# MERGED TOPIC -- Amazon QC -- Warning notices -- MERGED TOPIC



## Mark Dawson (Mar 24, 2012)

I'm very fastidious with the quality of my books. I have a detailed editorial process (proof and copy edits) and then more than 500 beta readers (around half of whom will usually chime in with comments). Was that it were ever thus - some of my earlier books were not quite so carefully prepared (I was a little more haphazard when I started!) and errors slipped in. I pick these up as soon as I become aware of them - reader emails, review comments, and those lovely passive aggressive Amazon emails.

On the latter, it seems that there is now a realistic escalation... I got this from Amazon yesterday:



> Our shared goal is to provide the best digital reading experience for customers on Kindle. When customers contact us with quality issues in a book you published, we validate the issues and send them immediately to you to fix.
> 
> Starting February 3, 2016 we will begin showing customers a warning message on the Amazon.com Kindle store detail pages of books that contain several validated quality issues. We will remove this message for a book as soon as we receive the fixed file from you and verify the corrections -- typically within 2 business days.
> 
> We understand that even with the best quality controls, defects sometimes make it through. That's why we've limited this messaging to books with several issues. Books with more serious quality issues will continue to be suppressed from sale.


This book isn't of the sort to be suppressed, but I certainly don't want a notice questioning its quality next to the reviews!

Anyone else seen this?


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

What do they think they are?

Also, are they giving the tradepubs the same treatment? Those people have production schedules will probably find it hard to schedule time out from their regular jobs. Oh, why not extend this "service" to mass-printed paperbacks?

All the while allowing books on their site with hundreds of SPAG issues, just in the first chapter.

Seriously, what does Amazon think they are?

Why don't they make it so that the typo check when you upload the book flags if there are more than a certain number and then the onus is on the writer to prove that no, made-up names are not typos.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

Patty Jansen said:


> Why don't they make it so that the typo check when you upload the book flags if there are more than a certain number and then the onus is on the writer to prove that no, made-up names are not typos.


This is probably what they use to highlight a potential problem for them.

So far, I've found that as long as I go through the error list and declare they are not a spelling error, I've had no problems about made up words. I've a lot of them my cat uses for example. As long as the spelling error counter is zero, you shouldn't be getting aggro from Amazon. Otherwise, why is it there?


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

TimothyEllis said:


> This is probably what they use to highlight a potential problem for them.
> 
> So far, I've found that as long as I go through the error list and declare they are not a spelling error, I've had no problems about made up words. I've a lot of them my cat uses for example. As long as the spelling error counter is zero, you shouldn't be getting aggro from Amazon. Otherwise, why is it there?


This is not at all what Mark is talking about, but this is were Amazon should do its QC, and then back off.

Instead, you sometimes get automated messages that a reader said there was something wrong. Except they're often not errors. And even if they are, I find the idea that you should just jump immediately and correct the fact that there is a quote mark missing somewhere ludicrous. It's not that easy if you use someone else to do your formatting. Yes, I revisit each book as I go, and pay for another format etc etc, but I can totally do without the childish reminders, unless they treat every book equally.

And be


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> This is not at all what Mark is talking about, but this is were Amazon should do its QC, and then back off.
> 
> Instead, you sometimes get automated messages that a reader said there was something wrong. Except they're often not errors. And even if they are, I find the idea that you should just jump immediately and correct the fact that there is a quote mark missing somewhere ludicrous. It's not that easy if you use someone else to do your formatting. Yes, I revisit each book as I go, and pay for another format etc etc, but I can totally do without the childish reminders, unless they treat every book equally.
> 
> And be


This is why everyone NEEDS to know how to do their own formatting. It doesn't mean they have to use the knowledge, but it is necessary I think. I create epubs and upload them everywhere. A reader says I missed out THE somewhere. I open the pub with Sigil, do a search, add THE and save. Upload and it's done. It takes less than a minute.

Using formatters... it takes 1day to 1 week.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> This is why everyone NEEDS to know how to do their own formatting. It doesn't mean they have to use the knowledge, but it is necessary I think. I create epubs and upload them everywhere. A reader says I missed out THE somewhere. I open the pub with Sigil, do a search, add THE and save. Upload and it's done. It takes less than a minute.
> 
> Using formatters... it takes 1day to 1 week.


I gave up on the formatting. I can't do it. It makes me physically ill. Each time he tells me just unzip the EPUB and make the changes and then re-zip. I do that, but the friggen file NEVER validates. I have no time for this BS.

If Amazon makes too much noise (which they have never done so far), I'll re-do them with Vellum, but the files my formatting guy does are SO MUCH NICER and more functional.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> I gave up on the formatting. I can't do it. It makes me physically ill. Each time he tells me just unzip the EPUB and make the changes and then re-zip. I do that, but the friggen file NEVER validates. I have no time for this BS.
> 
> If Amazon makes too much noise (which they have never done so far), I'll re-do them with Vellum, but the files my formatting guy does are SO MUCH NICER and more functional.


You CAN just unzip and rezip, BUT YOU SHOULD NOT. Sigil makes the changes to the files so that the epub WILL validate. All you do is right click any epub, choose open with Sigil.

It's only bullshit when you don't know how to do something. HTML in your promo page was bullshit until you learned the tricks. Same thing here.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

Sounds like you're doing it the hard way anyway.

Making a small change is just a short list of instructions. Tedious, but hardly difficult.

For me its:

Edit docx
save as filtered html
send html to zip file
drag folder of images to zip file (if you have any)
upload into dashboard and submit.
Couple of minutes tops.
Requires knowing how to use File Explorer in Windows, which is a basic windows should know program, for anyone using any kind of user created files.


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

Wasn't there an issue not-so-long-ago with Americans buying books form U.K. authors and reporting them for spelling errors? Like Gaol/Jail  or criticise/criticize? I can see that becoming a problem for some.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> You CAN just unzip and rezip, BUT YOU SHOULD NOT. Sigil makes the changes to the files so that the epub WILL validate. All you do is right click any epub, choose open with Sigil.
> 
> It's only [bullcrap] when you don't know how to do something. HTML in your promo page was [bullcrap] until you learned the tricks. Same thing here.


I spent weeks trying to get this right, first with InDesign CS5.5, which did a poor job, then various other things.

I think we're all allowed to have "we don't go there" areas. I still do some of my own covers. I still swap edits sometimes. But I'm absolutely THROUGH with spending time on hand-coding formatting. I'll use D2D, I'll use Vellum, so you know, I can manage, but I would very much prefer to have my formatting guy do it, because he does such a great job, which is his real job, and not my "oh, let's whip up this baby quickly and put it out there" type of formatting.

I cycle through my manuscripts if I want to update back matter. I keep a list of things I want to address, and I give it all to him when we get to the update. I want Amazon to keep its fat nose out of my schedule.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> I spent weeks trying to get this right, first with InDesign CS5.5, which did a poor job, then various other things.
> 
> I think we're all allowed to have "we don't go there" areas. I still do some of my own covers. I still swap edits sometimes. But I'm absolutely THROUGH with spending time on hand-coding formatting. I'll use D2D, I'll use Vellum, so you know, I can manage, but I would very much prefer to have my formatting guy do it, because he does such a great job, which is his real job, and not my "oh, let's whip up this baby quickly and put it out there" type of formatting.
> 
> I cycle through my manuscripts if I want to update back matter. I keep a list of things I want to address, and I give it all to him when we get to the update. I want Amazon to keep its fat nose out of my schedule.


Everyone has the right to outsource, but weren't we talking about Amazon flagging sales pages? To me this means instant action required. Outsourcing is never instant.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> Everyone has the right to outsource, but weren't we talking about Amazon flagging sales pages? To me this means instant action required. Outsourcing is never instant.


This is why I'm disputing this kind of action. Because if they applied this to tradepub books (which I bet my bottom dollar they don't) they would be permanently flagged, because they don't have someone available to immediately fix the littlest mistake.

ETA and do this to people with little mistakes, all the while allowing books with barely coherent English that could have been stopped at the publication stage.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

> do this to people with little mistakes, all the while allowing books with barely coherent English that could have been stopped at the publication stage.


I have to agree with Patty. I'd also like something from Amazon saying what they consider enough complaints to have a book basically called crap on the sales page. It would be helpful for them to detail what they would consider a valid complaint, how many complaints it would take to get this notice, and how long it will take to have it removed once the file is corrected (because we all know it can take hours for a file to finish updating).

If they aren't doing this across the board, with trad pubs just as susceptible to receiving this, it's a load of crap. There's a thread on the KDP forum about the writing quality of indie books on Amazon right now, pages long. I wonder if the PTB read that?


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

What concerns me a little, is whether this is another thing that can be turned to the advantage of the unscrupulous. Can an author, for example someone with a non-fiction title in competition with another book on the same subject or niche, use this to cause trouble?


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Are they going to do this in lieu of pulling books that have quality control reports on them?  I've read where people lost momentum for sales, or going free on a sale day because Amazon pulled a book at a bad time because there were quality control reports.  If so, this seems marginally better than a book no longer being available for purchase.

On the other hand, it's all well and good for Amazon to say they'll remove the message, but I'd be concerned about cached pages showing rather than a new page without the message.

As a reader, my preference would be that Amazon would not allow a book to be sold if they know it has QC issues.

This does seem to me to be a kind of ugly solution to a problem.

Betsy


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## josielitton (Jul 21, 2014)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> This is why everyone NEEDS to know how to do their own formatting. It doesn't mean they have to use the knowledge, but it is necessary I think. I create epubs and upload them everywhere. A reader says I missed out THE somewhere. I open the pub with Sigil, do a search, add THE and save. Upload and it's done. It takes less than a minute.
> 
> Using formatters... it takes 1day to 1 week.


This is what I do except I use a Word .doc saved as a filtered web page. Works perfectly every time and takes seconds to fix any problem and upload a new version. In fact, it takes longer for Amazon to process the results and show them to me for my approval (a couple of minutes usually).


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> As a reader, my preference would be that Amazon would not allow a book to be sold if they know it has QC issues.
> 
> Betsy


It would make the most sense. But then a book not available for sale can't be sold to the authors' friends and family, and so Amazon doesn't make any money.


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## 鬼 (Sep 30, 2012)

I don't agree with this at all. And it's not because of the time it would take to correct and upload numerous files all the time... it's because all it's going to take is a couple of people to flag something when there may not be anything wrong at all. One example, as mentioned above is the various spelling iterations --- color and colour --- but there's also foreign language, grammatical choices, plural of dates, spelling out of numbers. There's an endless amount of stuff that people could take issue with and where does it end? What one person may view as an error, another person may not. So you fix one thing and then get flagged again for the opposite. And on and on we go and that could all happen with just ONE book.

It just feels like it's opening a can of worms.

Granted, with all that said, I've only ever had one of those quality control messages so... maybe I'm getting all worked up over nothing.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> What concerns me a little, is whether this is another thing that can be turned to the advantage of the unscrupulous. Can an author, for example someone with a non-fiction title in competition with another book on the same subject or niche, use this to cause trouble?


That was my first thought. (Remember the copyright issue an author here on KBoards went through when her work was stolen??!)

My second thought after reading the thread is that maybe I'm missing something?  I use Word and upload as a .docx file and never have anything to convert or unzip or mess with. I've done it enough times that now when I write my books, I set up my doc and just write within the formatting guidelines, so there is very little to do for the final manuscript other than refresh my TOC.


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## Wired (Jan 10, 2014)

ebbrown said:


> I use Word and upload as a .docx file and never have anything to convert or unzip or mess with.


Same.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

I find the language of the email interesting. I have not received one and I triple checked every corner of my inbox.

Why would a book be suppressed in sales instead of just taken down? What does suppressed even mean?


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## P.T. Phronk (Jun 6, 2014)

I had a book completely taken off KDP (and Createspace) for "poor reader experience."

The problem was, it was designed that way. It was an experiment and a satire, not meant to be a traditional prose book. This was all crystal clear in the description, so it's not like it was fooling anybody.

Amazon can do whatever they want, of course, but it's unfortunate that they sometimes take control out of the hands of the creators. In this case, I guess I'd be fine with a warning about genuine, verified, unintentional quality control issues. I'd just never trust Amazon's algorithms, or even user reports, to find those errors without a whole lot of false positives.

If you're curious, my banned book was Baboon Fart Story (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1312039477).

P.S. LOL, "isues"


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## Gator (Sep 28, 2012)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> Why would a book be suppressed in sales instead of just taken down? What does suppressed even mean?


Amazon KDP means that eBooks with serious quality issues are blocked from sale. Whoever wrote the message thinks _suppressed_ is the better synonym.


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## Jeff Hughes (May 4, 2012)

Mark, or anyone else this has happened to, can you share any specifics on the type of "quality issues" Amazon is flagging here?


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Jeff Hughes said:


> Mark, or anyone else this has happened to, can you share any specifics on the type of "quality issues" Amazon is flagging here?


Missing word or words, unclear phrasing, incorrect spelling. I've never had worse like missing pages or chapters, but I hear that can happen too. Anything a reader decides to flag up can be a QC issue, even a special made up word.


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## Gator (Sep 28, 2012)

Phronk said:


> I had a book completely taken off KDP (and Createspace) for "poor reader experience."
> 
> The problem was, it was designed that way. It was an experiment and a satire, not meant to be a traditional prose book. This was all crystal clear in the description, so it's not like it was fooling anybody.
> ...
> ...


Sorry. Doesn't pass the "sniff" test. No sales for you.

Sincerely,
KDP Staff


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

I'm surprised this issue has generated this much blowback. It was inevitable. And it was necessary.

Amazon is a search engine, like Google. And like Google, its top priority is user experience. Flawed products taint that experience. So Amazon has to be proactive in managing quality.

There are, of course, a lot of ways it can do so. On the "lackadaisical" end of the spectrum, it can just rely on authors to self-police quality (clearly, that's a terrible idea). On the "draconian" end, it can algorithmically permaban any book that contains a predefined number of flaws.

Amazon's message posted in the OP describes an approach that falls somewhere in the middle. To me, it seems reasonable.

Back when some of us were building sites to generate Adsense revenue, Google did the same thing. It "flagged" sites that failed to meet a standard of quality it defined as acceptable. Flagged sites were discounted in the organic ranking algo. They were pushed from the first page to page 1,xxx. 

Predictably, a lot of us lamented Google's audacity. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

But Google's action had the intended effect: a better user experience. Perhaps you can recall the crap that filled the listings for every imaginable search query in 2004-2005. That's gone now.

Amazon is just like Google.


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

Anarchist said:


> Amazon's message posted in the OP describes an approach that falls somewhere in the middle. To me, it seems reasonable.
> 
> Back when some of us were building sites to generate Adsense revenue, Google did the same thing. It "flagged" sites that failed to meet a standard of quality it defined as acceptable. Flagged sites were discounted in the organic ranking algo. They were pushed from the first page to page 1,xxx.


It might be reasonable if Amazon actually relied on its own standards and quality checks, performed internally. The problem with the approach they're taking, I believe, is that they allow users to report errors -- and then act on those user reports to flag books as "inferior customer experiences."

Customers can and do find some of the most ridiculous things an "inferior experience." It's common, standard, par for the course, especially online. I include myself in this -- if I could, I'd flag every single movie in which Owen Wilson appears as an inferior customer experience. But that's just me, and people who like Owen Wilson shouldn't have to suffer without his movies because of my opinion. 

Amazon should not mark products according to customer reports, without so much as a cursory investigation into whether the products are actually flawed. Particularly books, where there is so much room for subjective judgement on what makes it "good" or "bad."

As those who've worked in the customer service industry for years know, the customer is NOT always right.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Anarchist said:


> I'm surprised this issue has generated this much blowback. It was inevitable. And it was necessary.


Don't be surprised. It wasn't necessary. What IS necessary is that poor quality files/books be taken off sale. NOT a dirty great big "naughty-naughty" sign plastered on a sales page that will be cached forever on the net. In my opinion, a book downchecked for QC should just be made temporarily unavailable for purchase and the author informed.


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

Jeff Hughes said:


> Well, do we have any examples of Amazon flagging a title that does not contain legitimate issue(s)? Until we do, it's perhaps premature to assume Amazon is not relying on its own quality standards (as opposed to those simply reported by customers).


They already do this now. Amazon has nasty-gram templates that are sent out stating something like "a customer has informed us of [issue] with your book." There are several threads on this board from people who've received them (I couldn't find them if I tried, but I know I've read many in the past few years).

Most of them, IIRC, were just warnings that the issues needed to be fixed. But the wording of the message in the OP seems to indicate that these types of "issues," rather than the books with heavy technical issues that just get taken down, are the ones that will generate the "bad book warning" labels on product pages that, as Mark mentioned, will be visible and Google cached.


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## North Star Plotting (Jul 11, 2015)

Patty Jansen said:


> What do they think they are?


They think they are Amazon, so they know they can do whatever they want.


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## Victoria J (Jul 5, 2011)

I know there is a cabal of people who hate self-published/indie authors on the Amazon forums. I wonder if they're behind this move? A lot of indie authors' books have gotten much better over the years, not worse so I wonder who or what entity behind the scenes prompted Amazon to do this.


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## belindaf (Jan 27, 2011)

Wired said:


> Same.


Me, too. I used to do the filtered HTML bit but it seemed unnecessary. I only upload .docx files now without a problem. I'm a bare bones formatter though. I don't have those sexy in-Design features some really sleek books do.

On the QC issue, this is scary. It's another one of those things where the few are causing problems for the many. We're not all going to be held to the same standard. IF you get a cranky reader or a fellow author hater or whatever then you get a QC notice for something that may or may not be a problem (like regional spelling, dialect, stylistic choice) then you're at Amazon's will. You get flagged and notices. I'm more afraid of the folks that will use this maliciously than anything. I hire editors, and do my best to put out quality work. I'm not perfect and I think few of us are. I'll be curious how this unfolds. I should probably get a pen name


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## X. Aratare (Feb 5, 2013)

This whole thing makes me want to bash my head against the wall. One of my manga was flagged as having quality issues (been out for almost a year).  Formatter redid the whole book, fixing what they said.  They claimed it STILL had quality issues.  Formatter "fixed" it again, i.e., followed what they said.  They then said the OPPOSITE problem was a problem, i.e., undo what we just made you do.  We went back to the original file and its FINE.

Meanwhile the book was offsale for weeks. The formatter's time was WASTED when he could have been doing other work.  And I was thumping my head again and again against the table.

Now if Amazon will put up "warnings" regarding typos that's insane.  Because what if it is a British/US spelling issue?  And its not wrong?  Do you contact KDP support and say: this needs to be removed because its not wrong?  Takes 48 hours minimally and then the first email will likely be crap and you'll have to email again.  Can you imagine the time suck this will cause?


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I highly doubt they will do this with trad published books. Probably only with titles through KDP. 

Ironically, it will appear more on well-selling book pages, I imagine, since more readers means more chances that people will flag something. I've had notices on my books sent for things like gaming slang and made up fantasy terms. I find the idea that Amazon would put that stuff on the book page completely lame.


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## Talbot (Jul 14, 2015)

ebbrown said:


> I use Word and upload as a .docx file and never have anything to convert or unzip or mess with.


That's what I do. Keep it simple and it's not a complicated process.


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

Annie B said:


> I highly doubt they will do this with trad published books. Probably only with titles through KDP.


Bingo. I'd love to see this on the poorly-formatted quick OCR ebooks of old backlist novels from trade publishers... but I'm not holding my breath.

It's just another way that Amazon treat us as second-class citizens.


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## noirhvy (Dec 29, 2015)

The Grammar Nazis are everywhere. This is simply a Free Speech issue. You have to confront these bozos dead on and not let them get by with it.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2016)

Does Amazon go this crazy over QC for physical items in its store?
Like someone gives a bad review for a camera? Does Amazon suppress camera sales until that camera is modified?
Or is it just indie books are an easy target to hassle?


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Well, judging in part from the list of typos in this article, http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/kindle-e-books-will-have-a-warning-message-if-they-have-spelling-mistakes-or-bad-formatting, indie books are just an easy target to hassle. Because I've certainly seen that and worse in trad pubbed books, even bestsellers, but I somehow doubt the latest Stephen King will be flagged for a few transposed letters.


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## Barbara Morgenroth (May 14, 2010)

I'm confused.  Is Amazon going to depend on a review stating "There are spelling and grammatical errors all throughout the book" or does it have an excellent spell and grammar checker which proves the grammar troll is wrong and then ignore the cranky reader?


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## ElisabethGFoley (Nov 20, 2011)

There's one thing I'm curious to know-if your book has failed the test, are you notified at all, or do you have to check on your book pages yourself?

I'm not too worried; I've proofread and formatted very carefully and in my genre I don't use invented names...but I do use a bit of dialect or old-fashioned/British usage now and then, and MS Word _will_ insist that most surnames above the level of Smith and Jones are not words.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Mine are all in word.doc so corrections are easy for me. What upsets me is when I pay people to proofread and then get one of these notices. I know, no one is perfect, especially me.

The thing is, I would rather have Amazon notify me with specific errors, than to hear from readers who just say privately or in a review - you need an editor! Is the reader talking about historical facts, typos, missing words, punctuation or what - and where? That's when I throw up my hands and surrender. 

I wonder if Amazon is sending out correction notices and being ignored. That would explain the threat of notices on our product pages. 

Also, is it true that when you change the revision number, the reader automatically gets the newest version?


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> Don't be surprised. It wasn't necessary. What IS necessary is that poor quality files/books be taken off sale. NOT a dirty great big "naughty-naughty" sign plastered on a sales page that will be cached forever on the net. In my opinion, a book downchecked for QC should just be made temporarily unavailable for purchase and the author informed.


I see things from Amazon's perspective.

Quality control is crucial. But it does Amazon zero good to remove books that fail to meet its definition of quality. In fact, doing so impairs revenue as many customers will not consider quality a major factor in their purchase decisions. Moreover, the LAST thing Amazon wants is for the customer to go elsewhere (i.e. off-site) to buy books.

A better solution is to keep the books available for sale, but tag them with a note regarding quality issues. Customers to whom quality is important will be informed and can make their purchase decisions accordingly. Customers to whom quality is unimportant can buy the tagged book without going to Apple, B&N, etc.

Amazon wins because the user experience is optimized.

Compare Amazon's approach to the one taken by Google with respect to sites suspected of being HARMFUL to visitors. Google does not purge such sites from its index. Rather, it plasters a "This site may be harmful to your computer" sign next to the listing. Doing so informs users of the threat while allowing Google to maintain the largest DB in the search space.

Google wins because the user experience is optimized.

If I were Amazon, I would design my "quality flag" algo to do the following:

- Ignore bestsellers
- Ignore books from legacy publishers
- Ignore trade pubs
- Ignore reports regarding British/Australian spellings in the .com, .de and .ca stores.
- Increase the number of reports needed to flag quality issues in specific genres where customers are more forgiving.
- Discount reports from users who have submitted 20 (or whatever number) reports in 48 (or whatever number) hours.
- Prioritize reports from users with 200 (or whatever number) reviews with 80%+ helpful rating
- and on and on

My point is that Amazon can define countless rules that help it target what it considers to be quality issues without harming the user's experience. I would be floored to discover Amazon treated every report and every book equally. It makes no business sense to do so.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Dragovian said:


> Well, judging in part from the list of typos in this article, http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/kindle-e-books-will-have-a-warning-message-if-they-have-spelling-mistakes-or-bad-formatting, indie books are just an easy target to hassle. Because I've certainly seen that and worse in trad pubbed books, even bestsellers, but I somehow doubt the latest Stephen King will be flagged for a few transposed letters.


Looking at that list, every one of those errors except one was due to not doing a spell check. That's nothing to do with a proofreader missing stuff. A spell check is a basic step everyone should be taking.


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## Lewis Mills (Sep 30, 2015)

Seems that this is something not new http://the-digital-reader.com/2016/01/21/yesterdays-news-badly-formatted-kindle-ebooks-will-display-an-error-message/


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Lydniz said:


> Looking at that list, every one of those errors except one was due to not doing a spell check. That's nothing to do with a proofreader missing stuff. A spell check is a basic step everyone should be taking.


And I can't imagine any of those errors jolting the average reader out of the book. I certainly can't imagine Amazon finding them worthy of comment if the book came from a traditional publisher.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

According to my rep at Amazon, they will do this for ALL books, indie and trad. So... we'll see. If that's the case, I feel especially sorry for trad authors, since there is no chance at all that a big publisher will bother to fix and re-upload a book over a few typos. The whole this is just silly and I can't even begin to imagine it will improve reader experience.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

If there is a mistake, error, or technical problem in my ebooks, I absolutely, completely, unequivocally want to know about it so I can fix it right away! The beauty of an ebook-on Amazon & Apple in particular-is if an ebook you purchased is updated, then the ebook file on your reading device is automatically updated.

Of my book, Nobody, only two readers contacted me that they found errors out of all the copies that sold. I found the errors, fixed them, and had the new version updated within a few hours.

I would not like an automated system to do the checking. As was pointed out above, made up names and places will drive a spell-checking program nuts. I can see such a system doing a pre-check and then having the author validate the errors found BEFORE making it public. (Essentially, present the author a page with all the "misspelled" words and have the author check them off if legitimate.) If really egregious issues are counted, then have a third party put eyes on the copy and alert the author of the issues.

Or, if after publishing some complaints come in. First, contact the author. If there are a lot of complaints, put a staff member on it before yanking it offline and contact the author immediately about the problem.

In the early days of self-published ebooks, there were a lot of people who just wrote out their masterpieces and dumped them online without a second thought for editing or the future. I remember one book in particular where the blurb was fantastic, but the writing in the ebook was barely fifth grade level, if that. The grammatical errors, run on sentences, paragraphs, and pages made it pretty much unreadable. Unfortunately, because this was all at the beginning of the self-publishing movement, this is what people now expect of self-published work. First impressions are lasting impressions and are hard to undo. I'm happy to say that today's independent authors are highly professional and take care to do the QA for their work. That's not to say there aren't still a few amateurs out there who haven't thought beyond just writing their manuscript. But readers are still judging us by those early days.

*As far as processing my writing into an ebook.*

I use Vellum (Mac only, sorry Windows/Linux users) to generate my ebook files now. It's a fantastic tool and it takes all the hours of work generating a clean EPUB file and turns them into just minutes of choosing a format and going with it. This allows me to keep my master file for my book in the format used by my writing software. Any corrections to the narrative are done there and saved to my master file. I output a DOCX file that Vellum can read and use that to generate the ebook files for the different ebook reading devices out there. Then I redistribute the ebook files to the appropriate retailers.

Using _Vellum_ is a helluva lot easier than creating an EPUB file by hand, trust me. 

Before using Vellum, I would output the basic EPUB file from Apple's Pages. Then I would create copies of that EPUB file for Apple, B&N, and Kobo and tweak each one to optimize it for that particular platform. While EPUB is supposed to be universal, the rendering engines used by each reader vendor are not. They handle EPUB files differently. I've found Apple is the most robust, followed closely by Nook. Kobo tends to be really twitchy. Once I had versions that were stable when being displayed on their devices, I would use the NOOK-EPUB file to generate the Amazon MOBI file.

Now that I use _Vellum_, I simply output the appropriate ebooks for each platform directly. This makes revisions and corrections much easier and also simplifies managing the versions of the manuscript master file.

*Addendum:*

For those of you who are curious&#8230;

If you want to make manual adjustments to an EPUB file, such as correcting any CSS issues, you cannot just zip up the pieces back into an EPUB file. You must use specific options in the zip command. Assuming you have already unzipped an EPUB file, this is the proper command to re-zip the components back into an EPUB file:

*zip -Xr *_booktitle_*.epub mimetype META-INF/ OPS/*​
The command *zip* is obvious.

The '*-Xr*' is two flags: (case matters!)

*X* = Don't include extra stuff in the data, such as metadata, extended attributes, etc. Leaving out this flag is what primarily screws up EPUB validation when people just zip together the files.
*r* = Recursive. This means dig into any directories and include the files contained there, too.

These are the files contained in an EPUB file. They MUST be loaded in order into the EPUB file!

*mimetype*
*META-INF* (directory - contains metadata for the ebook reader rendering program)
*OPS* (directory - contains the actual ebook data, your chapters, TOC data, CSS file, any graphics, etc.)

You cannot just add a file to an EPUB container. You must edit the _manifest_ to reflect that the file is in there and what it is used for. On this blog post is a good explanation of what is inside an EPUB file. It is a bit technical, but the information is accurate.


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## Gone Girl (Mar 7, 2015)

We miss you, Harvey Chute.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

CarlaBaku said:


> Like a lot of us, my first thought was that this smacks of an unfair double standard between indies and trad pub, and my second concern is that it will quickly devolve into an even more vicious version of the one-star bomb phenomenon. If a book gets complaints about quality, the author should be given the specifics of those problems and provided a window of time to address or dispute the perceived trouble BEFORE Amazon makes the virtually indelible move to slap a warning label on a product page. There are undoubtedly some major stinkers for sale that need to be dealt with, but this is not an effective fix. It's a Pandora's box.


I agree. I wholeheartedly want to know about any problems with the quality of my product so I can address it. Amazon should give an author/publisher an adequate window of time to address those corrections before shutting it.

Also, if Amazon is doing this by automation, then it would be easy for some stinker to sabotage an author just be continuously claiming there are problems with a book and getting it constantly lobbed offline. Amazon needs to ensure that a sentient being steps in and does a final check before the nuclear option gets exercised.


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## Peter Spenser (Jan 26, 2012)

Sonya Bateman said:


> As those who've worked in the customer service industry for years know, the customer is NOT always right.


After my time at a Barnes & Noble store and other retail work, I decided that one day I would write a book of my experiences: _The Customer Is Not Always Right, Sometimes the Customer Is A Pain In the Ass!_


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

Peter Spenser said:


> After my time at a Barnes & Noble store and other retail work, I decided that one day I would write a book of my experiences: _The Customer Is Not Always Right, Sometimes the Customer Is A Pain In the Ass!_


Amen to that, says the former long-time McDonalds employee.


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## Peter Spenser (Jan 26, 2012)

Annie B said:


> I feel especially sorry for trad authors, since there is no chance at all that a big publisher will bother to fix and re-upload a book over a few typos.


I don't feel sorry for them at all. They have the time, they _certainly_ have the money, and they _could_ have the people available to make any needed corrections in _any_ book, print or electronic, both before and after publication.

But they don't spend the time, they _certainly_ don't want to spend the money, and they don't want to hire the people to do any of this.

The funny thing is, if traditional publishers get dinged by this, they won't fix it, they will just put out more Amazon-bashing blather, and whine about how Amazon is making them lose sales.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2016)

This is what I was sent even though my test showed no problem. Re-uploaded anyway.

"Hello,

We're writing to let you know that readers have reported a problem in your book.

Your book is missing a Logical Table of Contents (NCX), which is essential for allowing customers to navigate through the book. Please create an NCX.

Please refer to the following resources for instructions on creating a Logical Table of Contents:

• HTML users, please see https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A2BQILI6OJWLTC 
• MS Word, users please see https://support.office.com/en-us/article/create-a-table-of-contents-5eaadd8f-efa... and https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Format-or-customize-a-table-of-contents...

After you've made the correction, please upload your revised content through the 'Book Content' section in your KDP Bookshelf. If you have further questions, please reply directly to this email and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.

For further information regarding specific book errors (including why some errors are more critical than others), please see the Guide to Kindle Content Quality Errors at https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=200952510.

Thanks for using Amazon KDP!

Best regards,
Thank you.
Amazon.com"


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## IreneP (Jun 19, 2012)

Huh.

Wonder what their standard will be?

I mean, yeah, sometimes things need fixing, but I've had my copy-editor & proofreader change commas back and forth before, so an "error" isn't always as cut and dried as it sounds.


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## Peter Spenser (Jan 26, 2012)

WDR said:


> *zip -Xr *_booktitle_*.epub mimetype META-INF/ OPS/*​


Why is it not this:

*zip -Xr *_booktitle_*.epub mimetype/ META-INF/ OPS/*​


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## Victoria J (Jul 5, 2011)

I don't have an issue with how Amazon handles QC right now. I think it's very helpful for readers and authors. I do worry about how this new implementation might be used by those who may have malicious intentions against their competitors.


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## Peter Spenser (Jan 26, 2012)

Princess Charming said:


> This is what I was sent even though my test showed no problem.
> 
> _Your book is missing a Logical Table of Contents (NCX), which is essential for allowing customers to navigate through the book. Please create an NCX._
> 
> Re-uploaded anyway.


What book was it, and how did you assure yourself that you, in fact, did have an NCX file in that book? It's true that it is an essential part of your book, but it's rare that any sort of formatting and conversion process fails to create one.

Did Amazon itself confirm that there was not one, or did a reader make a complaint because the actual problem was that there was not an HTML Table of Contents and the reader didn't know the difference?

It's an important point, and may emphasize the fact that, even though some reading devices don't access an HTML Table of Contents (hence, it's not required for those devices) and only use the NCX one, some devices do, and some readers expect to see one, so it does no harm (though it's a bit of extra work) to make sure that your book has both.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2016)

@ Peter - As far as I know Amazon did not check, they just relied on customer complaint(s). I bought my own title, Whipped, when I published it some months back and the TOC worked on my Kindle. I build my own TOC using my Word program--never had a problem before.

Authors seem to be at the mercy of customers with Amazon doing no fact-checking of their own. Sort of like lazy parenting.


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## Mip7 (Mar 3, 2013)

I'm going to chime in here as one of the small minority applauding Amazon for this move. As someone who spends an equal amount of time revising and editing as I do knocking out a first draft, and THEN pays for a proof-reader, and has invested the time in learning how to produce a properly-formatted file for KDP as well as how to craft good prose, my biggest complaint has always been that so much of my competition -- many of who sell circles around me -- have thrown up poorly-produced products which survive on the merits of story alone. (And yes, sometimes a run-on sentence is intentional.)

The biggest issue with the self-publishing business is it's role in the "dumbing down" of our society by contributing to lower quality expectations in, for lack of a better term, literature. We're training the masses out there to accept a low quality product. So much so that reviews these days rarely bother to mention anything other than the story. This is one point (and the only point) I'm forced to agree with James Patterson on.

Kudos, Amazon. It's about time something was done. I like the direction. And I'm hoping this is just a first step. I would personally like to see Amazon become its own self-publishing gatekeeper and start "accepting" manuscripts in a manner more resembling traditional publishing houses, with an eye towards exacting quality standards and maybe even start weeding out those with structural issues such as "wrongly" handled POV shifts. Perhaps all the time I spent learning to do it right will pay off someday soon!


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## Wired (Jan 10, 2014)

WDR said:


> The beauty of an ebook--on Amazon & Apple in particular--is if an ebook you purchased is updated, then the ebook file on your reading device is automatically updated.


AFAIK, this is not automatic. Existing customers are stuck with the old version of the book, unless Amazon agrees to push out an update...which they rarely do.

Only future customers get the latest version.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2016)

Princess Charming said:


> Authors seem to be at the mercy of customers with Amazon doing no fact-checking of their own. Sort of like lazy parenting.


This.

A while back a reader wrote to me to tell me that even though she enjoyed my book, she was sad that there were missing words and extra words (yes, both.)
I didn't know what she was talking about. The book had gone through line editing, copy editing, proofreading and 8 beta readers. I immediately downloaded the file to read through it and contacted my proofreader.
After some emailing back and forth, it turned out the reader was not a native speaker of English. In fact, her English was rather poor.
Now, I wonder, what would have happened if she had complained to Amazon instead of contacting me?


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

Arkan9 said:


> The biggest issue with the self-publishing business is it's role in the "dumbing down" of our society by contributing to lower quality expectations in, for lack of a better term, literature. We're training the masses out there to accept a low quality product.


Uh, no.

Seriously, just no.

If you read books from a few decades ago, like the pulp horror and SF novels I grew up on, far less attention was paid to editing, grammar or... anything but a good story that people wanted to read. And they sold by the million.

Because readers want a good story, and anything else is secondary so long as the book is readable (rather like I don't care that you wrote "it's" up there, when you meant "its".)


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## Peter Spenser (Jan 26, 2012)

Princess Charming said:


> @ Peter - As far as I know Amazon did not check, they just relied on customer complaint(s). I bought my own title, Whipped, when I published it some months back and the TOC worked on my Kindle. I build my own TOC using my Word program--never had a problem before.


Well, Princess, I *was* going to download the sample of your book and see what I could find out from here&#8230; but _there are 497 Kindle books_ showing up with "Whipped" as part of the title! (Obviously a genre that I should investigate! )

Could you narrow it down some?


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2016)

Peter Spenser said:


> Well, Princess, I *was* going to download the sample of your book and see what I could find out from here... but _there are 497 Kindle books_ showing up with "Whipped" as part of the title! (Obviously a genre that I should investigate! )
> 
> Could you narrow it down some?


The book is in her signature.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

The enhanced typesetting thing worries me. When you build a book with Kindlegen, which is the tool specifically made for building books for Kindle devices, what you end up with isn't the file that gets downloaded to customers. It used to be but it's no longer the case. When we build an epub for the other vendors, that's basically what gets delivered so as publishers we know what out product is.

I don't like where this is going.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Arkan9 said:


> Kudos, Amazon. It's about time something was done. I like the direction. And I'm hoping this is just a first step. I would personally like to see Amazon become its own self-publishing gatekeeper and start "accepting" manuscripts in a manner more resembling traditional publishing houses, with an eye towards exacting quality standards and maybe even start weeding out those with structural issues such as "wrongly" handled POV shifts. Perhaps all the time I spent learning to do it right will pay off someday soon!


If that happens, I hope that you're very sure that you're "right", that the readers agree that you're "right", that the current fashion/trend of "right" continues to agree with you (since language is not and has never been static), and that Amazon can tell that you're "right" when the readers think you're "wrong".


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## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

Ugh, that's just stupid. Of course, the books with one or two typos will be taken down and the ones with a ton of mistakes will stay up because no will bother to report that. And let's not forget all the people who believe British spellings or made-up words are wrong. I recently read a review that complained about errors, and the reviewer said she was very sensitive about errors and grammar. She posted some examples from the book that showed she had no clue what she was talking about. 
Amazon should put a warning maybe only if someone ignores their email with possible mistakes. I'm sure every book has at least one typo, no matter how many people go through it. But wait, does this mean anyone can take a bestselling book off sale if they find a couple of typos? Great job, Amazon. The best part is that the warning will be there, mentioning a serious quality issue, but I guess once it's fixed, Amazon won't bother to send the updated file to anyone who already has the book because it's not serious enough. Makes total sense.


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## Peter Spenser (Jan 26, 2012)

SummerNights said:


> A while back a reader wrote to me to tell me that even though she enjoyed my book, she was sad that there were missing words and extra words (yes, both.) I didn't know what she was talking about. The book had gone through line editing, copy editing, proofreading and 8 beta readers. I immediately downloaded the file to read through it and contacted my proofreader. After some emailing back and forth, it turned out the reader was not a native speaker of English. In fact, her English was rather poor. Now, I wonder, what would have happened if she had complained to Amazon instead of contacting me?


I had a similar situation. My formatting book was low-starred and bad-reviewed by a buyer. After _two weeks_ of e-mails between us, it turned out that he was not following the entire set of instructions for how to format his book! He was absolutely confident that he didn't need to. 

After convincing him that that was his problem, he tried it the way I said in the book and... _voila_... all was right with his world. He upped his review to 5 stars.

So, again, what would have happened if he had complained directly to Amazon instead of merely in his review?


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## Peter Spenser (Jan 26, 2012)

SummerNights said:


> The book is in her signature.


O.K. So I didn't have my glasses on. (I still think that it is interesting that there are 497 "Whipped" books!)


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

Arkan9 said:


> I'm going to chime in here as one of the small minority applauding Amazon for this move. As someone who spends an equal amount of time revising and editing as I do knocking out a first draft, and THEN pays for a proof-reader, and has invested the time in learning how to produce a properly-formatted file for KDP as well as how to craft good prose, my biggest complaint has always been that so much of my competition -- many of who sell circles around me -- have thrown up poorly-produced products which survive on the merits of story alone. (And yes, sometimes a run-on sentence is intentional.)
> 
> The biggest issue with the self-publishing business is it's role in the "dumbing down" of our society by contributing to lower quality expectations in, for lack of a better term, literature. We're training the masses out there to accept a low quality product. So much so that reviews these days rarely bother to mention anything other than the story. This is one point (and the only point) I'm forced to agree with James Patterson on.
> 
> Kudos, Amazon. It's about time something was done. I like the direction. And I'm hoping this is just a first step. I would personally like to see Amazon become its own self-publishing gatekeeper and start "accepting" manuscripts in a manner more resembling traditional publishing houses, with an eye towards exacting quality standards and maybe even start weeding out those with structural issues such as "wrongly" handled POV shifts. Perhaps all the time I spent learning to do it right will pay off someday soon!


I can almost guarantee that if you're not doing as well as you would like, it has nothing at all to do with the quality of another author's book.


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## Maggie Dana (Oct 26, 2011)

Anarchist said:


> I see things from Amazon's perspective.
> 
> Quality control is crucial. But it does Amazon zero good to remove books that fail to meet its definition of quality. In fact, doing so impairs revenue as many customers will not consider quality a major factor in their purchase decisions. Moreover, the LAST thing Amazon wants is for the customer to go elsewhere (i.e. off-site) to buy books.
> 
> ...


This.


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## ElisabethGFoley (Nov 20, 2011)

WDR said:


> I can see such a system doing a pre-check and then having the author validate the errors found BEFORE making it public. (Essentially, present the author a page with all the "misspelled" words and have the author check them off if legitimate.)


Doesn't KDP do this already? A few times, after uploading my file, I've had a box pop up on the setup page listing "possible spelling errors"-usually a couple uses of "ain't" or an unusual name. I check the box that says it's not an error, and that's the end of it.


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## Peter Spenser (Jan 26, 2012)

Princess Charming said:


> As far as I know Amazon did not check, they just relied on customer complaint(s). I bought my own title, Whipped, when I published it some months back and the TOC worked on my Kindle. I build my own TOC using my Word program--never had a problem before.
> 
> Authors seem to be at the mercy of customers with Amazon doing no fact-checking of their own. Sort of like lazy parenting.


In all fairness to your customer&#8230;

I just looked at the sample of your book, _Whipped_, and there _are_ structural problems.

The NCX Table of Contents does not show all of the chapters. They should be there, in dark type for the chapters in the sample, grayed out for those further on. Your NCX shows *Cover*, *Beginning*, and a grayed-out Table of Contents in between. That's all.

You have what is _supposed_ to be an HTML Table of Contents at the beginning of the book, with links back and forth to all of your chapter heads, but it is not identified as such within the structural code of the book. I can tell this because when I go looking for it using the *"Go to&#8230;"* menu, the device says that you don't have one.

All of this could be what that customer complained about.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

ElisabethGFoley said:


> Doesn't KDP do this already? A few times, after uploading my file, I've had a box pop up on the setup page listing "possible spelling errors"--usually a couple uses of "ain't" or an unusual name. I check the box that says it's not an error, and that's the end of it.


Nope this could be anything reported via the reported system available from Kindle Paperwhite onwards and also now available on the Windows Desktop Kindle Reader. Someday I must use my Desktop reader to report the 20+ errors in the bestselling _Snow Falling on Cedars_ OCR disaster about the murder victim bashed to death with a dub [should be club].


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Lady Vine said:


> I can almost guarantee that if you're not doing as well as you would like, it has nothing at all to do with the quality of another author's book.


This.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2016)

@ Peter-- thanks for checking! I'm still not seeing the problem on my end. I have the book on my Kindle and I can maneuver through chapters, no problem. I go to the Look Inside feature on the Amazon page and I can do the same thing, except of course for the chapters that are not part of the sample. Please explain further. Thanks!


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## Loosecannon (May 9, 2013)

@ Princess:
A logical TOC and the HTML TOC are two different things. The former is based on a set of tags in your book file code and in the NCX file. The later is the hotlinked TOC you place at the beginning of your ebook (Chap 1 , Chap. 2 , etc.)

Check out the Kindle Publishing Guidelines document Section 3.3.1 for a detailed explanation and more info.
You can download this document at: http://kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/AmazonKindlePublishingGuidelines.pdf


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## lyndabelle (Feb 26, 2015)

I thought something was up with the notice I received last week. I got a QC message that they wanted page breaks at the end of section or chapters. I upload with Word .doc and managed to figure out what was needed, and uploaded the changes. Though, it did take two tries to figure from the comment what was needed. Sometimes the messages are a bit vague. But it would explain why the are a lot of more notices going out lately. Plus, I noticed it was on one of my freebie and earlier stories. I have revamped my process since my first few stories. Updating them wasn't a bad call. 

But I'd agree that Indies are getting more targeted lately. I'm reading the new Hannah Ford story and I'm noticing some left out verbs and articles. A few times too. So, that writing quick business plan might be affected by this change since the speed writers tend to have more mistakes in their stories. They might have to double check them more carefully.

I think when I've uploaded a story, there was one time a word came up spelled wrong, and I fixed it. Rest of the time my betareaders and editor catch the problems. I think most good Indies these days use betareaders and freelance editors. It's the best process for a book to go through. I only see the spell check issues having problems with fantasy and Sci-Fi words. So, I do wonder how this QC system affects that.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2016)

Thanks Loose, I will check it out!


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I have nothing against quality control, but if that's what they want, let them exercise Quality Control:

- check books before they're uploaded
- flag issues in both spelling and formatting
- if a book has more than X errors, white out the "publish" button until the publisher/author has fixed the issues and/or has the book manually approved.

Amazon can currently do all this.

Why should they rely on "customer experience" to do their "quality control" for them?

What will happen with a system like that:

- books will get flagged for really inane things
- everyone wastes a buttload of time
- huge potential for abuse


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2016)

Patty Jansen said:


> What will happen with a system like that:
> 
> - books will get flagged for really inane things
> - everyone wastes a buttload of time
> - huge potential for abuse


These are the things that worry me, too. Especially the last one.


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## Barbara Morgenroth (May 14, 2010)

Patty Jansen said:


> I have nothing against quality control, but if that's what they want, let them exercise Quality Control:
> <snip>
> Why should they rely on "customer experience" to do their "quality control" for them?
> 
> ...


Not every reader is qualified to be a proofreader or grammarian. How many times have we seen a post on Twitter that reads something like "Pete and I's photo..." ? Add a perpetually aggrieved person who needs an ego-boost and this could become unpleasant quickly.


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## Lisa Blackwood (Feb 1, 2015)

Urban Mogul said:


> Wasn't there an issue not-so-long-ago with Americans buying books form U.K. authors and reporting them for spelling errors? Like Gaol/Jail or criticise/criticize? I can see that becoming a problem for some.


This.


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## Lisa Blackwood (Feb 1, 2015)

katherinef said:


> Ugh, that's just stupid. Of course, the books with one or two typos will be taken down and the ones with a ton of mistakes will stay up because no will bother to report that. And let's not forget all the people who believe British spellings or made-up words are wrong. I recently read a review that complained about errors, and the reviewer said she was very sensitive about errors and grammar. She posted some examples from the book that showed she had no clue what she was talking about.
> Amazon should put a warning maybe only if someone ignores their email with possible mistakes. I'm sure every book has at least one typo, no matter how many people go through it. But wait, does this mean anyone can take a bestselling book off sale if they find a couple of typos? Great job, Amazon. The best part is that the warning will be there, mentioning a serious quality issue, but I guess once it's fixed, Amazon won't bother to send the updated file to anyone who already has the book because it's not serious enough. Makes total sense.


Oh I wish there was a LIKE button.


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## GeoffW (Dec 14, 2014)

(Did not read the entire thread. So if Amazon has clarified their position, my apologies. It's conceivable that I also mis-read the OP.)

I consider this a soft form of censorship. Yes, I know that there are a lot of books with errors (I read about them in people's comments, I read about them when I read books myself, I "hopefully" catch most of mine), but so what. It's been that way for, what, well, whenever the written (in all it's various forms) word came out. Pretty sure I saw some grammatical errors on some stone tablets a while back . . .

The problem is that I don't trust Amazon to do a very good job of checking for "errors." Or, defining what is an "error." It's just the same as those grammer checking applications. They are totally and completely worthless to me (and I've seen others say the same thing). I write (or make the attempt) the way people actually think and talk, so believe me, my spelling is all over the place. Whole sentences? What are those? : )

I spell the way I want to spell. I use the language the way I want to use the language. I can totally relate if someone doesn't want to buy my books (and/or leaves reviews stating my poor state of authorhood), but NO ONE has the right to say "your books aren't for sale because <insert whatever reason here>." Well, that's not quite true, I suppose Amazon does "legally" have the right to say "no" to a book for whatever reason (do they?).

Am I overreacting? I don't think so. Not being able to sell through Amazon is not the kiss of death. But it sure doesn't help. Particularly for new authors. So why is this a big deal? Here is what "theoretically" could evolve:
1. My book is de-listed for poor grammer/spelling (checked by a robot : ).
2. Do I spend hours/days on all the hundreds of errors that they find (in my books, 600 pages plus for each, it will be many hundreds)? Defending each one as "literary license" (or, whatever).
3. Or, do I just "re-write" to the way they think my book should be written?
4. And, following 3, do I then begin to change how I write just to please them and allow my books to be sold on Amazon?
5. And, to make it worse, what if Apple, etc., follow their lead?

Not too happy about this. Maybe this could lead to a lot of independent book sellers on the Internet? Also, make note to myself to go check out Baen.

GeoffW


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

GeoffW said:


> (Did not read the entire thread. So if Amazon has clarified their position, my apologies. It's conceivable that I also mis-read the OP.)
> 
> I consider this a soft form of censorship. <snip>


It's only 4 pages. Why not read it then post?

It's not censorship, soft or otherwise.

What I got from your post is that you want to run your business as you see fit. And that's fine, but you can't say that and then in the same breath tell Amazon how to run theirs.

This whole thing does have the potential to be a real pita, but we'll have to see how it plays out and what sort of instances trigger it. But censorship? No.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

GeoffW said:


> 2. Do I spend hours/days on all the hundreds of errors that they find (in my books, 600 pages plus for each, it will be many hundreds)? Defending each one as "literary license" (or, whatever).


I see this as part of the process of writing.

Word highlights what it thinks is wrong as you go, if you have grammar check turned on. You simply look at each blue line and either change it or tell it its ok. Red lines should be removed by either fixing the word, or adding it to your dictionary.

At the end of the book, any blue lines left should be the ones you said were ok.

When you upload to KDP, a lot of those blue lines should show up in their spell check. You take the time to go through these one by one and tell KDP this is a real word and not a spelling error. You do this for all of them, including fixing genuine errors and uploading again. You dont move on to the money page until you have zero errors shown.

Taking the time to do this, is using KDP's own QC process, and should prevent any of the problems being talked about.

The only thing that gets through this is when you use the wrong word, and readers do get snarked about this. Also it doesn't catch words missing or duplicated. The latter should be showing up in your grammar check.

The other thing I've noticed, is there is a general reliance by a lot of authors on the people they hire to do the work. I know one author with minor problems in his books, who gets it done by professional people, and it appears those professionals leave new problems behind them, putting in more than they fix at times. They may be good at one aspect of editing/proofreading, but still be bad at another, and put in problems.

The author still has the onus to check things before uploading. IMO. You do one last pass through in something with a grammar checker, looking for duplicated words, and the wrong spelling of words. You should also (imo) be reading your book on your kindle as if it was someone else's, looking for missing words and anything which looks wrong. You only complete the KDP process when you cant find anything yourself.

Nothing guarantees zero errors, but the more you do to find them, the less there should be for readers to find.

The other thing is ensuring that readers have a way to feedback problems to you, which doesn't involve reviews. The easier it is to let you know, the more the helpful readers will beat the others into getting any issues corrected rapidly after publishing. In theory of course.


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## W.W. (Jun 27, 2011)

Peter Spenser said:


> I don't feel sorry for them at all. They have the time, they _certainly_ have the money, and they _could_ have the people available to make any needed corrections in _any_ book, print or electronic, both before and after publication.
> 
> But they don't spend the time, they _certainly_ don't want to spend the money, and they don't want to hire the people to do any of this.
> 
> The funny thing is, if traditional publishers get dinged by this, they won't fix it, they will just put out more Amazon-bashing blather, and whine about how Amazon is making them lose sales.


Excuse me?

I'm a hybrid author, and the paperback edition of one of my books is horrible. There are no spaces between the words in some sentences. They are all mashed together. This problem was not there in the hardcover, and it wasn't there in the proofs I reviewed. AND THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT.

Of course you ought to know that before you buy it, so I'm not arguing against that. But you don't feel the slightest bit bad for authors like me? I sweated over that book just as much as you did over yours.

Annie rightly noted that trad-pubbed authors will be helpless to fix their books, and the publishers won't bother. Thanks, Annie, for showing empathy toward your fellow authors.


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## S.G. Dean (Jan 25, 2014)

Dragovian said:


> And I can't imagine any of those errors jolting the average reader out of the book. I certainly can't imagine Amazon finding them worthy of comment if the book came from a traditional publisher.


I totally agree. How does Amazon think readers will react?
'Oh no. Book 'X' misspelled the word 'perception' by one letter on page 293. This book I once found spellbinding is now total trash and Amazon is even more so for including it among their 1 million+ products. I'm done with this series and Amazon too!'

Seriously?  Trust me, anyone _that_ nitpicky is incapable of enjoying any written work because every writer since the dawn of time has made mistakes. If you took down Harry Potter and asked Rowlings for corrections right when it was first building momentum, would that have made it a better story? No. But it would've hurt sales, making it harder for the series to become a smash hit.

The written word isn't an exact science, fiction doubly so. Just look at the atrocious spelling and grammar in a number of trad pub bestsellers over the years. A few spelling/grammar mistakes didn't hold back their success, much less Amazon's profit margins. All Amazon will be doing if they flag people for minor errors is hurting their bottom line and writer's reputations/wallets.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

W.W. said:


> I'm a hybrid author, and the paperback edition of one of my books is horrible. There are no spaces between the words in some sentences. They are all mashed together. This problem was not there in the hardcover, and it wasn't there in the proofs I reviewed. AND THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT.


That would be the work of an incompetent formatter being over-zealous and under-talented in the removal of hyphens. The opposite of the problem where the last paragraph in a chapter has huge doses of space between each letter (caused by using the wrong type of justification). Trade books are full of the latter.

In terms of typos I always cite the editor from Gollancz in the new publishing panel at LonCon3 "When I arrived at Gollancz I was taken aside and it was explained that the copy editor fixes errors missed by the content editor, the proof-reader fixes errors missed by the copy editor, the print-setter fixes errors missed by the proof-reader, and the book will still be published with errors."

What Amazon are doing is stupid and will be piecemeal, but they build space rockets that can barely land and plan delivery by drones, so stupid is not a reason for them not to do something. It allows them to say to the tax office, "Low profits? Have you noticed how many millions we spend on improving customer service?"


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## W.W. (Jun 27, 2011)

Mercia McMahon said:


> In terms of typos I always cite the editor from Gollancz in the new publishing panel at LonCon3 "When I arrived at Gollancz I was taken aside and it was explained that the copy editor fixes errors missed by the content editor, the proof-reader fixes errors missed by the copy editor, the print-setter fixes errors missed by the proof-reader, and the book will still be published with errors."


Except when the proofreader decides she knows better than everyone else, gets struck by the muse, and decides to rewrite entire passages, to the point that the author (that would be me) is looking over what's supposed to be the final pass and keeps thinking, "I don't remember writing that. What was I thinking? What does that even MEAN?" Yes, that happened with a different book. I checked the previous copy, and I was right. Somebody decided to get creative&#8230;at the final stage. I made corrections, but never got to see whether they were correctly done before it went to press.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

> if an ebook you purchased is updated, then the ebook file on your reading device is automatically updated.


Not necessarily. I turned off auto-updating of books, because in the beginning of this feature I had several books deleted entirely from my kindle account, and then reimbursed, because the books were censored off Amazon. I very occasionally, and only if there are major problems, these days allow single books to be updated. The auto-update switch stays in "off", however.

As to the rest, I agree with those who declare it is a far too slippery slope. Will the now faulty style and grammar of old books also be updated? How about people willfully playing with words and typography? How about pidgin English? Dialect? And then there are such guys as Bukowski, and how they would fare under such rules?


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

There was someone on the kdp forum only this morning complaining about this, only she called it bullying! She seemed to think readers were going to deliberately set out to sabotage her books by reporting errors which weren't there. Her email wasn't quite the same as Mark's in that it said she had been previously notified, so I assume she had done nothing to rectify the errors and now they were telling her about the badge. I had an email similar to this about 18 months ago and when I investigated, I found a horrendous mistake, but that was 25,000 downloads later so I assume a lot of people didn't report it.

I think this is a good thing, myself. The only thing wrong with it is that it will only work when readers report and that means when people buy it. The scamphlets which don't sell will still not get their little badge.


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## DashaGLogan (Jan 30, 2014)

Will this change the way we read trad published ebooks as writers? I mean, will we ourselves start to mark and notify, as a means of defense, to show amazon what kind of hot iron this is?
Because I remember recently reading a bestseller which kept annoying me for typos etc. I would never denounce or mark anything like it, never crossed my mind, but what if that becomes some sort of benchmark?


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## Annette_g (Nov 27, 2012)

The Dancing Squirrel said:


> I share your concern, but I'm clinging to Amazon's statement in the OP referring to "validated" problems.
> 
> As I read this thread, I can't help but think about a review I read some weeks ago (not one of my books) which complained about the fact that the author had composed dialogue in which the concluding commas were inside the end quotes. This was a continuing source of grief for the reviewer.
> 
> Have mercy on us, Amazon.


I actually came across an article once on a writer's how-to site, can't remember which one now. In it, they said that if you are writing a book for the UK, UK books have the commas outside the quotes in dialogue. I don't know what books they were reading, but that is wrong. The commas, and question marks, and exclamation marks, and full stops all go inside the quotes, UK or other wise 

I've never read a UK book where those were outside the quotation marks unless it was a typo.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Annette_g said:


> I actually came across an article once on a writer's how-to site, can't remember which one now. In it, they said that if you are writing a book for the UK, UK books have the commas outside the quotes in dialogue. I don't know what books they were reading, but that is wrong. The commas, and question marks, and exclamation marks, and full stops all go inside the quotes, UK or other wise
> 
> I've never read a UK book where those were outside the quotation marks unless it was a typo.


Dialogue isn't the only reason to use quotation marks, and UK usage locates periods and commas that are not part of the quote OUTSIDE the quotation marks in non-dialogue situations. So you can't just go along sliding the periods inside every quotation mark you see--there are variances depending on situation.

Here's a resource on that: http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/british-versus-american-style.html

So the problem arises when some overzealous reader saw on the internet one time that the punctuation should be inside quotes no matter what, and marks something that is in fact correct as incorrect, and Amazon slaps you with a big LOSER label on your product page, with no clearly-defined way to dispute that other than "contact us."


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## adanlerma (Jan 16, 2012)

My own getting-over-the-shock of potential problems with this new policy when I woke this morning was remembering Amazon is a giant multi-media company. It's future, I believe, is the direction of TV, movies, audio, music, "and" books.

Whatever the glitches, curtailing the creative output needed to market new content is not the priority.

Keeping our creative juices going though, is.

Just my thoughts.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

Peter Spenser said:


> Why is it not this:
> 
> *zip -Xr *_booktitle_*.epub mimetype/ META-INF/ OPS/*​


_note: edited for clarity&#8230;_

*mimetype* is a text file that tells any operating system opening the EPUB file just what the thing is. The other two names in the command list are for directories, so as I used the "tab-completion" shortcut in Unix, the OS added the "/" onto the ends of the names. You can type it without the "/" and it will still work.

The text contained in *mimetype* is:


```
application/epub+zip
```
So when an operating system looks at the first set of bytes in this mysterious file, it will know what it is dealing with, regardless of the file-type suffix (.epub) attached to the end of it.

This is why mimetype must be packed into the zip archive first, so when the operating system peaks at the file header, it will see the "application/epub+zip" notification.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

Wired said:


> AFAIK, this is not automatic. Existing customers are stuck with the old version of the book, unless Amazon agrees to push out an update...which they rarely do.
> 
> Only future customers get the latest version.


Long ago, I was left with the impression that updates to an ebook would be propagated to customers who bought it-the implication that it would be automatic or that the customer could manually cause the update to occur. I haven't looked into this since, so I have to admit I could be wrong on that point.


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## taiweiland (Oct 16, 2014)

Man. As if publishing and writing isn't hard enough! This system can be open to abuse.  Besides, how can anyone be absolutely perfect?? There will be typos here and there.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

WDR said:


> Long ago, I was left with the impression that updates to an ebook would be propagated to customers who bought it--the implication that it would be automatic or that the customer could manually cause the update to occur. I haven't looked into this since, so I have to admit I could be wrong on that point.


Google does that, but Amazon, the book you open on your Kindle will always be the version you bought, unless you accept (automatically or manually) an update to it.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

TimothyEllis said:


> I see this as part of the process of writing.
> 
> Word highlights what it thinks is wrong as you go, if you have grammar check turned on. You simply look at each blue line and either change it or tell it its ok. Red lines should be removed by either fixing the word, or adding it to your dictionary.
> 
> At the end of the book, any blue lines left should be the ones you said were ok.


Relying on Word's grammar-check for editing advice is risky. That function of the program isn't competent. It can help you catch typos, as when typing "it" instead of "is" creates a short, simple sentence without a verb. But that's about all it can do reliably. It regularly misses problems and identifies correct sentences as incorrect, especially if you're not hitting that optimal fifth-grade reading level in every sentence (the longer and more complex your sentences, the more trouble the grammar-checker has parsing them).


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Arkan9 said:


> I'm going to chime in here as one of the small minority applauding Amazon for this move. As someone who spends an equal amount of time revising and editing as I do knocking out a first draft, and THEN pays for a proof-reader, and has invested the time in learning how to produce a properly-formatted file for KDP as well as how to craft good prose, my biggest complaint has always been that so much of my competition -- many of who sell circles around me -- have thrown up poorly-produced products which survive on the merits of story alone. (And yes, sometimes a run-on sentence is intentional.)


Except that wasn't a run-on sentence. It has a dangling modifier, but it's not a run-on. That's a good indication of why this policy will be an headache: if writers who care deeply about correctness don't recognize mechanical errors and see errors that aren't there, the general public will do so as well, to an even greater degree. Authors can hire editors to make up for their failings, but for readers, their own level of knowledge is the end of the line. As of now, the vast majority of readers who notice errors don't bother to email Amazon about them. Why go to all that trouble when you can just put the book down and move on? But knowing they have the power to get a "quality problems" badge put on a book will bring every last would-be pedant out of the woodwork. I'd be tempted myself! I'd restrain myself because it's obnoxious, and I try to be no more than 23% obnoxious, but I can _feel _the temptation deep in my shriveled, anal-retentive little heart.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

There has been a lot of concern expressed in this thread that Amazon's approach will make authors vulnerable to abuse - by readers, other authors and various malcontents.

In my opinion, that concern is overblown.

Put yourself in Amazon's shoes: it's in your interest to ensure your "quality control" system cannot be abused by knuckleheads and troublemakers. So you implement rules in the code that drives the reporting feature of your system. You design the rules to minimize the priority of low-value reports while increasing the priority of high-value reports. Moreover, you implement rules that prevent brands (Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, etc.) from being adversely affected by your system. They get a free pass.

"High-value" reports would be defined as those coming from reviewers who have 200+ reviews with an 80% helpful rating. All other reports would be categorized as "low-value" reports.

How might this type of system play out? I suspect the following scenarios might occur...

- A new author with one short story and zero reviews who receives 100 high-value reports about formatting, spelling and grammar *will* have his book tagged.

- A new author with one short story and zero reviews who receives 100 low-value reports about formatting, spelling and grammar *might* have his book tagged.

- An established indie author with 20 books and hundreds of reviews who receives 100 high-value reports *might* have his book tagged.

- An established indie author with 20 books and hundreds of reviews who receives 100 low-value reports will *not* have his book tagged.

- A brand-name author (e.g. Stephen King) who receives 100 reports will *not* have his book tagged regardless of the value of the reports. He gets a free pass.

The point is that Amazon will shield authors from low-value reports that might otherwise result in a quality tag. So the potential for abuse is low.

That said, expect some growing pains and false starts. But Amazon has a huge incentive to get things right as quickly as possible.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

JLCarver said:


> Though, as I discovered recently, if it doesn't pass Amazon's sniff test for enough changed content, Amazon won't push it through unless the reader requests it. It used to be that you had to contact KDP to ask them to push an update through, but then your request initiates a review process that could take a couple of weeks. If you don't pass their review, they don't push the updates through. They may have changed it now. I don't know. But I do know that, on the time I was trying to get a new version of a book, no matter how many times I deleted and redownloaded it, I still got the old version. I even returned and bought a new copy, and I STILL got the old version. I didn't get the updated version until I emailed customer support and they pushed it through for me.


Yup, that's right. The copy you bought is ... "terminally persistent"? Like, it really, really, _really _sticks. Just think: Amazon could end up maintaining dozens of copies of each of your books on its servers forever. If one person bought it, it's staying there. Jeepers.

I got an update pushed through back in 2012, and it was just as you say: I had to send Amazon a long list of changes to convince them that the new version was significantly improved. Only then were they willing to make the update option available for existing owners. I also got them to send a notification email, which requires added layer of convincing. More recently, I made pretty significant changes to the same book and decided NOT to ask for an update -- I figured the changes were big enough (a whole new beginning, for instance) that some readers would be angry if the new copy replaced the one they'd read. Instead, I announced it on social media and let people choose whether to ask Amazon for the new version. In contrast, my Google readers instantly lost the copy of _Nolander _that they'd read, and some of them weren't happy about that. All in all, I like Amazon's approach on this issue. It seems weird, at first, but it I think it creates more flexibility.


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

Becca Mills said:


> All in all, I like Amazon's approach on this issue. It seems weird, at first, but it I think it creates more flexibility.


I disagree. I really wish Amazon would push new book versions to me, given I, you know, enabled the 'automatically push new versions to me' option in my account.

Smashwords do it right: you can choose to download any other version of the book newer than the one you bought, so it's all up to you. If there's a major rewrite, you can either keep the version you had, or download that.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Becca Mills said:


> Except that wasn't a run-on sentence. It has a dangling modifier, but it's not a run-on. That's a good indication of why this policy will be an headache: if writers who care deeply about correctness don't recognize mechanical errors and see errors that aren't there, the general public will do so as well, to an even greater degree. Authors can hire editors to make up for their failings, but for readers, their own level of knowledge is the end of the line. As of now, the vast majority of readers who notice errors don't bother to email Amazon about them. Why go to all that trouble when you can just put the book down and move on? But knowing they have the power to get a "quality problems" badge put on a book will bring every last would-be pedant out of the woodwork. I'd be tempted myself! I'd restrain myself because it's obnoxious, and I try to be no more than 23% obnoxious, but I can _feel _the temptation deep in my shriveled, anal-retentive little heart.


This forum really needs a "like" button.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

I maintain a fantasy box set that has gotten dinged numerous times for the names of magical creatures. Also, some readers have reported things that they said were "wrong" (who vs. whom) which upon consultation with multiple editors appeared to be right. But I couldn't always convince Amazon of this, even with links showing the reasons why the "error" was not, in fact, an error. 

I find this development quite troubling.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

As an aside to all this, I kept laughing to myself as I read this thread. Why?

The only time any old book has any value is if it is a first edition and is signed by the author. How can you identify a first edition?

By the errors that got into print.


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## Allyson J. (Nov 26, 2014)

I write Historical Romance. I've gotten poor reviews for having 1900's "aristocratic" characters curse and use slang, and the reviewers have said it's historically inaccurate for my characters to use contractions in speech. Does this mean I'm going to get dinged for this, and get a warning when readers don't know what they're talking about? If I have legit errors in my books, I want to know. But if it's silly stuff like slang and contractions, then this is going to get ridiculous.


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## adanlerma (Jan 16, 2012)

Anarchist said:


> There has been a lot of concern expressed in this thread that Amazon's approach will make authors vulnerable to abuse - by readers, other authors and various malcontents.
> 
> In my opinion, that concern is overblown.
> 
> ...


Not sure about the first part, but do agree wholeheartedly with the last.

And the latter should help the former.

At least I hope so (smiles).


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## Guest (Jan 22, 2016)

Allyson J. said:


> I write Historical Romance. I've gotten poor reviews for having 1900's "aristocratic" characters curse and use slang, and the reviewers have said it's historically inaccurate for my characters to use contractions in speech. Does this mean I'm going to get dinged for this, and get a warning when readers don't know what they're talking about? If I have legit errors in my books, I want to know. But if it's silly stuff like slang and contractions, then this is going to get ridiculous.


If you are writing historical fiction then contractions and slang are not _"silly stuff"_ to readers of historical fiction. They expect accuracy in speech and slang. It grates to read historical characters speaking with American slang and idioms and indicates a lack of research/knowledge on behalf of the author. Entirely different though if you are using historically correct slang/curse words and the reader doesn't realise the entomology of a word or phrase.


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## James R Wells (May 21, 2015)

Doesn't the market sort out all this "quality" stuff?

If readers really like a story despite some alleged issues of grammar, isn't that their choice? Why would Amazon create obstacles to reader enjoyment, that author's success, and Amazon's own collection of revenue?

Those books that don't please readers will sink and never be seen again, no matter how big the number of listings grows. Hard drive space is cheap, and any given search will only show the top N results by whatever relevance standard gets applied.

Prediction: Amazon will only apply this process to super-egregiously flawed works.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

> Prediction: Amazon will only apply this process to super-egregiously flawed works.


I hope so, man, I hope so. It seems many people have a lot more faith in Amazon than I have. They will make a sensible decision, eventually, but only after they've made a hideous one, received a tsunami of complaints, sunk some careers and quietly implied "fixes". Amazon are backpedalling kings, but only after they pursued things their way for a stubborn year or so.


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## James R Wells (May 21, 2015)

Patty Jansen said:


> I hope so, man, I hope so. It seems many people have a lot more faith in Amazon than I have. They will make a sensible decision, eventually, but only after they've made a hideous one, received a tsunami of complaints, sunk some careers and quietly implied "fixes". Amazon are backpedalling kings, but only after they pursued things their way for a stubborn year or so.


Here's your nightmare scenario:

An oddity about a customer-driven process is that it can have sampling bias, causing more issues to be raised on the higher quality works than on lower quality ones. The bias arises due to the convergence of several factors:

- If a book is "better" as measured by reader interest, it gets more readers, any one of which could send in a quality report. A book that's being ignored by the market will have few readers and thus fewer potential issue reporters.

- A book that is stunningly bad will be deemed hopeless and not worth submitting quality report. I suspect that most quality reports are submitted by readers who actually like a book and want to help an author.

- More narrowly, I'm going to guess that a book with 5 noted issues is more likely to get a report than a book with 100 noted issues (even if the reader likes the book) just because the effort of enumerating the issues become greater than what the reader will take on.

I have seen version of this through a career in software - if you're not getting bug reports and enhancement requests it's really alarming because it means nobody is using your product. There is a Goldilocks stream of obscure bugs and requests for enhancements that tells you the product is decent and people are actively using it.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

James R Wells said:


> Doesn't the market sort out all this "quality" stuff?


This *is* the market sorting it out.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Becca Mills said:


> I had to send Amazon a long list of changes to convince them that the new version was significantly improved. Only then were they willing to make the update option available for existing owners. I also got them to send a notification email, which requires added layer of convincing. More recently, I made pretty significant changes to the same book and decided NOT to ask for an update -- I figured the changes were big enough (a whole new beginning, for instance) that some readers would be angry if the new copy replaced the one they'd read. Instead, I announced it on social media and let people choose whether to ask Amazon for the new version. In contrast, my Google readers instantly lost the copy of _Nolander _that they'd read, and some of them weren't happy about that. All in all, I like Amazon's approach on this issue. It seems weird, at first, but it I think it creates more flexibility.


The problem being, of course, that they're so unwilling to piss off readers who don't want automatic new versions that it's virtually impossible to get them to email about a change and, in my experience, NOTHING will them to force-push one. My first novel went out to the 15 people who preordered it with 10 chapters instead of 20 (100% completely my fault). Amazon refused to push an update because it would "affect the reader experience." As though getting half a book is an experience people treasure. LOL


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

I wonder how long it will be before writers who support this will start to come here to complain that Amazon has slapped them with this label over things that weren't incorrect or were stylistic choices but no matter how many times they went back and forth to fix them, it either never gets corrected or the author has lost business in the meantime until Amazon is convinced the author wasn't wrong.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

stoney said:


> I wonder how long it will be before writers who support this will start to come here to complain that Amazon has slapped them with this label over things that weren't incorrect or were stylistic choices but no matter how many times they went back and forth to fix them, it either never gets corrected or the author has lost business in the meantime until Amazon is convinced the author wasn't wrong.


Well, that's the thing: it SOUNDS like a great idea on the surface. "Finally! All that crap that's making us indies look bad will get swept out!" But it's as though some people developed amnesia about the half-***ed way Amazon implements these kinds of policies. Not everyone who finds themselves on the losing side of this is going to deserve it; they're just not.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

lilywhite said:


> Well, that's the thing: it SOUNDS like a great idea on the surface. "Finally! All that crap that's making us indies look bad will get swept out!" But it's as though some people developed amnesia about the half-***ed way Amazon implements these kinds of policies. Not everyone who finds themselves on the losing side of this is going to deserve it; they're just not.


Yep. Exactly that.



Tilly said:


> Entirely different though if you are using historically correct slang/curse words and the reader doesn't realise the entomology of a word or phrase.


I have lost count of all the reviews I've read where the reviewer got all bent out of shape over a spelling/grammar error, pointed it out in their review and then doubled down when it was proven they are wrong about it.

Amazon, of course, won't remove the review, even if it's blatantly incorrect.

And these are the people we are trusting to report errors? These are the people that we have to take time out of our already fairly busy days to check the text, see if it's an actual error, either fix the error or have to write back to Amazon to justify the text being what it is as author choice?



Patty Jansen said:


> I hope so, man, I hope so. It seems many people have a lot more faith in Amazon than I have. They will make a sensible decision, eventually, but only after they've made a hideous one, received a tsunami of complaints, sunk some careers and quietly implied "fixes". Amazon are backpedalling kings, but only after they pursued things their way for a stubborn year or so.


Yep. I've been watching all the trials and tribulations of authors on this board for a few years now and I've seen this in action, time and time again. Even now, people complain about how Amazon stubbornly holds to their automated processes and defends them under the banner of 'customer experience', even if the customer is demonstratably _wrong_.

When it appears to take an act of congress just to get someone through email that isn't an automated canned response, how exactly is this going to work out for authors who are _not_ guilty of what they are getting reported on?



Jane_Dough said:


> Say you lose money because, can they be held responsible? I'm ignorant to this so don't bite my head off anyone.


Judging by past behavior? No, they can't.


----------



## Guest (Jan 22, 2016)

http://johndopp.com/writers/amazon-kindle-spelling-mistakes/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork

I`ll just leave this here...sort your quality out you lazy sods! What do you expect!!! 
IMO...this is a good thing, free editing.
God, what a panicked bunch we all our.........WHOOPS...are!


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

It'll be interesting to see if any sales are lost when a book gets hit with this label. 

Does anyone know if you'll get a decent amount of time to institute the 'fixes' once you're notified before the stamp your book?


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## Guest (Jan 22, 2016)

Aww...this is just more panic-porn. I really don`t think anyone with a half decent product will lose anything. All this fear will only do one thing: drive people with talent and passion mad, trying to second guess themselves. Maybe this will finally put off the scammers? Could be a great thing.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Andrew Murray said:


> Aww...this is just more panic-porn. I really don`t think anyone with a half decent product will lose anything. All this fear will only do one thing: drive people with talent and passion mad, trying to second guess themselves. Maybe this will finally put off the scammers? Could be a great thing.


"panic-porn." That's a good one. Made me think of this gif...


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## Guest (Jan 23, 2016)

HAHA! love that gif.


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## AaronShep (Nov 18, 2011)

Loosecannon said:


> @ Princess:
> A logical TOC and the HTML TOC are two different things. The former is based on a set of tags in your book file code and in the NCX file. The later is the hotlinked TOC you place at the beginning of your ebook (Chap 1 , Chap. 2 , etc.)


Unfortunately, the problem is that KDP itself is confused about the difference between these two kinds. If you look at the online help page about inserting an NCX table of contents, the instructions are for inserting an HTML table of contents instead.

I myself was hit with a notice that a book did not have an NCX table of contents, but the links provided were for adding an HTML table of contents with Word. I couldn't tell whether they thought my book didn't have an HTML TOC -- which it did -- or whether they really wanted an NCX table of contents -- which it doesn't, since that is not possible to insert with Word. So, I uploaded the book again -- and got the same message about missing the TOC. (And yes, the Go To menu does include a link to the TOC, because you can add that reference in Word.)

In the end, I sent back a letter telling them there WAS a table of contents (without specifying type), told them exactly where in the book the HTML TOC was, suggested they use the Go To menu to reach it if they really couldn't find it, and offered to send a screenshot from Kindle Previewer. They wrote back that they were lifting their objection BASED ON WHAT I HAD TOLD THEM -- in other words, not from their own examination. I still have no idea how they could have missed the thing.

This, by the way, was on a book set up for pre-order. So, it could not have come from a customer complaint.

Aaron


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## My Dog&#039;s Servant (Jun 2, 2013)

I can see some value, on occasion, with this approach (especially if applied to trad pub, too, where I have seen what I consider serious problems, given the publisher and the author), but it misses other quality issues entirely.  I just finished a book that had many reviews lauding the quality of the writing, the prose in general, the grammar (which was, I admit, generally fine). But the author, who liked using big words when small ones would do, was in serious need of some time spent actually reading a dictionary. Adjectives used as nouns, words used inappropriately or incorrectly (often because the writer misunderstood the Latin roots of the words). And yet all were properly spelled and in appropriate tense. The grammar checkers generally can't catch your mistake in using, say, "noisome" to describe a crowd making a lot of noise. (uh, no, please check the dictionary to be sure that's what you really wanted to say!)


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## My Dog&#039;s Servant (Jun 2, 2013)

Peter Spenser said:


> In all fairness to your customer...
> 
> I just looked at the sample of your book, _Whipped_, and there _are_ structural problems.
> 
> ...


I'm late catching up, but...

Peter....a downloaded SAMPLE will NOT show the entire table of contents. It's not a function of the TOC, it's a function of the sample. I try many samples. All of them show the same truncated TOC. Once I buy the whole book, the entire TOC appears.

Of course, there may still be something wrong with the TOC, but you can't tell that from a sample.


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## My Dog&#039;s Servant (Jun 2, 2013)

LFGabel said:


> On a related note, has anyone used Scrivener to compile their books before upload? And were errors flagged?


I've done a recent book and an older book where I was changing the back matter (I should note, I'm Scrivener for PC, not MAC). It was soooooooo easy, no error flags....BUT...there are a lot of problems that I don't like about what it forces on you, so I may go back to .docx/html. I assume Kindle would find the errors if they were there, though, because it ran the check the same way and I could test it on all the platforms I play with as well as with Kindlegen.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

EF5 said:


> But you're not thinking this through to its logical conclusion.


I disagree. But let's unpack what you've said.



EF5 said:


> If you give the top bestsellers a free pass while flagging everyone else (and you would be flagging everyone else because trying to guess what a reader may or may not flag your book for is impossible)...


Unlike you, I don't believe Amazon WILL flag everyone else. I highlighted that issue in the post you quoted. Amazon will use code rules to ensure only true problem books - the definition of "true problem" is unknowable, of course - send up red flares.

For example, my first book has one spelling error. I don't believe Amazon will flag it unless it receives a large number of high-value reports. Meanwhile, I recently read a non-fiction book littered with misspellings. I believe that book has a good chance of being flagged *if Amazon receives a large number of high-value reports*. Otherwise, it will *not* be flagged, even if it receives a large number of low-value reports.

Flagging everyone but the bestsellers would harm Amazon's book business. And if it has the potential to harm Amazon's book business, I suspect Amazon will act to prevent it.



EF5 said:


> you create a system that maintains a constant pool of 'exempt' bestsellers while at the same perpetually keeping the door to bestseller-dom closed to new entrants.


I disagree for reasons outlined above.

With proper code rules in place, there is no reason the bestseller ranks can't be filled with indie authors. Amazon will treat authors like brands. Trusted brands - Hugh Howey, Russell Blake, Stephen King, Amanda Lee, etc. - will be shielded from reports. Untrusted brands - e.g. authors with one book and review rating below 2.5 - will be subject to closer inspection. The more salient point is that even untrusted brands *would be left alone* unless their books receive a large number of high-value reports. Over time, they can _become_ trusted brands as they write more books and garner more solid reviews.

The result? The door to bestseller-dom is left open to everyone. All the author has to do is produce a book that strikes a chord with its audience and isn't littered with errors.



EF5 said:


> It would be a closed loop with no injection of fresh talent because any newcomer receiving flags (which again, would be pretty much everyone non-exempt)...


... a false assumption...



EF5 said:


> ...thus loses sales, fails to gain a foothold in the market place and fails to reach bestseller status.


... a false conclusion based on a false assumption.



EF5 said:


> The only exception to this would be a Kindle Store full of household names and self-starter indies who got lucky enough to have their book bought IN SPITE of the mountain of ridiculous flags attached to their sales pages...meanwhile a lot of the best stories in any given genre are forever relegated to the undiscovered basement, never found by an unsuspecting readership, and mountains of money never collected by Amazon in royalty splits.


Here's how I would put it (note the omitted passage)...

_The only exception to this would be a Kindle Store full of household names and self-starter indies who got lucky enough to have their book bought...meanwhile a lot of the best stories in any given genre are forever relegated to the undiscovered basement, never found by an unsuspecting readership, and mountains of money never collected by Amazon in royalty splits._



EF5 said:


> Talk about shooting yourself in the foot, Bezos.


I realize I can come across as an Amazon apologist (disclaimer: I'm a shareholder) and a Bezos fanboi. In truth, I'm neither. I focus on the business. To that end, when was the last time Bezos/Amazon made a misstep that seriously impaired its long-term business strategy? As a shareholder, I'm quite happy with the man (lack of profits notwithstanding).


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## Debbie Bennett (Mar 25, 2011)

And all is revealed?

http://johndopp.com/writers/amazon-kindle-spelling-mistakes/


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

DebBennett said:


> And all is revealed?
> 
> http://johndopp.com/writers/amazon-kindle-spelling-mistakes/


Thanks for the link, Deb. Dopp's coverage sounds reasonable.


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## D/W (Dec 29, 2010)

JLCarver said:


>


That's hilarious!


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## Maggie Dana (Oct 26, 2011)

What about stuffing keywords into titles? Will that be flagged, too? Right now there's a children's author who has over 25 books in different categories for young readers with titles like: 

Books for Kids : The Blue Mermaid and The Little Dolphin- Children's Books, Kids Books, Bedtime Stories For Kids, Kids Fantasy Book

Is this against Amazon's TOS, or do they just frown on it?


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Dragovian said:


> Well, judging in part from the list of typos in this article, http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/kindle-e-books-will-have-a-warning-message-if-they-have-spelling-mistakes-or-bad-formatting, indie books are just an easy target to hassle. Because I've certainly seen that and worse in trad pubbed books, even bestsellers, but I somehow doubt the latest Stephen King will be flagged for a few transposed letters.


Transposed letters? _Under the Dome_ had the dog's name wrong in just the first fifty pages! Where were his editors and Beta readers? Hector instead of Horace. I read trade books all the time and find numerous mistakes in each. *Maybe indie authors (if indeed this becomes a true problem for us) should start a website where we report the numerous mistakes in all the top-selling trade books. Then we can rank the trade books according to their quality issues too.*

At least for us, if/when a mistake is found we can correct it immediately and it's gone.  I hire editors and have numerous beta readers, but when you have a "good story" even they can get caught up and miss one or two mistakes.


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## Catherine Lea (Jul 16, 2013)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> Everyone has the right to outsource, but weren't we talking about Amazon flagging sales pages? To me this means instant action required. Outsourcing is never instant.


Mark, I see you use Sigil for ePub, what do you use for mobi? I've just driven my poor formatter completely nuts with changes, and anything I need done no is taking over a week. I have Calibre and Pocket mobi, but I've never really gotten into them. I'd be happy to learn them just to make small changes, but I'm not sure which one does what.


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## tamaraheiner (Apr 23, 2011)

ebbrown said:


> That was my first thought. (Remember the copyright issue an author here on KBoards went through when her work was stolen??!)
> 
> My second thought after reading the thread is that maybe I'm missing something?  I use Word and upload as a .docx file and never have anything to convert or unzip or mess with. I've done it enough times that now when I write my books, I set up my doc and just write within the formatting guidelines, so there is very little to do for the final manuscript other than refresh my TOC.


This is what I do, lol. Making a change and uploading a new file is so easy. But what do I know? :::shrug:::

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## GwynnEWhite (May 23, 2012)

Patty Jansen said:


> I have nothing against quality control, but if that's what they want, let them exercise Quality Control:
> 
> - check books before they're uploaded
> - flag issues in both spelling and formatting
> ...


I agree wholeheartedly. I got a letter from Amazon regarding my memoir. They complained about two typos. Before the letter came, the book was averaging between 40-45 sales per day. After the letter: sales halved and have not recovered. It would have been so simple to tag that when they upload. I have since had the book re-edited (turns out the first editor didn't do a great job regardless of the $1000 I paid her)


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## farrago (Oct 29, 2013)

I may be in the minority here, but I like the spotlight on Amazon's guidelines. In my experience, it only takes one complaint about a misspelled word or dropped period to active a message from Amazon. I repaired the misspelled word, added the period and emailed Amazon: "Thank you, repairs made within 24 hours." Good to go. Amazon verified the error before it emailed me.  I agree with an earlier comment that books with a review rank of 2.0/5.0, especially if those reviews speak to grammar/verb tense/misspelled words, will prolly get eyes on by Amazon. There is a nonfiction book on Amazon right this minute with 33% one star reviews. Well written, but readers despise the interior text--how it is said...as if the author is entitled. Controversy won't trigger a flag. How another author treats a dropped quotation mark or period, is author choice. I repair all errors discovered ASAP. And yes, I hire a professional editor and formatter. And cover artists. Once the book is as fine as I can manage, I promote it--and make it pay for itself. That's the goal. I am only two years and few months into indie authorship. I am not a best selling author...so I cannot speak to those in the fame and name. Above my pay grade. But the single task I set myself is to master Amazon. That is where my books live. It is a vast learning curve. When I don't know something, I ask Amazon--not a colleague, because the reply can easily be an opinion, not a fact. There are over one million books available to Kindle Unlimited subscribers and Amazon is growing that subscriber list--that is my audience. So. If Amazon tells me to repair a mishap--I'm on it!


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## JLCarver (Sep 13, 2015)

Deleted. My words are not yours.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

Catherine Lea said:


> Mark, I see you use Sigil for ePub, what do you use for mobi? I've just driven my poor formatter completely nuts with changes, and anything I need done no is taking over a week. I have Calibre and Pocket mobi, but I've never really gotten into them. I'd be happy to learn them just to make small changes, but I'm not sure which one does what.


You can upload the ePub file directly to Amazon. No need to change it to a .mobi. If you want a mobi for sending to reviewers etc, just open it in the kindle previewer, and it will create one for you from the ePub.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

lilywhite said:


> Well, that's the thing: it SOUNDS like a great idea on the surface. "Finally! All that crap that's making us indies look bad will get swept out!" But it's as though some people developed amnesia about the half-***ed way Amazon implements these kinds of policies. Not everyone who finds themselves on the losing side of this is going to deserve it; they're just not.


If it's anything like they do when they crack down on erotica, one writer might have 5 typos in a 500 page novel and get hit while someone with 500 typos and plot holes all over the place will be just fine.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

EF5 said:


> I appreciate you taking the time to further clarify your points. I think you're taking a glass half-full approach here...


Admittedly, I tend to do that.



EF5 said:


> Your points are salient, thoughtful and well-made and I don't take issue with any of them - in short, you've changed my mind...and likely for the better. Cheers.


Thanks for that. Cheers back.


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## lostinspace (Sep 17, 2015)

The people who formatted may book have told me that bad formatting (making the book hard to read) will also be flagged. I have to say that I've downloaded books before where maps or table inserts have been entirely unreadable. In these cases it's probably good that they sort out the issues. 

But I, like others here, am concerned that English spellings might come under criticism. I consider that English spellings and phrases are part of the writer's voice, and should be non-negotiable. 

For my first book, I went to a formatter, only to find that they "apparently" destroyed the code files for my book after the work was completed. Between the lines, what this means is that they will charge me a fortune to remake the book if I want any amendments done. It goes without saying that I intend to learn how to format. Seems to me, though, that indies can't win. If we pay for quality services, we get ripped off. If we do it ourselves, we risk having subquality formatting. 

The programme for alerts to readers via the sales page is apparently due for launch on 3rd Feb. I'm just hoping that any "errors" highlighted by readers are actually checked by a human behind the scenes who knows when a spelling error is not a "real" spelling error.  

lost-in-space


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## S.G. Dean (Jan 25, 2014)

DebBennett said:


> And all is revealed?
> 
> http://johndopp.com/writers/amazon-kindle-spelling-mistakes/


That's good news. Here's hoping they actually do what they claim.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

S.G. Dean said:


> That's good news. Here's hoping they actually do what they claim.


They send quality notices about small numbers of typos. I once got one for three errors, one of which was not, in fact, an error but was slang. The other two were typos (transposed letter in each case) and I fixed them. So... they will totally send emails about very tiny, trivial things and also things that aren't errors at all.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

************


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2016)

Annie B said:


> They send quality notices about small numbers of typos. I once got one for three errors, one of which was not, in fact, an error but was slang. The other two were typos (transposed letter in each case) and I fixed them. So... they will totally send emails about very tiny, trivial things and also things that aren't errors at all.


Unfortunately, that's true. The only quality notice I have received was for a single typo which wasn't a typo at all, just a complete and total waste of my time


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

PhoenixS said:


> Humans well-versed in English are not doing due diligence on the error reports currently. For instance, we had one reader helpfully report that in a scene describing a Grecian vase, the nymphs should be _gambling _in a field rather than what the author had written: _gamboling_. No lexicon needed there, I would hope.


It's well-documented that gambling addictions were prevalent in Ancient Greece.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

LFGabel said:


> Also, is Amazon going to police the books with overly wordy titles in order to get higher in searches? I hate that.
> 
> On a related note, has anyone used Scrivener to compile their books before upload? And were errors flagged?


They will eventually get around to the stuffed titles, and use a wrecking ball when a scalpel will do.

As for your Scrivener question, do you mean if Scrivener flags errors? The only one I've ever had was about the cover not being included, which is correct, as I don't put the cover in the file when uploading as Amazon will automatically add the cover.



katrina46 said:


> If it's anything like they do when they crack down on erotica, one writer might have 5 typos in a 500 page novel and get hit while someone with 500 typos and plot holes all over the place will be just fine.


Yep. The usual wrecking ball approach.

Has anyone gotten an email from Amazon about this new enforcement? I haven't seen anything, and the page linked to in the goodereader article is the normal page that's always been there, as far as I can tell.

I know some of my shorts have minor errors in them, because I found them when assembling a bundle recently. Nothing big, the formatting was fine. I've never gotten an email about typos.

And I don't think discussing some announcement from Amazon that is likely to cause people loads of grief while still not solving the problem of books with really bad issues is panicking. People rightly look askance at stuff like this from Amazon, because those of us who have been around for a while have seen how bad things can get, how innocent people get caught up in it all, and how inconsistent enforcement tends to be.


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## SteveHarrison (Feb 1, 2015)

I'm not convinced this is necessary, as you can usually tell by a read through the first two or three pages of the preview if the author is capable of writing (subjective, I know). If, in my opinion, they are not, then I don't buy and I'm not going to report it.


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## Guest (Jan 25, 2016)

PhoenixS said:


> We've also had some helpful proofreaders wanting to drum business report "errors" (that weren't) in reviews and then circle back around with us with an offer of their services. I can only imagine how having a big blinking sign on the page will encourage more reports by more such "helpful" businesses.


Now if only Amazon instituted a policy in which we could report THESE people and get their accounts revoked. Because there is a special place in the lower planes of the abyss for these people.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

lilywhite said:


> It's well-documented that gambling addictions were prevalent in Ancient Greece.


In a hundred years' time, I expect to read in a historic account:

"Amazon had such power over the lives of its content providers that they drove ancient Greek deities to acquire gambling addictions for the sole reason that they could prove that the customer is always right."


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## MissingAlaska (Apr 28, 2014)

Has anyone heard any more about Amazon's quality initiative? Evidently, Amazon is responding to reader complaints and either pulling books (if egregious) or putting labels on books with typos until the mistakes are corrected. This is not automated and will involve Amazon representatives.

Interesting article here:

http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/kindle-e-books-will-have-a-warning-message-if-they-have-spelling-mistakes-or-bad-formatting

and here:

http://johndopp.com/writers/amazon-kindle-spelling-mistakes/

From comments on the second article, it seems the warning label may be used for even minor typographic mistakes until they are fixed. This applies to Indies and trade books equally.

Personally, I welcome this. More information - and being able to correct typos that readers graciously(?) point out - seems better.


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## PJ_Cherubino (Oct 23, 2015)

Thanks for these articles. There are a couple threads on this in the forum about this. Those threads are getting very long. Not sure if these articles were cited.

It is interesting news. I welcome the initiative. Indies have some very serious concerns about the subjectivity of quality reporting -- incorrect grammar criticism, "in-world" words and the use of dialect and slang seem chief among those concerns.

I think Amazon is trying to clean up the market in general. Indies have to struggle and compete first simply to be seen in a market that is awash with low-quality work. That is even before an indie work can be viewed on its own merit.

The initiative is motivating me to edit, edit and edit more, so that's a positive. I'm hoping whatever mechanisms Amazon uses will be fair and just. But I also understand that hasn't always been the case. The solution would seem to ramp up QC on the work in general.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Already being discussed over here:

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,229823.0.html


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## PJ_Cherubino (Oct 23, 2015)

Lisa Grace said:


> Transposed letters? _Under the Dome_ had the dog's name wrong in just the first fifty pages! Where were his editors and Beta readers? Hector instead of Horace. I read trade books all the time and find numerous mistakes in each. *Maybe indie authors (if indeed this becomes a true problem for us) should start a website where we report the numerous mistakes in all the top-selling trade books. Then we can rank the trade books according to their quality issues too.*
> 
> At least for us, if/when a mistake is found we can correct it immediately and it's gone.  I hire editors and have numerous beta readers, but when you have a "good story" even they can get caught up and miss one or two mistakes.


I just read Russel Miller's "Bare-Faced Messiah" biopic of L. Ron Hubbard. I was shocked by numerous typos. I'm debating whether or not to review that book for reporting.

I also suspect there may be an initial flood of reporting from indie authors and people in general who remember seeing typos in their e-books.

Not sure if this article was quoted in this thread. If so, I didn't notice it
http://johndopp.com/writers/amazon-kindle-spelling-mistakes/

There seems to be a disconnect between what Amazon is saying and some initial anecdotal evidence.
The air does seem to be alive with the ozone smell of panic . . .


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## Greg Dragon (Jun 10, 2014)

PJ_Cherubino said:


> The air does seem to be alive with the ozone smell of panic . . .


That's how we roll.


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## jasonbladd (Dec 22, 2015)

Good to know!


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## MikeDavidson (Oct 5, 2013)

SOOO what Amazon is saying is that unscrupulous competing authors can complain the about quality of our books to lower our ranks, while Amazon gives publishers who also have errors in their books a special treatment......


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## PJ_Cherubino (Oct 23, 2015)

MikeDavidson said:


> SOOO what Amazon is saying is that unscrupulous competing authors can complain the about quality of our books to lower our ranks, while Amazon gives publishers who also have errors in their books a special treatment......


That is not what they are saying at all. However, that is certainly bound to happen. I think your assessment is right in that people will definitely use reporting to game the system.

To me, system-gaming is a sickening aspect of the Amazon marketplace. I think amazon is actively trying to clean things up, but there will be unintended consequences.

Stand by . . .


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## Lefevre (Feb 1, 2014)

farrago said:


> I may be in the minority here, but I like the spotlight on Amazon's guidelines. In my experience, it only takes one complaint about a misspelled word or dropped period to active a message from Amazon. I repaired the misspelled word, added the period and emailed Amazon: "Thank you, repairs made within 24 hours." Good to go. Amazon verified the error before it emailed me. I agree with an earlier comment that books with a review rank of 2.0/5.0, especially if those reviews speak to grammar/verb tense/misspelled words, will prolly get eyes on by Amazon. There is a nonfiction book on Amazon right this minute with 33% one star reviews. Well written, but readers despise the interior text--how it is said...as if the author is entitled. Controversy won't trigger a flag. How another author treats a dropped quotation mark or period, is author choice. I repair all errors discovered ASAP. And yes, I hire a professional editor and formatter. And cover artists. Once the book is as fine as I can manage, I promote it--and make it pay for itself. That's the goal. I am only two years and few months into indie authorship. I am not a best selling author...so I cannot speak to those in the fame and name. Above my pay grade. But the single task I set myself is to master Amazon. That is where my books live. It is a vast learning curve. When I don't know something, I ask Amazon--not a colleague, because the reply can easily be an opinion, not a fact. There are over one million books available to Kindle Unlimited subscribers and Amazon is growing that subscriber list--that is my audience. So. If Amazon tells me to repair a mishap--I'm on it!


Agreed!


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

merged a couple of similar threads . . . sorry for any confusion.


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## Guest (Jan 25, 2016)

MikeDavidson said:


> SOOO what Amazon is saying is that unscrupulous competing authors can complain the about quality of our books to lower our ranks...


Yip. Those authors who use their street teams to 1-star bomb the "competition" now have a whole new weapon in their arsenal to "take out" other authors...


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## PJ_Cherubino (Oct 23, 2015)

Tilly said:


> Yip. Those authors who use their street teams to 1-star bomb the "competition" now have a whole new weapon in their arsenal to "take out" other authors...


It seems Amazon is working behind the scenes to prevent inaccurate or otherwise game-based reviews. Maybe this is just wishful thinking, but hopefully they will come up with a system to root out this kind of thing.

As a new author with zero fan base and no mailing list, the pressure to have positive reviews feels immense. The specter of a quality warning label is just that much more pressure.

A distinct possibility is that the same people who game the system now will just alter their tactics and come up with new games. There are two possible strategies to counter this: 1. learn to play the games and hope you are better 2. DON'T play the games and stick to the system as Amazon designed it using ethical behavior as a guide.

I prefer option 2, thought I am cynical enough to believe that it is likely a losing proposition.

In any case, I'm going to keep on writing.


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## Trans-Human (Apr 22, 2015)

This is one of the worst decisions Amazon has ever made, in its history of bad decision making. It's literally inviting abuse. And most of it will, of course, be directed toward self-pub authors.

God help us all.


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## Guest (Jan 25, 2016)

Gaulvinov said:


> This is one of the worst decisions Amazon has ever made, in its history of bad decision making. It's literally inviting abuse. And most of it will, of course, be directed toward self-pub authors.
> 
> God help us all.


Agreed. Amazon nominating themselves the typographical error police can lead to nothing good. The publishing industry has survived just fine without a vendor *demanding* that they correct a typo or else. I mean, it's one thing if we're talking about a book with multiple formatting and spelling errors, making it practically unreadable, but the occasional typo? It makes absolutely no sense and it is not their call when or how it should or shouldn't be fixed. I just pray and hope there will be capable humans making these calls.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

For the record, I have a lot of slang, bad grammar, and wild fantasy name spellings in my own book. Uneducated characters speak gutterot in my book. So far, I haven't been flagged—yet. We'll see what happens after today when the system is supposed to go live.

I will say, writing in the vernacular is a pain in the ass. My solution is to kill off those characters as soon as possible so I can get on with the story... O


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## Quartknee (May 7, 2015)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> It takes less than a minute.
> 
> Using formatters... it takes 1day to 1 week.


If potential readers can see the messaging it makes Amazon's move even worse because they call into question the quality of your work for two business days to allow for human review.

So if you do your quick fix too late in the day when it is Friday in their time zone, they could be tainting your offerings and crimping your business for up to four days or more if it's a bank holiday weekend. It seems they could achieve the same effect with an algorithmic review that compares characters side by side between the originally uploaded file and the newer version.

I'm glad they're doing something to address the flood of "books" that are more like non-fiction booklets or pamphlets really - inspired by all the 'get-rich-quick' guys on YouTube and elsewhere who dictate their material in an afternoon and have it on Amazon that night or they use virtual assistants with limited English as a second language skills...

At some point Amazon will have to realise that an easier method of quality control would be to standardize the expectations about what constitutes a 'book' and make the distinctions between a novel, novella, novellette, and a short story clear to readers... maybe that way discounted novels (40k+ words) wouldn't be the same price as the pamphlet-length material (roughly >7,500 words).

From what I've read, at this point it seems like they're basically targeting the get rich quick scammers who self publish their material directly from dictation software or from their limited High School grammar class experience.

Now I'm really curious to know what they're doing to stop these 'writers' from calling in bogus complaints to hang up sales of a competitor's material. The way they target keywords and categories and brag about their tactics on social media or try to sell their 'systems' online, it begs the question, what's preventing them from using the flagging/error system against one another or more legitimate authors?


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## George Saoulidis (Feb 2, 2016)

My unpopular opinion: I think this is a good thing.
It will weed out the scamphlets for sure, but will also help against the stigma of self-published books.
I don't know, it might even affect me with my use of sci-fi words and some made-up technobabble I use from time to time, but in general it will trim the fat. Even if it affects you personally, it will force you to up your game.

I attended a documentary festival a few years back. I was angry, really pissed at the low (non-existant really) standards they had. It was a waste of time, unwatchable material, stupid documentaries, bad audio, cellphone cameras... I confronted the organizer and he told me he wanted everyone in. Yeah, but by putting some standards you force those guys to come back with a better project. I didn't attend the festival the years after that, and I told everyone who discussed it with me that it's a waste of time.


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## Erratic (May 17, 2014)

I'm concerned about two things.

1) Books peppered with slang, as my own are. In one of my books, I used the word "gonna" in the prose. It was a sentence written from the character's POV (he's a country kind of guy), and the moment was one of high panic, where the prose is supposed to roll from one thing to the next. I know it's not correct, but I thought about it in the editing process and chose to leave it. This sort of artistic choice could lead to my book being removed from sale. We already had a heated discussion about comma splices on these boards. Grammar isn't the LAW when you're making art.

2) We've seen authors using fake one star reviews to attack the competition. Hasn't happened to me personally, but I know it does happen. Now they can fake report quality issues and have your book REMOVED from sales until you respond. We have lives and jobs. Someone could lose several days of royalties for fixing their book and waiting for Amazon to republish it. And meanwhile, that book gets to sink in the rankings and potentially drop off the lists. I know they said they would verify quality claims, but when you consider style and artistic choices from point #1, this sort of attack would be easy to do. Something as simple as a sentence fragment could be a verified quality issue.


I just don't like this move. Readers should get to "vote" good books to the top of the slush pile with their dollars. And I never have a problem sussing out poor quality books by inspecting the look inside for myself.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Erratic said:


> I'm concerned about two things.
> 
> 1) Books peppered with slang, as my own are. In one of my books, I used the word "gonna" in the prose. It was a sentence written from the character's POV (he's a country kind of guy), and the moment was one of high panic, where the prose is supposed to roll from one thing to the next. I know it's not correct, but I thought about it in the editing process and chose to leave it. This sort of artistic choice could lead to my book being removed from sale. We already had a heated discussion about comma splices on these boards. Grammar isn't the LAW when you're making art.
> 
> ...


I think people are getting this all out of perspective. Amazon contact the author if they have had a lot of complaints or reports from readers, not otherwise. The little spell checker thing will have no effect, so all the slang words and made up places are quite safe. This is something they do now if they get a lot of reports about typos or whatever. The only difference is that now if we don't sort out the errors, we will get a label. However, it won't stop the rubbish from getting uploaded because reports will only come from readers who have actually read the book and they are unlikely to buy the other sort.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Doglover said:


> I think people are getting this all out of perspective. Amazon contact the author if they have had a lot of complaints or reports from readers, not otherwise. The little spell checker thing will have no effect, so all the slang words and made up places are quite safe. This is something they do now if they get a lot of reports about typos or whatever. The only difference is that now if we don't sort out the errors, we will get a label. However, it won't stop the rubbish from getting uploaded because reports will only come from readers who have actually read the book and they are unlikely to buy the other sort.


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## WrittenWordMediaTeam (Oct 23, 2012)

I didn't see if anyone posted this, but Elizabeth Craig wrote about being flagged here: http://elizabethspanncraig.com/3942/follow-up-amazon-warning-messages/

We talk about this and more in our Friday Five: http://www.writtenwordmedia.com/2016/02/12/the-friday-five-indie-publishing-news-to-know-week-of-february-8th/


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

Has anyone seen any effect of the label on sales/reads/ranking? I mean it's all great and everything to talk about how it's not a big deal, until your book gets removed from sale while it gets sorted out.

The days it's not on sale are the days the rankings start to slip. So sure it makes you get on the fixes asap but... how do you recover?


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## Guest (Feb 12, 2016)

WrittenWordMediaTeam said:


> I didn't see if anyone posted this, but Elizabeth Craig wrote about being flagged here: http://elizabethspanncraig.com/3942/follow-up-amazon-warning-messages/
> 
> We talk about this and more in our Friday Five: http://www.writtenwordmedia.com/2016/02/12/the-friday-five-indie-publishing-news-to-know-week-of-february-8th/


Okay, if this is how Amazon plans to deal with quality issues, then we're in big trouble.


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