useful way. Fortunately with calibre I only need to fix the series info in calibre's database and do not need to edit the book's metadata/opf file (which I could do in Sigil after I've converted it to EPUB). Although calibre appears to be adding the series info into the EPUB's metadata when I convert it to EPUB, if I added the series info to the book before I converted it. I could swear that it didn't do that but maybe I'm misremembering it. Or maybe calibre is adding the metadata info to the EPUB when I change it in calibre? Again, I thought it didn't do that.

Edit: I just did a test and it looks like it's doing it (adding the series info) during the conversion from Kindle to EPUB. Thank you Kovid!

I think you're right. Actually, the first thing I do when I add a book to Calibre is have Calibre download metadata. The info must be available somewhere online because Calibre generally finds it as long as the title and author are correct and when I click on the title it finds it populates those fields.