Star Trek ebook improvement program?

[bfollowell]

Has anyone else noticed some newer versions of older Star Trek ebooks? I noticed that most, or at least many, of the Enterprise titles have been updated somewhat. They now have the "Thank you for purchasing this ebook, Please register" blurb at the front and back and have real or improved title pages. Several just had text built title pages rather than an actual title page image and most of those that did have an image seemed to be stretched and out of proportion. Most of these have been replaced. They look much better in my opinion. I can't say if anything has been done to the actual text but the fact that they're doing anything would be a positive sign in my opinion.

I can't say if all versions are getting these changes or if they will be staggered in later. So far I've noticed it on Enterprise books for the Kindle. I'll try to verify soon if Nook versions have gotten the same treatment.

- Byron

[Sho]

I'm immediately hoping that means we might see the Destiny omnibus as an ebook release finally when they get around to looking into improving the Destiny ebooks.

[Art Vandelay]

Sounds like great news. What I'd like fixed (in addition to the missing covers) are the chapter stops. Many older novels simply do not indicate them, so if you're planning on "just finishing this chapter" you can only guess when that might be.

Can I update the novels I already purchased to those newer versions?

[BritishSeaPower]

Interesting. I hope this is part of a larger roll out, as there are quite a few books that need the sprucing up. (Books in the same series - A Time To... - were wildly inconsistent with chapter stops, title pages, etc.) Maybe my complaining to Amazon about each book without chapters finally did something.

[Art Vandelay]

Come to think of it, some titles need serious proof-reading. I recently read the Kindle version of "A Stitch in Time", and the second half of the book mangled many words beyond recognition - some even beyond guesswork. Almost like they OCR'ed a physical copy of the book, and the ink was starting to run low. Quite unacceptable.

Another example is Voyager's "No Man's Land". Whenever a paragraph ended on a quotation mark, and the subsequent paragraph started with one, both were omitted. Whenever there was dialogue, the book got a tad confusing.

[bfollowell]

It seems to be ebooks before about 2006. I haven't seen anything published past 2005 that has been updated. I can verify that the ones I have found are available for the Kindle and the Nook so it looks like mobi and epub formats have been updated. Most seem to sport improved title pages and embedded fonts. Some, but not many have cover improvements. I'll list below the ones that I've been able to confirm have been updated. Of these series, none that are not listed have been updated.

- Byron


Enterprise ebooks:
Broken Bow
By the Book
Shockwave
What Price Honor?
Surak's Soul
The Expanse
Deadalus
Deadalus's Children
Rosetta

Corps of Engineers anthologies:
Book One: Have Tech, Will Travel
Book Two: Miracle Workers
Book Four, No Surrender
Book Five, Foundations
Book Six, Wildfire
Book Seven, Breakdowns

Strange New Worlds anthologies:
Strange New Worlds I
Strange New Worlds II
Strange New Worlds III
Strange New Worlds V
Strange New Worlds VI
Strange New Worlds VII
Strange New Worlds 8

Vanguard:
Harbinger

[Sho]

Meh, embedded fonts ... personally I prefer to override the CSS and use my user-set font anyway (reading Trek with Adobe Garamond Pro lately).

[JD]

Glad to hear that they are fixing them up. There have been several I've read where there were no skipped lines during a mid chapter scene change. There were several times I was reading what I thought was a continuing scene, and then halfway through the scene it turned out it had jumped ahead some time, but since we didn't get the break there was no way to know when the jump occurred.

[chrinFinity]

This kind of nonsense is part of the reason I stubbornly keep to paperbacks (despite being an early adopter of new technology in general).

[Jim Gamma]

Are they updating existing eBooks in line with this, or are they doing new "versions" that we have to re-buy if you want them? What I mean is, if I've got an older version of the eBook, will it automatically get the update?

[bfollowell]

Jim Gamma wrote:

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Are they updating existing eBooks in line with this, or are they doing new "versions" that we have to re-buy if you want them? What I mean is, if I've got an older version of the eBook, will it automatically get the update?

It's possible but I doubt they will just automatically update. I would think it more likely that you would get the new version if you deleted and then re-downloaded. I'm not certain thought.

- Byron

[Patrick O'Brien]

I hope they fix the typo's in the Errand of Vengeance series. Those books are great reads, but the editing was awful.

[BritishSeaPower]

Well, I bought (Rented!) Hollow Men and it has the new frontispiece with the "Thanks for Buying this eBook." I deleted/archived Articles of the Federation to see if that would download an "updated" copy. I redownloaded it and got the same copy of the book, sans chapter markers and with two very small cover images. Not sure if AoF wasn't updated yet or if the updates will be on new ones.

[KQuita]

Patrick O'Brien wrote:

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I hope they fix the typo's in the Errand of Vengeance series. Those books are great reads, but the editing was awful.

Seems they had trouble with names exchanging Karel and Kell freely when evident it was the other speaking.

[Patrick O'Brien]

KQuita wrote:

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Seems they had trouble with names exchanging Karel and Kell freely when evident it was the other speaking.

Yes, that was very distracting It is a testament to Kevin Ryan's writing that despite the poor editing the books are great Where the paperback copies as bad?