I just want to say that S&S is getting worse and worse and while I can sort out their mess, I should not have to. The CSS is a real mess. The fonts are really badly embedded and without fixing them, the CSS doesn't work properly and the formatting is way off. Yet another blunder by S&S. I hate to say this, but I do feel that the author's should learn about the eBook formats and also give their eBooks a look over and a read. I know the authors should not have to do this, but since S&S won't, somebody should. Looking at the original ePub, it just looks a mess. The cover is running slightly off the bottom of the screen. The paragraphs have no indent. There is a huge space between the paragraphs. It is not supposed to look like this. It's actually supposed to look nice with different fonts and indents and proper spacing. But it looks bad because S&S botched it. Have any of the author's actually said anything to S&S about the quality of their eBooks and how poor they are? Your name is on this and while it is S&S who are to blame for the mess, you do get some of the blame too for allowing S&S to make such a botch job. Anyway, I did fix this and it looks very nice. I just hope the authors who read this will complain to S&S and try to do what they can to get S&S to release quality eBooks. I cannot speak for the Kindle version. But on just doing a straight conversion of the ePub (without changes), it should look OK with a few formatting mistakes here and there, but quite readable. All I can say is that if you buy the ePub version, you will be seriously disappointed in the reading experience.
I bought Q-Squared a few weeks ago and was surprised at all the typos in that sucker. I let it go though. I just plain loved the book. NY is still getting the whole ebook business figured out and I trust that they'll go back and correct their mistakes in time.
Just had a quick look at the kindle version. It looks ok. Paragraphs or indented. Prefer a space but indentation is fine. Haven't looked in detail but looks readable. Still reading unworthy so won't get onto this for a day or so.
S&S used to make really good Star Trek eBooks. So yes, they know how to do it. This was back before ePub and back when MS Reader was the format to buy. They were formatted well and the content wasn't full of mistakes not in the source. These mistakes S&S are making now is something that actually looking at the ePub and someone actually reading it at least once will get 99% of the problems. So no, it's not growing pains. It's a botch job on top of pure laziness. I figured the Kindle version would be mostly OK based on my quick conversion from the ePub to Mobipocket. But some of the headers are bold where they should not be. I didn't take that detailed a look at it. But overall it looked readable enough. Can't say what sort of textual errors there are until after I've given it a read.
Kindle version is actually pretty good this time. A few extra lines and none where there should be, but nothing as bad as I've found in previous books. The italics are there, it's better than it has been.
Bought mine from B&N, loaded it into iBooks, and it looks fine, from a cursory glance. The indenting and paragraph spacing look correct on my iPhone.
I just downloaded the free sample from B&N and the formatting is pretty bad. Everything starts at the top left corner even the cover, title and opening historian's note and quote, there no indents at the beginnings of paragraphs, and there extra blank lines between paragraphs. It's still readable to me, but it is certainly annoying.
It sounds like it depends on what software you're using, maybe. Like it's optimized for certain eBook readers and doesn't work as well on others -- like the trouble I sometimes have loading web pages with Opera instead of Firefox or IE.
iBooks ignores font handling unless you do something non-standard with it. Try looking at it in ADE and see the mess it really is. But if you'd like to get fonts to work in iBooks, I can send you the two files needed and the directions. Just PM me with an email address and I can do that. It's not an issue of the reader software. The CSS is just a real mess. I'm going to put up a fixed up CSS and you can put that in the sample from B&N (sample's have no DRM) and see how it i supposed to look.
I'm reading it on my HD2 with the B&N app, looks fine so far after about a third of the book, not to mention enjoying the hell out of it.
So you say, but there are a lot of other posters in this thread saying that it looks okay to them. If it's not the reader software, how do you explain that?
Go to B&N and download the free sample. Download the fixed stylesheet from http://home.comcast.net/~jwolf42/9781451607222.zip. Then you can put this stylesheet in place of the other one. It will work well enough for the sample. I did have to make some changes here and there in some of the XML files. So don't worry if it isn't 100%. It will be good enough to get the idea. An eBook is a real book. It's just in a different container. It's just poorly put together. But at least I know what I am doing to be able to fix things.
Being curious, I loaded the book in the iPhone nook app, and I see the issues that people are talking about there - no paragraph indent, spacing between paragraphs, etc. Since it formatting fine in iBooks, I have to assume that the CSS is there, but isn't being read correctly by some readers. Personally, I like the fact that everything I read has the font I've chosen, rather than what the publisher has chosen for the book. I even recently edited Clash of Kings to get rid of the embedded font, which was pixelated and difficult to read
The problems are mostly in the CSS. iBooks is ignoring the font handling code because in order to turn it on, you have to do something non-standard in the ePub. Actually, once I've fixed the ePub, it looks pretty good. S&S had a good idea for how it should look. The execution is what is pretty poor. One thing I am not yet sure of (have not tried it yet) is if you can pick a different font in iBooks to override the embedded font. I'll give it a go maybe tonight or tomorrow. As for the embedded font being pixelated in Clash of Kings, I know that font and it's not pixelated. It's the iPad. On my 650 (Sony Reader), that font looks fine. It's the lower DPI of the iPad that is causing the problem. I read the book Unbroken and it has a number of photos (not in color) and I started the book on the iPad and I used both iBooks and Bluefire Reader to look at these photos and they looked clearer and sharper on the 650 (Pearl eink screen) compared to the iPad.
Here is the way it comes without any editing. This is after editing. The margins are mine as I prefer no margins for reading with my 650.
You must be dreaming! You think once S&S gets your money they care enough to fix their product? Not a chance! Sorry to hear about further epub problems. Glad I bought the paperback! Kevin
I have never once heard of anyone (myself included) of getting any email saying that their purchased Star Trek eBoch has been fixed and can be redownloaded.
Exactly that happened to me a few years ago, when I had trouble with Titan: Synthesis. That was back when I was reading eReader format, and complained to the eReader site. In about a week, they emailed me back and told me to re-download, and one of the problems I had with the book was fixed. Others, which I had also complained about, were still there, but were far less important than the one that had been fixed.
Authors only get that kind of blame from people who don't understand that authors have nothing at all to do with ebook production, and that their editors have nothing to do with ebook production. Considering how many times you've been told that, you really should know better by now. To say the authors "allow" this to happen is bullshit, and you've been told that before. You're blaming the wrong people. You're complaining to the wrong people. No matter how long you keep it up you won't get the results you want because you are complaining to people who have no power in this situation. Hell, how is blaming them, even in part, going to motivate them to do something for you that you already know they can't do? What's the point?