Subscribe to RSS 2.0E-book faux-pas and gaffes
Why are scruffy paperbacks beautifully typeset, but anything goes with e-books, even when they're global bestsellers being read on a high-end tablet? It's something I've grumbled about in the past and my theory is that it's about new, fragmented workflows versus old, bedded-in ones. And it's about having the right tools. We've had a couple of decades to get the hang of typesetting for a fixed page-size on a computer and we've got dedicated software for the purpose in the form of QuarkXPress and latterly InDesign. In the world of e-books, it's still amateur hour. Which perhaps makes it easier for genuine amateurs to sell their wares among all the 'professional' disasters. On the other hand, if a dedicated publishing company finds it difficult to get things right, then it stands to reason the self-publishing novice can really struggle. Here's an interesting blog post from author Michael Stackpole pointing out the worst e-book howlers and some tips on avoiding them.
Comments: 6
Hi, don't know if it's just today, but your books, catalogue and authors pages aren't showing any content other than an introductory text. Tried in IE and Chrome.
Posted by: Naomi on February 22, 2012 04:02 PM
Thanks, Naomi. You were absolutely right. We'd changed one teensy thing in our database... which set all of our books to 'status: unpublished'.
Just be glad we don't write software for air traffic control or missile silos.
Posted by: Rob on February 22, 2012 08:25 PM
Correction, Rob: the software is fine, it was the dumb-ass user who caused the problem. Sadly, that was me. Thanks for the heads up, Naomi!
Posted by: Em on February 22, 2012 10:29 PM
The three responses above should raise a wry smile. Perhaps it's a subtle explanation of how digital publishing can lead to unintended errors of layout and display compared to the world of ink and paper?
If I publish a print book, I'm able to proofread and then submit changes which will be reproduced on paper without any chance of a new error being introduced, say, to the plate.
But publishing to an electronic media, one tiny change might have an impact on CSS templates, unicode display of characters, device manufacturers' different and varying interpretation of how to display html5/epub etc.
Digital book publishing is still nascent. Print publishing has been established for hundreds of years. It stands to reason that the emerging technology of digital publishing and hardware devices will take time to consolidate around a set of standards which will eventually lead to a more stable product.
It really ain't that surprising folks.
Posted by: Mark on February 23, 2012 09:04 AM
I recently had a reader complaint about one of mine, which I reported to my publishers. They confirmed everything you've said, and are working to correct it, and they aren't novices - they were one of the first to automatically produce e-books on launch day.
Posted by: Anonymous author! on February 23, 2012 09:39 AM
I just wanted to pick up Mark's point. I agree it's not surprising that in the early years of a new technology it would compare unfavourably in terms of the bugs it still contains with something that's centuries old. My observation, though, is that it's weird for a technology that's still flaky and unreliable to be such big business. If total e-books sales were 10,000 units per year, I'd tolerate their shoddiness. But in some quarters they're already out-selling print. The e-book market is already worth nearly $4Bn* per year. That's a lot of money for something that doesn't work right yet.
*source
Posted by: Rob on February 24, 2012 07:57 AM