Threw my head back and vomited

[Admiral Rex]

I'm not familiar of any editing options on the Kindle either. However, I would never edit the words of an author. I see no reason to do so.

Everything that is being discussed here has been going on with the Bible for hundreds of years. So authors should take the editing of their works as a compliment. Your novels are being treated like the Bible.

 

[Relayer1]

I think you guys are falling for a troll. It isn't an overly simple process, I doubt most people would make the effort any more than most people would edit a book they would buy at the store with white out.

I certainly don't approve of changing an authors work, but I've got something on my reader with a misspelling. How do you correct Kindle errors ?

You would have to use something to strip out the DRM, then something to convert it to HTML or RTF or whatever, make your changes, then you would convert it to MOBI (which is the Kindle format). From there, you upload it or email it to your Kindle. Like I said, not a simple process, especially if you are doing it to correct one or two spelling errors.

Is it moral? Well, if you are correcting typos then whatever, but who is going to go to this effort to correct a typo? If you are altering the book in a more significant way, then no it is not moral, but that is why copyright has a no derivatives clause and the publishers should go after people distributing altered work to the full extant of the law.

This wouldn't be a new event, things like Grimm's Fairy Tales were not created out of thin air, and how many people think they know the story of Aladdin or the Hunchback of Notre Dame because they saw the Disney movie?

Stripping DRM is illegal and we would never do that.

I just plain couldn't be bothered...it's not worth the effort !

That said, I have never read ANYTHING from David Mack that I didn't love.

Zero Sum Game ?

 

[Ben Sisko]

I think you guys are falling for a troll. It isn't an overly simple process...

I could have sworn the version of the kindle that comes with a built-in keyboard has a find and replace function. I could be wrong, it's been a while since I played with one of those.

Kudos to the OP for a great thread title.

I really didn't intend for this thread to de rail like this. I just hate the Klag throwing his head back over and over and over across multiple books.

 

[Christopher]

I just hate the Klag throwing his head back over and over and over across multiple books.

Why? It seems the sort of thing he'd do.

 

[Ben Sisko]

I just hate the Klag throwing his head back over and over and over across multiple books.

Why? It seems the sort of thing he'd do.

Considering he didn't do it in Matter of Honor I am dubius. The only time I saw a Klingo throw his head back and laugh was Worf at the beginning of Yesterday's Enterprise.

 

[Therin of Andor]

When do Kindle readers find an opportunity to reread a book, to even not notice that the spelling has already been corrected for their second or third run-through? My pile of unread books threatens to keep growing, and to stay unread until I die. Or, at least, until I retire.

 

[zarkon]

Not difficult, I have a one hour commute either way & a 45 min lunch so oftentimes find myself reading a book a day.

I've reread some of my favourites dozens of times when I'm waiting for new books to be delivered.

 

[Sho]

This thread is quite and eye-opener. I had no idea these "kindle" things allowed for a literature version of game haxx.

Just in the interest of providing technical information: The most common ebook formats right now usually use a subset or derivative of the HTML language to encode the book text. This is the same language used for websites, and relatively easy to write and modify by hand, or using any of a number of tools to ease the process.

However, most ebook files you can buy today - including those you buy from Amazon for download to an Amazon Kindle device - come in a sense shrinkwrapped in "DRM" (Digital Rights Management), that is encryption-based technology that strives to limit and control what the customer can do once the file is in their posession. Preventing editing is not the primary goal there, but rather limiting the devices a book can be read on, preventing multiplication, et cetera. But it does prevent editing as well, and therefore Kindle devices don't have editing features.

DRM is usually relatively easily circumvented/removed for anyone with modest technical skill, however whether doing so is legal or not varies from country to country (distributing the result however more or less invariably is not, of course). It should be said that people who remove DRM often don't do it with malicious intent, but for morally legitimate reasons such as being able to read a book on their preferred device which is not compatible with the DRM in question. And also that DRM is often used by publishers and vendors not in the interest of protecting author's rights, but to lock customers into their service. And that DRM often carries the risk of making already-purchased books hard or impossible to use legally (that is, if removing the DRM is illegal in your country) after the vendor has gone out of business.

However, many currently expect that DRM for ebooks is on the way out, mirroring developments in the downloadable music market (where DRM used to be par for the course as well, but now DRM-free music has become rather more the norm). Tor Books recently announced that their entire catalog would go DRM-free soon, and this is a pertinent example because it applies to the upcoming Only Superhuman written by Christopher and edited by Greg Cox. Unfortunately this is happening not because publishers suddenly have the interest of their customers at heart, but because they seek to break with the monopsony Amazon has built - but who cares as long as it's happening.

 

[Christopher]

Tor Books recently announced that their entire catalog would go DRM-free soon, and this is a pertinent example because it applies to the upcoming Only Superhuman written by Christopher and edited by Greg Cox.

Not to mention other Tor titles edited by Greg or by Marco Palmieri, some of which were mentioned at the Tor panel at Shore Leave recently. And two upcoming novels co-written by Larry Niven, who's of interest to Trek audiences from his work on the animated series and the LA Times Syndicate comic strip: Bowl of Heaven with Gregory Benford (about a megastructure that's a cross between a Ringworld and half a Dyson shell) and Fate of Worlds with Edward M. Lerner (the finale to their Fleet of Worlds series and the Ringworld series).

Unfortunately this is happening not because publishers suddenly have the interest of their customers at heart, but because they seek to break with the monopsony Amazon has built - but who cares as long as it's happening.

"Monopsony?" That's a new word for me. Wikipedia says it's basically the opposite of a monopoly -- one buyer facing many sellers, instead of many buyers having to deal with only one seller. I'm not sure how you're using it here, though. Do you mean that Amazon is the one "buyer" that all the publishers have to sell through? I'm not sure how that fits the definition.

 

[Sho]

"Monopsony?" That's a new word for me. Wikipedia says it's basically the opposite of a monopoly -- one buyer facing many sellers, instead of many buyers having to deal with only one seller. I'm not sure how you're using it here, though. Do you mean that Amazon is the one "buyer" that all the publishers have to sell through? I'm not sure how that fits the definition.

I was channeling Charles Stross there, a fellow Tor author who published an interesting take on Amazon's strategy a while back, and the reaction he expects from publishers: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/04/understanding-amazons-strategy.html

And the peculiar evil genius of Amazon is that Amazon seems to be trying to simultaneously establish a wholesale monopsony and a retail monopoly in the ebook sector.

And there's more in there which explains his use of the term.

An interesting read, and also this follow-up which quotes a letter he wrote to the Tor/Macmillan executives after he was asked internally to weigh in on their DRM policy: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/04/more-on-drm-and-ebooks.html

 

[Thrawn]

Not to mention other Tor titles edited by Greg or by Marco Palmieri...

Is there any way to learn which upcoming titles are Marco-edited? I thought he really had a magic touch with Trek, and I want to see what he does with other authors and stories, but there doesn't seem to be any way to do this. He said he might post some of them on his blog, but hasn't.

 

[Christopher]

Is there any way to learn which upcoming titles are Marco-edited?

Greg would know better than I would. But I'd assume it wouldn't be until 2013 that we'd get to see any books acquired/shepherded by Marco, since he only joined Tor a few months after Only Superhuman was acquired.

 

[Romulus Prime]

I just hate the Klag throwing his head back over and over and over across multiple books.

Why? It seems the sort of thing he'd do.

Considering he didn't do it in Matter of Honor I am dubius. The only time I saw a Klingo throw his head back and laugh was Worf at the beginning of Yesterday's Enterprise.

You need to watch many more Klingon shows then. Gowron, for example, does quite a bit of laughing when he's in good spirits.



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<info>

Thank you for posting that. While I have no plans to ever own anything like a kindle, it's still something worth learning about.

 

[Sho]

^ Ironically, I don't plan on buying a Kindle either. Disliking Amazon's DRM strategy aside, I don't like e-ink screens (I often read at night, so a screen that needs an external light source is inconvenient, and the slow refresh drives me nuts) and I find it inconvenient to have to put up with an extra device just for reading. I think it's better to have a single, more general-purpose device. That also lets me use my own/modified software for reading. Right now, the Nexus 7 is really attractive ...

 

[ATimson]

Is there any way to learn which upcoming titles are Marco-edited?

There may be a more convenient way that I'm not aware of, but Tor generally puts the editor on the copyright page.

 

[spot_loves_data]

I really didn't intend for this thread to de rail like this. I just hate the Klag throwing his head back over and over and over across multiple books.

I know exactly what you mean. An over-used phrase is like a verbal tic. It's distracting and irritating.

Maybe this isn't the sort of thing that bothers many people, but I think the phrase "threw his head back and laughed" should only be used twice (at most) in a single novel. Any more than that and I'd cringe at the repetition and start wondering about the author. It's not that this Klingon guy can't continue to have a good chuckle, but he should "let out a booming laugh" or "fill the room with the sound of his barking laugh as he tossed back his head" or something, anything else.

 

[Sho]

FWIW, I kind of enjoyed the derailing of the thread .

 

[MatthiasRussell]

I really didn't intend for this thread to de rail like this. I just hate the Klag throwing his head back over and over and over across multiple books.

Runaway train never going back. Wrong way on a one way track. Seems like I should be getting somewhere. Somehow I'm neither here nor there.

 

[chrinFinity]

The Harry Potter series is a lot funnier if you replace all occurences of the word "wand" with "wang."

 

[Sho]

That's a classic internet thing, aye: http://www.bash.org/?111338