The Sword and Laser discussion

I downloaded the eBook version from iBooks, and am enjoying the experience but every once in a while there are random words that have gaps in them... Persistent will instead be per sis tent. Is this in the print version too, or some kind of strange eBook phenomenon?

I think it's something with the e-version, the Kindle version had the same.

I believe they just scan in the books with computer and don't check them carefully. Robert J. Sawyer has blogged about it.

I had the same problem and have seen similar probems with the Kindle app on the iPad. Often I see three or four 'boxes' character which indicates that the character is not supported for text viewing. Think it's a general digital book problem.

I feel it's a problem with the workflow making the digital copy.

I actually have a theory on this: Copyright.
Remember how map companies would put fake roads or delete inconsequential roads on their maps, so that if someone copied it and sold the map as their own, the map-maker could easily identify the copy? Well, maybe publishers/distributors are putting these odd blanks/boxes between words to watermark them as their own. For example, book 'x' has a space between the second "anything" and the fifteenth "running". So then people couldn't take an ibook ebook file and try to upload and sell it themselves.
Amazon actually applied for a patent that would allow them to manipulate any digital text they held by replacing words with synonyms or deleting words.

That's my Nickel and Two Cents. Of course I could be wrong and it could just be bad formatting. :)

But the problem seems to be with only 5 words are so "per sis tent", etc. I think the patent was to hide three spaces in instead of two between certain words, or a single space, etc. This looks like every instance of those few words gets broken up.

I think it's more of a scan-in algorithm problem. How long until they'll crowd-source spelling fixes, then auto fix it in the next download (or next sync)?

I've seen this issue in a lot of books... I read almost all of my books on Kindle. Not sure what causes it.

Haven't they heard of spell check?

You haven't seen problems until you've read the Tom Clancy Jack Ryan books on the Kindle.

OMG the formatting and errors are just HORRIBLE!

I just wanted to state that I think this is a travesty. Reading in an electronic format does not mean I'm willing to sacrifice the quality of the original work. Boo!

Phew, thanks, I feel better now.

I can also confirm that the B&N version of the e-book has the same issues. It didn't bother me though, I got through the book in one day, even on my iPhone.

I do agree that they need better Q&A though. Tor is issuing the Wheel of Time ebooks with new covers, and they look very good. I'll probably buy them all (again) but I'd like to see the format shake out a bit, so I don't end up buying everything twice (again).

It definitely feels like a problem with the scanning process they're using, but here's what I don't get - don't most authors use computers these days? Don't they submit revisions to their publishers in some kind of machine-parsable text format, be it markdown, doc, rtf, or whatever? Don't the publishers then take these documents and send them to a dude somewhere to print up a bunch of copies? So why in the world are they scanning physical copies of books to produce content for the ebook stores instead of converting the file they're sending off to the printers directly? Is there a company that all the publishers use that offers cheap ebook conversion from a paper copy?

You would think they would just produce both simultaneously. I think it may be deliberate like some have said, but surely there are smoother ways to prevent copyright infringement. The synonym idea seemed smarter and less intrusive.

I work as an academic librarian and we're getting ready to promote our various eBook platforms on campus. It sounds like I may need to check to see if academic eBooks are doing the same things, so we can at least warn people (or be ready for complaints).

You would think that they would have the ebooks read, just like the galley proofs are reviewed. It's just one more thing for the format to work out.

Nook user here, and I've seen this issue as well on my eBook copy of Bitter Seeds. In addition to the 'per sis tent' fracturing, I also noticed that there were unnecessary hyphens. My guess is that whatever method was used for converting the print edition to digital had issues when a word is broken across lines.