The Vent and Rant Thread

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by fum

Yes, those I confuse as well. I always say 'Obrigado' to the spanish (To brag with my language skills :-)), and they look confused at me.

Of course, because we don't speak Portuguese or Brazilian

Enviado desde mi MI 5 mediante Tapatalk

[Freeshadow]

@Bianca
The only thing I don't get is, why the FECK ypu haven't banned that guy long before

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

@Bianca
The only thing I don't get is, why the FECK ypu haven't banned that guy long before

He was annoying but not bad enough to ban. To be honest, we were hoping he either got the hint by our borderline rude behaviour towards him or he would behave bad enough to warrant a ban. My father still believes in the age old saying that the customer is king, but even he has his limits.

Sent from my SM-T713 using Tapatalk

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Not to mention, the word simply sounds wonderful. Zeiktoeslag. After all, toeslag just sounds like toe jam that someone forgot to wash, and it gets better from there, right?

The printing industry has the markup symbol AA, which stands for Author's Alterations.

When you submit a job to a commercial printer, you normally get a proof showing what the job will look like when printed, which you review and make corrections on. Minor corrections aren't an issue. Major corrections get the AA tag, which translates as "We charge extra for aggravation". Depending upon the corrections required, it may mean making all new plates, and will certainly involve disruption to the printer's carefully planned production schedule. They charge through the nose for that, for good reason, so you are advised to carefully proof what you want printed before you submit the job.

(I worked for a big commercial printer back when, and heard a horror story about an annual report. Client error - after the job was printed a mistake was discovered in the financial tables that were part of the 10K section. Because of the regulations governing such things, they couldn't just print and insert an errata sheet with the correction. The had to destroy the original print run and reprint from scratch. I was grateful I wasn't the one on the client's staff who missed that in proofreading... )
______
Dennis

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

The printing industry has the markup symbol AA, which stands for Author's Alterations.

When you submit a job to a commercial printer, you normally get a proof showing what the job will look like when printed, which you review and make corrections on. Minor corrections aren't an issue. Major corrections get the AA tag, which translates as "We charge extra for aggravation". Depending upon the corrections required, it may mean making all new plates, and will certainly involve disruption to the printer's carefully production schedule. They charge through the nose for that, for good reason, so you are advised to carefully proof what you want printed before you submit the job.

(I worked for a big commercial printer back when, and heard a horror story about an annual report. Client error - after the job was printed a mistake was discovered in the financial tables that were part of the 10K section. Because of the regulations governing such things, they couldn't just print and insert an errata sheet with the correction. The had to destroy the original print run and reprint from scratch. I was grateful I wasn't the one on the client's staff who missed that in proofreading... )
______
Dennis

Indeed. We have a similar annotation, which shall remain unreported here, as we're still open, and have several thousand clients running around out there. :-)

Vis: proofing: just today--today--we had incredible agita from multiple clients. We'd told one client (which comes to us via their publisher, which is our actual client) that we couldn't do "rounded corners" on the edges of his text boxes. Not reliably, in all the ebook formats. He responded to the publishers that in his experience, almost nothing was "not doable," and that what we REALLY meant was that we were lazy, and didn't want to go to the extra trouble. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....(I was sorely tempted to say "oh, gosh, you GOT me," and give it back to him displaying as he wanted--in ONE device, the nitwit, and just wait for him to come back in weeks/months complaining about how bloody sh***y it looks in other devices...).

Some other jack@ss did something that I can't recall, now.

Then a third said that on his second--not first, mind you--pass, he'd found "all these errors." They were all his, apparently, according to what he reported and what I found. He wanted to know if there would be any charge for "emendation." I had to sit on my fingers not to type "Oh, hey, don't worry, brah, we're delighted to eat the costs to fix all your mistakes." I mean...WTF? Why does anyone think that their mistakes should be paid for by others? What is that? WHY would any sane person think that??? I don't get it. Truly, I do not.

AA. I like the innocuousness of it. (Not to mention, with the BS they hand out, it's where it's driving me....) It's like a small boat, carrying a torpedo.

Hitch

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Vis: proofing: just today--today--we had incredible agita from multiple clients. We'd told one client (which comes to us via their publisher, which is our actual client) that we couldn't do "rounded corners" on the edges of his text boxes. Not reliably, in all the ebook formats. He responded to the publishers that in his experience, almost nothing was "not doable," and that what we REALLY meant was that we were lazy, and didn't want to go to the extra trouble. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....(I was sorely tempted to say "oh, gosh, you GOT me," and give it back to him displaying as he wanted--in ONE device, the nitwit, and just wait for him to come back in weeks/months complaining about how bloody sh***y it looks in other devices...).

Rounded corners. Joy. It can be done reliably in CSS3, but do any e-readers support that completely? If not, you'll have to go and jackass around with tiny little images for each corner, or a borderless textbox in a div with a background image, and all those kinds of fun.

It's one of the reasons why I detest front-end web development.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Rounded corners. Joy. It can be done reliably in CSS3, but do any e-readers support that completely?

I haven't done any sort of survey, but I'd guess support is spotty.

It's more fun when you don't use a dedicated reader, but have an app on a multi-purpose device. My eBook viewer is an Android tablet. I use the open source FBReader for Android app as my eBook viewer. FBReader tries to support CSS, but I turned it partially off - with it on, some books I have displayed poorly because what the eBook's design tries to do is a poor fit for the device. (A wish list item for FBReader is to have that supported by book, left on by default, but turned off for books where it's problematic.)

Since I want to read the book comfortably, I turn off things like font selection through CSS and use built in defaults. I haven't seen eBooks attempt to use rounded corners on text boxes, and don't especially care if one wants to. That strikes me as a trick better suited for use in browsers running on large displays.

(UIs that attempt to be one-size-fits-all across all form factors are another pet peeve - <cough> Ubuntu Unity </cough> )
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Then a third said that on his second--not first, mind you--pass, he'd found "all these errors." They were all his, apparently, according to what he reported and what I found. He wanted to know if there would be any charge for "emendation." I had to sit on my fingers not to type "Oh, hey, don't worry, brah, we're delighted to eat the costs to fix all your mistakes." I mean...WTF? Why does anyone think that their mistakes should be paid for by others? What is that? WHY would any sane person think that??? I don't get it. Truly, I do not.

I'd just say "You are paying us for our time. Making those changes will require extra time you will be charged for at our standard rates. To avoid such charges, proof carefully in the future before you submit copy to us."

As to why? Lots of Special Snowflakes out there who seem to believe rules don't apply to them, and squawk when those making the rules don't agree.

AA. I like the innocuousness of it. (Not to mention, with the BS they hand out, it's where it's driving me....) It's like a small boat, carrying a torpedo.

Well, it looks innocuous, but there's usually agreement up front as to what qualifies as an AA. Taking the example of the annual report I mentioned, discovering an error in the financial tables in an annual report, and submitting corrected copy for the page that would require a new plate would be an AA with a cost. But it would be a lot more acceptable than having to pay for a whole new printing of the report because you missed a detail reviewing the proof and didn't catch the error till after the job was printed.
______
Dennis

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Rounded corners. Joy. It can be done reliably in CSS3, but do any e-readers support that completely? If not, you'll have to go and jackass around with tiny little images for each corner, or a borderless textbox in a div with a background image, and all those kinds of fun.

It's one of the reasons why I detest front-end web development.

Nyet. Not if the publisher in question is going to publish on Amazon--and who doesn't? KF7, the older devices, don't even support CSS, much less CSS3. Can't be done, not reliably, which is what I'd said to the client's client in the first damn place. RE-LI-A-BLY. Sheesh. (At them, not you, Kats)

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I haven't done any sort of survey, but I'd guess support is spotty.

And the understatement of the year award goes to...

It's more fun when you don't use a dedicated reader, but have an app on a multi-purpose device. My eBook viewer is an Android tablet. I use the open source FBReader for Android app as my eBook viewer. FBReader tries to support CSS, but I turned it partially off - with it on, some books I have displayed poorly because what the eBook's design tries to do is a poor fit for the device. (A wish list item for FBReader is to have that supported by book, left on by default, but turned off for books where it's problematic.)

Oh, yes. We get a lot of crap about just this--we'll get a client, who has downloaded "new app reader that's being used by 10 other humans in the Known Universe" and want to know WHY the eBook(s) we made for them look crappy on said app. My usual response is: "uhhhrrr? I dunno." The books we make are warrantied on the big retailer devices, not every possible app. I mean--who could?

Since I want to read the book comfortably, I turn off things like font selection through CSS and use built in defaults. I haven't seen eBooks attempt to use rounded corners on text boxes, and don't especially care if one wants to. That strikes me as a trick better suited for use in browsers running on large displays.

That's because you have to be bloody daft to do it. We're doing an ENTIRE book--not a small one--in which the whole thing is a series of quotes/text messages, and yes, they ALL have rounded corners, but in the Amazon KF7 devices, they'll be single lines, not boxes, not rounded corners, etc. That client asked nicely, and understands limitations, so we'll go out on a limb for them--unlike Dildo #4,327 there, who thinks we're lazy. NOT the way to motivate me to try harder.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I'd just say "You are paying us for our time. Making those changes will require extra time you will be charged for at our standard rates. To avoid such charges, proof carefully in the future before you submit copy to us."

The thing that slays me is, I s**t thee not, we tell people about revisions costs not once, not twice, but three times, before they get to that point. We tell them about it, in DETAIL, in our Terms & Conditions. We tell them about it in a handout we provide, before they start the processed, called "Why a Proofed Manuscript Matters," AND, we detail it the third time in the instructions sheet for the Proofing form. Does ANYONE read those? S**t, NO. It's annoying as Hades.

As to why? Lots of Special Snowflakes out there who seem to believe rules don't apply to them, and squawk when those making the rules don't agree.

I don't understand if those SS'es existed throughout time, or if they are a product of the Zeitgeist. I just don't remember EVERYBODY, EVERYWHERE, always thinking that they were sooooooooooooooooooooooo speshul. When did this start????

Well, it looks innocuous, but there's usually agreement up front as to what qualifies as an AA.

I swear, we really DO detail it, pre-contract.

Taking the example of the annual report I mentioned, discovering an error in the financial tables in an annual report, and submitting corrected copy for the page that would require a new plate would be an AA with a cost.

Indeed.

But it would be a lot more acceptable than having to pay for a whole new printing of the report because you missed a detail reviewing the proof and didn't catch the error till after the job was printed.
______
Dennis

Oh, cr*p, yes. And professionals don't expect the printer, or the bookmaker, to pay for that stuff, but Ammies (Amateurs) seem to think that somehow, someway, we're their "publisher," (which we absolutely, positively, no doubt about it, are NOT), and that we'll take care of it. {sigh}. It's nothing new. It's just the SSDD.


Hitch

[CRussel]

As a writer, I've been guilty of not catching stuff on the first pass. I don't know a writer who hasn't. BUT, boys and girls, by the time it gets to Pages, you have two choices -- live with it, or make a very, very controlled change that does NOT WALK THE PAGES. This means you can add or remove text IF AND ONLY IF (logical IFF) you end up with the same number of characters on the page. Try re-writing step-by-step instructions without changing the word/character count sometime. It's a fun exercise, I assure you. And I ONLY did it because the mistake (mine and the TE for not catching it) was both egregious and would lead the user down a path that would have really bad results, not just a simple failure.

OTOH, I've also found errors introduced by the proofreader/copyeditor after I had last seen it, and been forced to insist on reverting to the correct content. This is rare with good publishing houses, but can happen, especially with technical content. (Microsoft Press used to be one of the very best, before they closed it, laid off all their editorial staff, and moved all content development to Pearson. On them I won't comment, except to say that I decided not to write any more books.)

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I don't understand if those SS'es existed throughout time, or if they are a product of the Zeitgeist. I just don't remember EVERYBODY, EVERYWHERE, always thinking that they were sooooooooooooooooooooooo speshul. When did this start????

With the millennial generation, I'm told, somewhere around 1995 or so.

"Everybody is uniqe, everybody is special. Everybody is always a winner."

Then you get a 'contest' with 10 partiticpants. One wins, and all the others get a second place medal... because it can be mentally damaging if children lose at something.

In *MY* time, in the 80's (damn, I feel old now) when going to judo tournaments, you had 3 matches, in a pool of 4. The winners of the pools went on to a knock out tournament.

Then, two winners of the half final would fight for the 1st and second place, and the losers would have a match for third and *nothing*. So you could be among the best four of the entire tournament, and still end up with *nothing*. Your parents praised you for the fact you were one of the best four, and told you to try and be on the podium next time. Such was life.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by Hitch

The thing that slays me is, I s**t thee not, we tell people about revisions costs not once, not twice, but three times, before they get to that point. We tell them about it, in DETAIL, in our Terms & Conditions. We tell them about it in a handout we provide, before they start the processed, called "Why a Proofed Manuscript Matters," AND, we detail it the third time in the instructions sheet for the Proofing form. Does ANYONE read those? S**t, NO. It's annoying as Hades.

Time to up your advertised rates and then include a sentence in the T & C letting people know if they see that particular sentence that the rates revert to the original ones. That might encourage folks to read the fine print.


Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Nyet. Not if the publisher in question is going to publish on Amazon--and who doesn't? KF7, the older devices, don't even support CSS, much less CSS3. Can't be done, not reliably, which is what I'd said to the client's client in the first damn place. RE-LI-A-BLY. Sheesh. (At them, not you, Kats)

Which is a reason I prefer an app on a non-dedicated device. On a dedicated device, the viewer will be part of the firmware, and require a firmware upgrade if any are issued.

An app is a download and install of a new version. (I have enough various things installed on my tablet that I check for new versions every couple of days. Guaranteed, something got an update...)

And the understatement of the year award goes to...

I thought that was the case.

Oh, yes. We get a lot of crap about just this--we'll get a client, who has downloaded "new app reader that's being used by 10 other humans in the Known Universe" and want to know WHY the eBook(s) we made for them look crappy on said app. My usual response is: "uhhhrrr? I dunno." The books we make are warrantied on the big retailer devices, not every possible app. I mean--who could?

Not possible.

I first encountered FBReader in a version written in C that was available for Windows and Linux (and in a third-party build for OS/X.) It displayed ePub and Mobi, as well as an assortment of other formats. A special win for me was that it displayed documents in the format used by the Plucker offline HTML viewer for Palm OS. I have a large number of HTML documents I converted for reading on my PDA, and it was nice to have something other than the PDA that could read them.

FBReader for Android was a rewrite in Java for devices other than PCs. The attraction is multiple format support. It handles ePub and Mobi among others, with support for things like PDF and DjVu available through plugins. I prefer ePub, but if the only form a book is in is not ePub, I mostly don't care because FBReader will display it. FBReader doesn't handle content with DRM, but I don't care because I don't get content encumbered with DRM.

Moon Reader Pro seems to be the most popular/best regarded eBook view app for Android. I looked at it, and it's a worthy offering, but support for things other than ePub gets FBReader the nod here.

(On Windows these, I mostly use the open source SumatraPDF offering, which displays ePub and Mobi as well as PDF.)

That's because you have to be bloody daft to do it. We're doing an ENTIRE book--not a small one--in which the whole thing is a series of quotes/text messages, and yes, they ALL have rounded corners, but in the Amazon KF7 devices, they'll be single lines, not boxes, not rounded corners, etc. That client asked nicely, and understands limitations, so we'll go out on a limb for them--unlike Dildo #4,327 there, who thinks we're lazy. NOT the way to motivate me to try harder.

I bet. If I were trying to handle content like that, part of my initial estimate for what I would charge would include "You want X. We know from bitter experience that X is not properly supported on all devices the user might have to display your content. It will work on devices A and B, but will likely fail elsewhere. We'll do our best, but make no guarantees."

The thing that slays me is, I s**t thee not, we tell people about revisions costs not once, not twice, but three times, before they get to that point. We tell them about it, in DETAIL, in our Terms & Conditions. We tell them about it in a handout we provide, before they start the processed, called "Why a Proofed Manuscript Matters," AND, we detail it the third time in the instructions sheet for the Proofing form. Does ANYONE read those? S**t, NO. It's annoying as Hades.

Or they do read them, but somehow feel it doesn't apply to them, or if it does, they can avoid it by whining loudly.

I don't understand if those SS'es existed throughout time, or if they are a product of the Zeitgeist. I just don't remember EVERYBODY, EVERYWHERE, always thinking that they were sooooooooooooooooooooooo speshul. When did this start????

I think such folks always existed, but in the old days it was a factor of wealth and privilege. These days it's a lot more wide spread. It's something Christopher Lasch went on about in The Culture of Narcissism.

I swear, we really DO detail it, pre-contract.

See above about "It doesn't apply to me."

Oh, cr*p, yes. And professionals don't expect the printer, or the bookmaker, to pay for that stuff, but Ammies (Amateurs) seem to think that somehow, someway, we're their "publisher," (which we absolutely, positively, no doubt about it, are NOT), and that we'll take care of it. {sigh}. It's nothing new. It's just the SSDD.

I'm active in forums elsewhere with wannabes looking at self-publishing. Getting across reality is an uphill battle.

The prize winner was a chap up in arms about an AARP offer. AARP was looking for autobiographical content written by retired people, salable to an audience composed of retired people. They wanted book proposals for stuff they might think worth publishing. Bozo was concerned they might steal his idea and hand to to someone else to make a book. I tried to explain the basics of traditional publishing, and that reputable traditional publishers didn't work that way, but he didn't want to hear it. He decided to stop talking to me before I could get to the point of "What have you published? What have you even finished and submitted? I thought so. You're not a writer, you're a wannabe with delusions of grandeur, and you have nothing worth stealing even if anyone you point at did so in the first place." Probably just as well, since I'd already wasted enough time arguing.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by CRussel

As a writer, I've been guilty of not catching stuff on the first pass. I don't know a writer who hasn't. BUT, boys and girls, by the time it gets to Pages, you have two choices -- live with it, or make a very, very controlled change that does NOT WALK THE PAGES. This means you can add or remove text IF AND ONLY IF (logical IFF) you end up with the same number of characters on the page. Try re-writing step-by-step instructions without changing the word/character count sometime. It's a fun exercise, I assure you. And I ONLY did it because the mistake (mine and the TE for not catching it) was both egregious and would lead the user down a path that would have really bad results, not just a simple failure.

A contact elsewhere was asking whether he should hire an editor for his manuscript. The forum where he asked was mostly populated by folks in publishing, and the answer was "Yes. You cannot edit yourself. Been there, tried that, and failed. You need another pair of trained eyes."

OTOH, I've also found errors introduced by the proofreader/copyeditor after I had last seen it, and been forced to insist on reverting to the correct content. This is rare with good publishing houses, but can happen, especially with technical content. (Microsoft Press used to be one of the very best, before they closed it, laid off all their editorial staff, and moved all content development to Pearson. On them I won't comment, except to say that I decided not to write any more books.)

The late SF writer John Brunner told a story about a book he'd written where he used phrases he knew a copy editor would try to "correct". It was the days when manuscripts were still shipped as hardcopy. So he printed out his submission draft, and went through the work, carefully circling all the "leave as is" bits, and writing STET! in large letters in the margin. Sure enough, he got the galley proofs, and every instance had been "corrected". I could only conclude no one in the process at the publisher knew what STET! meant.
______
Dennis

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

A contact elsewhere was asking whether he should hire an editor for his manuscript. The forum where he asked was mostly populated by folks in publishing, and the answer was "Yes. You cannot edit yourself. Been there, tried that, and failed. You need another pair of trained eyes."

Nope. I've been doing this for >25 years, and I still need an editor. Not as badly as the old days, but still need an editor. And for technical books/documents, you NEED a tech editor. Preferably one who is _very_, meticulous and fussy.