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When to revise your book?
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Becky wrote: "You change the book after it's published, it's a new edition. "This is such a blanket rule, you can't be surprised if people quibble over it. There's a difference between fixing a minor typo and and fixing a plot hole. Every author and every reader is going to draw the line differently between what they regard as acceptable and what is beyond the pale, and it's not an either/or situation (fix stuff/don't fix stuff). That's what this discussion is about, after all. There are no rules, no should and shouldn't, no absolute right and wrong answers.
I am surprised by the quibbling. Books aren't "living" documents or drafts or works in progress. They aren't software. They are books. Once books are published, then the reader assumes that they are finished. They read it as such, and if they review or rate, they review or rate it as such. As they should.
If the author then decides that it wasn't finished, then they release a revised edition. New readers can read that one if they like, but the original published edition is still out there, can still be read, and the impressions of that edition are still valid because that book still exists.
To me, "fixing" an edition of a book means essentially deleting the flawed copy and replacing it with one that makes the author look better. I don't see that as being a "service to the reader" as some authors like to claim. That's making readers look untrustworthy if they mention issues that future readers no longer can see for themselves. To me, that is disingenuous.
Becky wrote: "Robby wrote: "I agree with all of your points about what authors should not do and all of the things you are complaining about *EXCEPT* when you say they shouldn't update it if they find a mistake ..."Thanks for the suggestion, but I did read a great portion of the thread and prevalent opinions. The original post was about asking when should a revision be done, and the conversation devolved/evolved/went-sideways to the present.
If we want to focus in on when indies release bad books and update them to make them better, then I still don't understand the argument against updating. I understand the argument against releasing bad books and authors treating updates as an excuse to release a bad book. That makes sense to me, but that's not what has been tossed around exclusively.
There seems to be a prevailing theme in the discussion that any updating at all is bad regardless of the original quality of the book. This does not make sense to me.
There are some strong opinions that updating at all is bad. If you find 5 typos in a 150K word book, then you are looking at a 0.0006% error ratio, something in anything but writing and space travel that would be considered for-all-intents-and-purposes perfect.
The strange beast that is the author (at least traditional ones, I'm not entirely familiar with the new breed of indies in spite of being a member of that species), is NEVER happy and should be actively encouraged to not change substantive things about the book, but finding 5 typos is an egregious affront to the sensibilities of any author and those must be changed or else the author will lie awake every night having the existence of the typos eat away at what is left of their soul!
Anyway, as I've said previously, fixing typos does not usually trigger the dreaded "notification e-mail" that has been lambasted so much on this thread. At least, it hasn't in my experience. Maybe others have different experiences.
I am against the idea of an author releasing an unfinished or rough work in the hopes of having good sales and being picked up. I'm not against that same author, once the work is released / the sin is committed, going back and saying, "Holy crap! What was I thinking? I need to fix this up right away!"
Again you're not actually reading the comments, Robby. You seem to be hearing what you want to hear. I'm not against correcting errors, if those errors are corrected in a subsequent edition - NOT the original. If done in the original published edition, I feel like that author is being dishonest about the quality of their work. That is my issue.
I don't have a kindle, and I don't buy ebooks via KDP, so I wouldn't receive the "dreaded notification e-mail" anyway.
And if trad-pubbed authors strive for perfection and see 10 errors in their work, they can correct them - by releasing a new edition. I want ALL published books to be held to the same standard.
And again, Becky, I'm not directing my comments at people being reasonable such as you seem to be, although even with traditionally published work (as has been pointed out a couple times), typos get fixed in second and third printings of the same edition if caught. In regards to your post, I don't see how it's dishonesty, unless you want a version history like with software?
1.0: Original release.
1.1: Second printing. Changed "Tyer" to "Tyre" on pg 101, paragraph 3, sentence 2.
1.2: Third printing. Updated list of releases to include present material and changed the word "fiancee" to "wife" in the About the Author section.
2.0: 2nd edition. New cover and removed a scene in CH 4.
This seems a reasonable request and I describe the differences in editions with my nonfic work (although I'm assuming we've all been talking about fantasy & speculative fiction for the most part here). Would this still be dishonest?
Still, even if it is dishonest, I'd rather be dishonest than knowingly put out material that has mistakes.
I feel that authors have a moral obligation upon finding out about a mistake to fix it immediately, even if that fix won't go into effect until the next printing or next edition for traditionally published print books.
But again, you seem to be reasonable in allowing a second edition to be released. There have been some viewpoints I've read that seemed to be advocating that books cannot be changed for any reason ever without losing reader faith.
Robby wrote: "And again, Becky, I'm not directing my comments at people being reasonable such as you seem to be, although even with traditionally published work (as has been pointed out a couple times), typos get fixed in second and third printings of the same edition if caught."Yes, but they don't then come into my house and remove those books I already paid for from my shelves and replace them with those new editions. Which is what replacing my ebooks with new versions with new covers or content (yes, even fixed spelling errors) feels like to me.
Becky wrote: "I want ALL published books to be held to the same standard."How "traditions" are created:
A young couple got married. When the wife prepared to bake a ham to celebrate their first Thanksgiving, she carefully cut off each end before placing it in the pan.
Her husband asked her why she did that and she replied, "I don't know - it's what my mother always did. But I can ask her."
She called Mom, who responded, "I always saw your Grandma do it, so I did the same."
They decided to check further, so the young woman called Grandma, who explained, "It was the only way I could get it to fit into my pan."
Or:
Start with a cage containing five monkeys.
Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.
After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him.
After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.
Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done round here.
It's "always been done that way" is not a good answer to keeping old standards and traditions.
Randy wrote: "It's "always been done that way" is not a good answer to keeping old standards and traditions."No, but consistency and integrity is.
And that's where the issue is at. To you, consistency and integrity is for leaving it as published. To me, consistency and integrity is in the fixing of errors.They were just too difficult to fix in a DTB world.
But, I have no issues with saying an author should do everything they can to put the best product forward in the first place. And to not rely on the crutch of being able to fix things afterwards.
The software world got into that too much. Everyone was so anxious to meet the deadlines, they would leave in known bugs figuring they can fix it in a later update. It got to the point you knew you should wait until at least the first update before trying new software.
Randy wrote: "And that's where the issue is at. To you, consistency and integrity is for leaving it as published. To me, consistency and integrity is in the fixing of errors.They were just too difficult to fix..."
No, consistency and integrity is leaving the original edition as published and not trying to sneak in a correction. If you fix something, then put out a new edition.
At this point there isn't much point in continuing to discuss this, since apparently "put out a new edition for revisions" somehow keeps being translated to "no changes evar!"If an author wrote a crap book and then edited it to make it seem like the errors never existed, then to me, there's a lack of integrity there. And I have no interest in supporting that.
*shrug* I am just one reader. I'm sure that my money won't be terribly missed.
I have no trouble with new editions. I actually think it's a good idea. But, let's apply the same standards.We can add some integrity to the DTB world. If they have typos and errors, they should correct them, issue a new edition, and exchange copies of the new edition for all old copies of the book for anyone that wants one.
Too costly? Too bad. They should have been a little more conscientious and spent more time on making sure it was ready in the first place.
I'm just asking them to do the same thing I would expect from an eBook author/publisher -- to fix errors, even if only for the sake of future customers.
You should re-read this thread, because this isn't what we've been saying. What we've been saying is that it is disingenuous for authors to fix errors surreptitiously in the same edition of a book. If you want to fix errors, by all means, but do it in a new edition, so that readers KNOW they are reading a different edition to the one that Reader A mentioned had more holes in the plot than Swiss cheese and more grammatical errors than if your cat just walked across the keyboard.
Providing free content, such as maps, or character lists, or whatever, should be in a new edition as well.
TL;DR version: You change the book after it's published, it's a new edition.