I'm rereading Stephen King's Firestarter, which I read once before about 31 years ago. (Damn, I'm getting old.) I lost my copy so I got the kindle version to read on my iPad. I've noticed some typos that I'm assuming were a result of OCR errors--'car' becomes 'can', no space between an italicized word and the following word--stuff like that.
I've seen other Kindleized old books with many more problems, but for some reason on Firestarter it annoys me more--it's a Stephen King book! From a major publisher!
OK, it's not a big deal, but is this common in digitized old books? Are they skimping on proofreading? Or would it just take took much proofreading to catch all these errors?
It's common in ebooks I've seen.
Yeah, I think they're running their old copy proofs through optical text readers to digitize them and not worrying about it. Just getting digital content out there.
Yeah, I think they're running their old copy proofs through optical text readers to digitize them and not worrying about it. Just getting digital content out there.
That makes sense. A simple spell-check would flag most cases where an italicized word and the following word have no space between them.
That makes sense. A simple spell-check would flag most cases where an italicized word and the following word have no space between them.
That's what bugs me! They tend to charge just as much as they would for a new book, but it's often a slap-dash job! (Though in some ways it bothers me less than the books that have issues with homophones that either an editor didn't catch or that never got edited at all...TAUGHT and TAUT are not the same thing!)
Another annoyance from the OCR job on Firestarter--when an ellipsis starts on the end of a line and ends on the next line.
The prices of newly created ebooks from old editions also annoys the heck out of me. It makes one contemplate other options that would appeal to Many Times Great-Grandpa Murat Reis (with apologies to the village of Baltimore in Ireland, whose inhabitants were captured and sold into slavery in Morocco by said Grandpa).
I actually have less issue with the prices for old books--if they came out before ebooks were around, then I can see that it would be work to get it all updated and electronic and so on. BUT, if all they're doing is scanning the thing with OCR...no. If they're actually doing a good job with it, then yes. Newer books it's more annoying--not like I think they should be free, or anything, but sometimes the prices on the paperback are CHEAPER than the ebook price, if there's a sale! Which is ridiculous.
My favorite OCR error is when the c and l get pushed together at the beginning of a word like "click".
Newer books it's more annoying--not like I think they should be free, or anything, but sometimes the prices on the paperback are CHEAPER than the ebook price, if there's a sale! Which is ridiculous.
Yes! I spent $18 (1) on a new ebook when my dad was in the hospital. The trade paperback was only a $1 more. It galled me, but since I was staying up all night, I decided I deserved a treat.
