E-book faux-pas and gaffes • 22 February 2012 • The SnowBlog
E-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.
Rob
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.