# Why do e-books have so many errors?



## RichardDR (Jul 8, 2010)

I found this satisfied my questions... 

http://publishingperspectives.com/2011/08/error-free-ebooks/


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## Hadou (Jun 1, 2011)

Good read.  And I agree with the sentiment.


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## Me and My Kindle (Oct 20, 2010)

What's amazing to me is that every word processing program now comes with a spell-checker. There's still errors that can slip through, but most of them could be eliminate with the tiniest effort. Having said that, sometimes it's almost reassuring to find a typo. It lets me know that this isn't some absolute word of perfection that's been handed down from on high. It's just another ordinary ebook fan - someone just like me -- who's trying to get their own words in front of an audience.

I think proofreading is eventually going to become a mark of excellence. I think soon we'll be swamped with lots of amateur novelists, and people will want a way to find "quality" ebooks that have been edited and proofread very carefully. But some people may make a point of _not_ proofreading their ebooks, as a badge of their independent and do-it-yourself philosophy.

I'm not sure how that will ultimately resolve itself, but it could lead us in some interesting directions!


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

Me and My Kindle said:


> I think soon we'll be swamped with lots of amateur novelists,


Already happened.  

Mike


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## Joe Chiappetta (May 20, 2010)

I think in the larger scheme of things, the errors will get fixed for the books that have a great story. I imagine that many first or second editions in the days before computers had errors. But the books that readers valued over time got cleaned up. Ebooks are so new that there's been little time for that, yet.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

**** friendly reminder:  authors, we're in the Book Corner so please refrain from mentioning your own work but, rather, address the question from the point of view of yourself as 'reader'.  You can, of course, address your own approach in the Writer's Cafe.  ****


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## VKScott (Apr 14, 2011)

Unfortunately, as the article indicated, many publishers and authors simply don't seem to give the e-versions of books multiple passes, whether for monetary reasons or others. I know that there are errors in printed books, but not nearly so many, it seems, as in ebooks. There are some pretty egregious errors in the e-version of _The Big Sleep_, for example, that looked like sloppy OCR.

I'm also really put off by the inconsistencies in formatting, like odd margins.

But I love ebooks! Really.


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## arshield (Nov 17, 2008)

We do need to remember that it is not only ebooks (or independents) that have errors.  I think it has become fairly normal to find at least one error in most books I am reading now.  The funniest error I read recently was a book railing on the importance of institutions of authority.  He was complaining about the ability to make changes in Wikipedia and in the process his argument gave an illustration about myths around 9/11 and gave the wrong flight number for the plane that went down in PA.  I knew it was wrong instantly.  I was reviewing the book, so I checked it in both the audio and kindle versions and it was in both places.  This was a book with a publisher and editor and it still got through.


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## w5jck (Aug 30, 2010)

Especially for older books, but even for newer books too, we get a lot of scanned garbage that isn't adequately edited to find errors. I read a book a while back (I won't mention the title) but the OCR (optical character recognition) errors in this book were obvious in nearly every paragraph. The capital letter *T* was often displayd as *"I"* or *'I'* or *][* or any number of other common OCR errors for capital Ts. And there were dozens of common OCR errors throughout the book that were repeated hundreds if not thousands of times! I wanted to read the book so I stripped the DRM and spent several hours cleaning up the text to correct as many of the common OCR errors as I could. I believe there or programs available, and certainly some macros available, that can be used to search and replace the more common OCR errors. Obviously the publisher didn't even attempt to use one with this book.

I spent a lifetime as a technical writer. One of the things that is common among publishing departments within high tech firms is that we learned 20 years ago or more to use single sourcing. That is, we create databases containing the text to be published, a single source, then manipulate that database to optimize the text for printed materials, web based docs, marketing purposes, etc. I'm amazed that publishing houses, at least the BIG 6, have yet to figure out that concept. I'm even more amazed that many, if not most, publishing houses don't archive the digital text for their published books. Until they get their act together, we will continue to see crap from them. To say the least, the small/self publishers will mostly turn out crap as far as text quality due to their lack of experience using publishing tools and their _too cheap to hire professionals that are experienced _ attitudes.

So until publishers start puttting in the adequate amount of effort to edit their texts, we will continue to get crap in nearly every book. I'm glad some are beginning to put forth more of an effort at long last though. I recently purchased Barbara Tuchman's classic work _*A Distant Mirror * _ when it was finally released as an ebook decades after the print version was released. To my pleasant surprise it has definitely been well edited. Occasionally I see the odd OCR error, so i know they indeed scanned the text, but they did a really thorough job of cleaning it up. Now if others would do such a nice job I would be happy.


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## Sharon Red (Jul 23, 2011)

RichardDR said:


> I found this satisfied my questions...
> 
> http://publishingperspectives.com/2011/08/error-free-ebooks/


Nice!


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## Geemont (Nov 18, 2008)

> Panchanathan added: "Software will get you 90 percent of the way, but the rest needs to be controlled manually. To ensure top quality you need quality control editors to look at every line and every page&#8230;the challenge is when you are converting a large number of books and you're not willing to spend the hours of quality control."


Along that line, a comment from the author Stephen R. Donaldson at his website, lamenting the poor quality conversions of his books written in the 80s, said that his publisher, Bantam, outsourced the editing to a firm in India where English is the second or third language.

While I have no direct knowledge of the industry or the specifics, I'd bet English comprehension isn't a true job requirement for that foreign editing firm. Just look at the two texts and see if A is unlike B.

If readers want error free texts, they publisher (or rights holder) will need a ROI to make the output. If they can make a few bucks with sloppy work they'll do that rather than have quality cut into their bottom line. An old book from the 80s might only sell a few hundred copies.


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## John Van Stry (May 25, 2011)

Book publishers have gotten lazy, that's all. I find a lot of spelling errors and other typos in new books on the shelves from any of the big six these days. Since they've switched to using software it seems there are less people looking at the work to find any errors. They also don't seem to use spell checkers or grammar checkers. And if you are going to OCR (Optical Character Recognition) a book, you really need to run the checkers and then read it, because OCR programs are famous for making mistakes.


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

I'm reading one now, a professionally released book that I paid $9.99 for, where the type is hideous and light and not changeable (except size) natively in my Kindle. I'm going to try to process it through Calibre just to see if I can make it not-hideous.

Updated to add:

The original file is "HTMLZ" which I've never heard of. The type looks like it was photocopied with the copier set a bit too light, so that the narrow parts of the typeface wash out. 

I copied it to Calibre and converted it to a Mobi file. I removed the original file from my Kindle and downloaded the Mobi file. Much, much better!

But why, in a professional book, do I have to go through these gyrations just to get a readable copy?


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

Jan Strnad said:


> I'm reading one now, a professionally released book that I paid $9.99 for, where the type is hideous and light and not changeable (except size) natively in my Kindle. I'm going to try to process it through Calibre just to see if I can make it not-hideous.


It's likely a Topaz format book. I really, really don't like that format, and will request my money back on them if one slips past me (I normally get samples to check on this).

Mike


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

Unfortunately this is a one-of-a-kind book that I want to read. Otherwise I'd have skipped it on price alone. 

Annoys me that paying more buys less, at least in this case.


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## BSquared18 (Apr 26, 2011)

Perhaps indie authors should offer a reward for anyone who points out a typo or misspelling--such as refunding the cost of the book. That would certainly encourage the author to read, re-read, and re-re-read their copy before, and after, publishing it. 

It's amazing how those little errors just curl up and hide when your eyes approach them!

Bill


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

BSquared18 said:


> Perhaps indie authors should offer a reward for anyone who points out a typo or misspelling--such as refunding the cost of the book. That would certainly encourage the author to read, re-read, and re-re-read their copy before, and after, publishing it.
> 
> It's amazing how those little errors just curl up and hide when your eyes approach them!
> 
> Bill


I do this already. If people find a typo in one of mine I'll send them the next in the series.


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## BSquared18 (Apr 26, 2011)

Re: _"...I'll send them the next in the series."_

Great idea. A win-win; the customer is happy, and you're not out the cost of the book. How do you advertise your offer, and how does a customer contact you, by e-mail, Facebook, etc.?

Optional: Have you ever had to do it? (Only answer if you want to.)

Bill


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

**** friendly reminder:  authors, we're in the Book Corner so please refrain from mentioning your own work but, rather, address the question from the point of view of yourself as 'reader'.  Specifically, discussion of how to deal with readers finding errors is best done in the Writer's Cafe. Thanks.  ****


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## joshtremino (Jul 31, 2010)

Spell checkers help, but they can miss stuff too. For the most part, ebooks are cheap to produce which means there's going to be less effort and drive for perfection. If it were to cost 1000 dollars to publish, then I bet there'd be fewer typos too.


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## Amyshojai (May 3, 2010)

I don't think publishers or authors are lazy. In the former case (publishers) they are strapped for time. In the "old days" after the author edited the work, the editor read the work and sent back an editorial letter with comments, requests, edits, etc. It might go through 2-3 such "editorial revisions" before THEN going to the copyeditor who again picked it apart. These days there are fewer editors--they've been laid off to cut costs and the few who are left multi-task. Copyeditors used to be in-house and often now are freelancers. 

For the independent author/publisher who is a one-stop shop, it's nearly impossible to provide error-free copy. As any writer knows, your eyes tend to "skip over" the errors that you yourself have written. *shrug* Outside eyes for that reason alone are invaluable. But when someone is new to writing or publishing, or are anxious to get that next book out there, the rush to publish whammy-smacks you.    It ain't cheap to hire a professional editor. But a co-op of other writers willing to swap services simply to eyeball each other's beta manuscripts could be one answer.


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## jsmclean (Mar 6, 2011)

In my experience, I've found indie writers deliberately experimenting with syntax, or writing in a specific vernacular, will occasionally have an 'error' pointed out to them that is deliberate, whereas if they were published by a major house the reader would've trusted the voice of the author.  Instead, in indie writing, it can be risky to attempt to buck convention in case someone decides that you don't know what you're doing.

Not that this should stop one from being unconventional.  I like to think of it as an elaborate 'truth or dare' game.


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## JFHilborne (Jan 22, 2011)

TK Kenyon - I'm intrigued by the book you describe. Sounds like one I'd like to read.


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

Me and My Kindle said:


> What's amazing to me is that every word processing program now comes with a spell-checker. There's still errors that can slip through, but most of them could be eliminate*d* with the tiniest effort.


Fixed  Could also add an 'of' after 'tiniest'.

My point being that there is a spell checker on this webpage and yet there were still errors in your post. How can we expect to have error free books?

Books need to be held to a high standard of presentation so that the story you are telling is not misunderstood or that the reader starts to second guess your abilities as an author. If you are good enough you can be ee cummings and ignore conventions of language, for the rest of us there are editors.


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## Laura Lond (Nov 6, 2010)

I guess I've been lucky so far: none of the ebooks I've bought and read can be described as "littered with errors." I might have come across a typo or two in a book, but nothing major, like missing words, repeated words, tons of misspellings, etc. I've only had my Kindle since last Christmas though.


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## normcowie (Jun 21, 2011)

I think a lot of excited authors rush to get it out there. 

Norm


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## Debra Purdy Kong (Apr 1, 2009)

JFHilborne said:


> TK Kenyon - I'm intrigued by the book you describe. Sounds like one I'd like to read.


Yes, I'm intrigued too! I look forward to reading the review.


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## Erick Flaig (Oct 25, 2010)

Since behind every e-book there is a person, and all people make mistakes, I'm not surprised at typos.  Technology introduced another filter, in which the process can add errors.  I've read e-books formatted for the Palm in which every quotation mark is rendered as a string of characters, none of them a quotation mark.  After a chapter or three, my mind accepted that.  It was consistent.  At my place of employment, we utilize a statewide, browser-based database (awarding winning, by the way).  It capitalizes everything entered to INDICATE YOU CLICKED THE SAVE BUTTON.  OTHERWISE, HOW WOULD YOU KNOW, RIGHT?  Fine.  We got used to that.  In the next update, every punctuation mark was changed to a upside-down question mark.  We laboriously corrected each as we updated plans.  The system was update again, and they were all restored.

So I don't mind a few errors.  But if a person has a master's degree, why does he insist on spelling it "denist"?  DENIST after clicking save, of course.


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

tim290280 said:


> Fixed  Could also add an 'of' after 'tiniest'.
> 
> My point being that there is a spell checker on this webpage and yet there were still errors in your post. How can we expect to have error free books?
> Books need to be held to a high standard of presentation so that the story you are telling is not misunderstood or that the reader starts to second guess your abilities as an author. If you are good enough you can be ee cummings and ignore conventions of language, for the rest of us there are editors.


Because the readers here aren't paying him to offer his thoughts here on KB? I may be wrong, but I don't think too many of us run that spellchecker or edit for punctuation, grammar, etc. in a post on a social forum. I expect more care to be taken with the words on the page when I spend my money on a book.

You are correct about the need to be held to a high standard. Books which are being marketed, should be and, going by the number of complaints about errors, are held to a higher standard of presentation by their potential readers. I think that is the point of this thread.


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

crebel said:


> Because the readers here aren't paying him to offer his thoughts here on KB? I may be wrong, but I don't think too many of us run that spellchecker or edit for punctuation, grammar, etc. in a post on a social forum. I expect more care to be taken with the words on the page when I spend my money on a book.
> 
> You are correct about the need to be held to a high standard. Books which are being marketed, should be and, going by the number of complaints about errors, are held to a higher standard of presentation by their potential readers. I think that is the point of this thread.


Very true. The immediacy of the communication on a forum or through social media will always lead to a lack of editing.

I think it is partly this sloppiness in regards to our modern communication methods that has lead to some of the problems with see with language use now. The number of times reading comprehension or the ability to spot poor language use is prevalent could suggest that, despite our greater exposure to reading and writing, we haven't improved our skills.

Either way, you are right that when we pay for a book (etc) we would expect a higher standard than a forum post. But it is still hard to have a completely error free document, regardless of medium.


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## Mo Ibrahim (Aug 24, 2011)

It's really tough, because I read my book umpteen times, I had about seven other people read it and some minor mistakes were still missed.


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