There are few things, if any, readers hate more than
a badly formatted ebook.
And oh yeah, one other thing I wanted to post about today: my current levels of frustration with
badly formatted ebooks.
Not exact matches
Whether you publish your book in hard back, paperback, or in one of the many
eBook formats currently available, unless you take more care, it won't be long before you become ignored as a writer, or
worse, totally forgotten.
Also, as an FYI, as a power - consumer of
ebooks, the
WORST formatted ones, with arbitrary pages of space between paragraphs, etc, are from the major houses, which presumably (but not necessarily) have dedicated html people.
I'm guessing it wouldn't), it's good to see publishers experimenting with the
ebook format, which should be more than a
badly formatted PDF.
Unfortunately, the book we downloaded (published by Random House
eBooks) was
badly formatted with words being concatenated on average every paragraph.
Ebooks use the same type of code structure for
formatting, so she'd know when code was
bad or not needed because she's lived and breathed this stuff.
Yesterday I had that experience when I read an article contending that proprietary
eBook formats are good rather than
bad, and that while «someday» we may have a truly interoperable
eBook format, for now we should just sit back and appreciate proprietary
formats in this area.
Bad book
formatting, especially in
eBooks, is a becoming a big problem.
Google Books are up there with the
worst of
ebook formats.
Many
ebooks might
badly formatted.
I thought it was
bad merely having ALL
formats of Macmillan books» buy buttons removed — print versions as well as
ebook version.
Bad formatting marks you an amateur and drives readers away, and Word is notorious for inserting tons of special characters invisible while in that program but glaringly obvious when converted to
ebook format.
Some of the
worst formatted and most expensive
eBooks I've purchased have been from Big 5 publishers.
As if that's not
bad enough a lot of the time
ebooks that you spend good money on are horribly
formatted by the author or publisher, and if the
ebook has DRM there's not much you can do about it.
Bad spacing, words appearing at random, graphics overlaying text, whole chapters bolded and italicized... You name it, it could go wrong in
eBook formatting.
The essence of our statement was that close to 75 % of all pirates
ebooks suffer from
badly formatted books, spelling mistakes, scanned books and other factors that contribute to most books easily found as unreadable on most e-readers.
Please be aware that not all platforms display special layouts and features by default; Amazon / Kindle is the
worst in this area because of the limits inherent in its outdated MOBI
ebook format.
You need to crunch your numbers, including the fact that traditionally published books sell very well in places other than Amazon and in
formats other than
ebooks, while self - published genre fiction still faces the same (or
worse) uphill battle that it always did.
Bad formatting, especially in an
eBook where page endings and special
formatting does not exist (again as I write this, the rules are changing faster than I can type this article — the EPUB
format, for example) dramatically affects the experience for the reader.
This ongoing series of essays on the craft of writing will include all topics related to writing fiction, including: The Basics Plot & Structure Voice Theme POV Characterization Dialogue Narrative Creating a bond with your reader Pacing Advanced writing and plotting techniques Writer's block Marketing Branding Publishing Self - publishing Healthy habits
Bad habits The Writer's Life
eBook formatting Paperback
formatting Amazon keywords Writing blurbs and descriptions Cover design & layout Productivity The Classics Short stories Poetry The Writing Process Show don't Tell Self - editing Proofreading Building a solid career Targeting a specific genre Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Sharpening your writing skills Making every word count Deadlines Putting together an Anthology Working with other artists Collaborating Grammar Punctuation Writing for a career Treating it as a business Running a small press Financing your career Keeping track of your royalties Staying motivated Writing movies Writing comics Writing games Building a fan - base Online presence Newsletters Podcasting Author interviews Media appearances Websites Blogging And so much more... Are you ready to be called an author?
Yes, children's
ebook are harder to sell than adult stuff, but my middle - grade «Goblin Brothers» do sell a few copies here and there, and that
ebook is a short story collection, a
format which seems to do
worse than individual short stories (how odd, huh?)
And another reviewer seemed to be mimicking the
bad formatting you'd experience if you tried to read the
ebook, by adding lots of unnecessary extra line breaks!
The actual implementation of KFX is being handled on Amazon's server backend, which means no extra
formatting is required in actual
eBooks and not tools are currently required, though that is most definitely likely to change because it makes the creation and evaluation of content a tedium at best and a nightmare at
worst.
Or
worse yet have actual readers become vocal naysayers because they couldn't get past a poorly
formatted eBook.