LSMSA discussion

Physical books are #1 in my heart always! But the convenience of carrying one e-reader around with access to unlimited e-books is very appealing. I read a mix of both.
But lately, I've been getting a little miffed at the amount of typos in e-books.
Does anyone know how books are changed from physical format to e-book? The typos almost always look similar to the letters that are supposed to be there, so it is not hard to figure out what the text should say.

Hi there! This is a really late comment, but I work in the nonfiction publishing industry. I know a tiny, tiny bit about the creation of ebooks. I don't work in Production, so I don't have all of the details, only what I've heard through the grapevine.

There are a couple different ways to create ebooks. The way we work with our books is that all manuscripts start out in Microsoft Word, and then our books are designed in InDesign. After that, books usually get converted to a different format, and as you can image, the conversion can cause problems as the computer tries to change the coding to fit the desired format, especially if you're using a non-standard font. This is especially true when you try to export a PDF into an malleable ebook format. I recently had this problem while trying to read a public domain book that Kobo tried to convert from a PDF into a mobile ePub version. I would recommend sticking with the PDF rather than the converted ePub. PDF versions are more likely to be free from typos, I believe, since they take a snapshot of the page rather than try to read each letter individually.

The fact is computers make mistakes due to programming, and if the proofreaders aren't careful, it can lead to a lot of errors in the ebooks. And as you can imagine, copyediting and proofreading can become rather expensive for the ebooks.

Unfortunately, many people believe it doesn't cost anything to create an ebook, which is one of the biggest myths about the book industry, and I wouldn't doubt it if publishing houses left these errors in ebooks because the investment of money isn't worth the revenue return. It's more expensive to produce books than people realize, especially if you want a high quality product. Copyediting can become really expensive, really quickly. Those editors can charge over $40 per hour, and our copyediting costs quickly rise to $3,000 and $4,000 per book. Proofreading costs tend be around $800-$1,000.

And we don't just make one type of ebook. We make one format for Kindle, one ePub, one Google ebook format, and one PDF. So we essentially create four different digital formats, and each format requires its own ISBN. Ebooks are a lot of work.

The biggest thing that we're starting to do is code all of our books in XML from the get go (in a specialized program, I think) so that it's easier to transfer the coding into an ebook format. So, the reason why there are so many typos is basically because the way to create ebooks isn't standardized yet, and we haven't exactly found the right tools to prevent conversion errors.

There are companies who specialize in creating ebooks, but their costs are more than we can afford.

You also have to consider that ebooks are not as popular as the media makes it out to be. We sell a lot more print books than we do digital books, but that could also be that scholars prefer print books over digital books. There is still a ton of love for books as objects rather than digital formats. Print books are also much easier on the eyes.

Hannah wrote: "Hi there! This is a really late comment, but I work in the nonfiction publishing industry. I know a tiny, tiny bit about the creation of ebooks...."

Thanks for the info! Interesting to hear from the production side of books. I only consume them.

"PDF versions are more likely to be free from typos, I believe, since they take a snapshot of the page rather than try to read each letter individually."

No, that varies a lot. Some PDFs are just photos of book pages, but many are created in other ways.

I read paper books and e-books. E-books are great for taking on vacation, because they weigh nothing.

For comics -- graphic novels, if you insist -- I prefer electronic format because I can zoom-in on each panel. Very useful when the text is in a tiny hand-written font.

I almost never do audio books, because my mind wanders more in that situation.

Sweet! Thanks for the break down Hannah :D

I only recently started checking out graphic novels throulgh my library in electronic format, and I love the zoom feature!

The Kindle version of graphic novels zoom down to the Individual panel level. I would assume Comixology did as well.

And I've been doing audio books since driving down to the '85 class reunion. Fantasy books are great for listening to on long drives or walks. Provides some outlets for imagination while on a long repetitive task.

Scott wrote: "The Kindle version of graphic novels zoom down to the Individual panel level. I would assume Comixology did as well...."

Comixology was the first to do that, I think. Amazon owns them now, so most comics bought for kindle either already are, or eventually will be, available in comixology as well, and if you sign-in with your amazon account, they are integrated with the rest of your collection. I use the comixology "unlimited" feature which makes many comics available for no additional fee.

When borrowing electronic comics from the library, I have to use the Hoopla application, which also zooms-in on individual panels. It is good, but not quite as good as comixology. For one thing there is less customization available (like whether you want to see the full page before and/or after zooming into panels) and they don't always zoom-in on small speech bubbles.

Scott wrote: "books are great for listening to on long drives or walks. Provides some outlets for imagination while on a long repetitive task..."

I agree. But since I rarely drive or do such things, I don't do many audiobooks. If I try to listen when I'm not already doing something else, my mind wanders.