The Sword and Laser discussion
Updating e-books
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I'd love to see this. One concern I've seen raised has to do with Amazon reaching in and changing somebody's already-purchased goods, but software does this all the time.If I were an author, I'd want to change any errors that appeared as soon as possible, and it's strange we haven't heard more shouting about this.
I think they're just used to thinking of publishing a new edition of a book as a huge financial commitment. I don't think they're happy about e-books in the first place.
Dennis wrote: "It seems like publishers just don't understand the format."I think that's the reason right there. Now that the New York Times Book Review has started publishing E-book best seller lists and combined best-seller lists, the publishers will hopefully notice that e-books are no longer a fringe format and will put more effort into making sure that e-book editions are just as well proof-read and formatted as print editions.
Publishers don't care about ebooks. They make more money on hardcovers.
Maybe they should go back to typesetting by hand and dead animal skin covers. Or scribes! Hand copied manuscripts on rolls. They could charge extra for illumination.
Some of the smaller publishers and self published authors will make the updates to their books if you mention it. I saw an author at a small press expo and told him I enjoyed his book, but the Kindle version kept showing random Euro symbols throughout every couple of pages. He thanked me and asked me for my email address to update me on the correction. Two months later, he emailed me to tell me to redownload the book on my Kindle, the problem was fixed.
@Elie: That's awesome! Perhaps I should try writing to the author/publisher.
It is even a bigger issue for things that are perfect for e-book treatment, but need to updated frequently, like US tax code and regulations. Having updated copies of both frequently means getting new hard copies in whole (nine volumes currently), or maintaining something that looks like the most boring scrapbook ever.The other problem I have is that lack of standardized margin note-taking and the ability to share notes. It would be great to read other members’ comments on the book we’re reading as we read it. More importantly to the publishers, they could publish notes to go with books. Cliff Notes could finally be used for what they purport to be, a guide to assist the reader through an assigned work.
Well, Amazon does have Public Notes, but as you say, it's not standardized across e-readers.That brings up another issue, e-book editions are not standardized themselves. It's impossible to have standardized annotations without a standard e-book format, or at least a way to pinpoint a particular location in a given e-book edition.
Why do they never fix errors in e-books and release new editions? It should be a simple matter to go in and correct a typo or layout problem, and send out a new file, and have your e-Reader automatically download and apply a patch.
It seems like publishers just don't understand the format.
Most e-readers also have full text-entry capabilities. Why can't we crowdsource textual corrections and make them optional downloads? On the Kindle, we can already download crowdsourced annotations and highlights.
I have never, ever read a book, paper or electronic, that didn't have at least one error in it, but it doesn't have to be that way with e-books.
Thoughts? Am I totally nuts? I don't really know much about the publishing industry, but it doesn't seem like there are any technical barriers to my proposal.