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"Mrs. Y, you are a crazy woman. No one needs to worry about the state of the e-book world."
Thanks, inner doubt, but I'm not crazy at all, I am actually trying to help everyone out there who is working to get reviews.
Edit: The reason I'm even mentioning this issue is that a lot of independent writers struggle with getting enough reviews on Amazon to get the algorithm to work. To compound that problem, not enough reviewers are even aware of the cost the author goes through to give free books and free copies of e-books away for ARC reviews. Additionally, some of the ARC copies become the final draft of the regular public read. So by giving this information out, I am hoping to accomplish two things.
1. Help authors to get better reviews based on the content of their work and not the flubs of that happen in an electronic world between the final draft and published copy.
2. To ensure that the final copy the view public receives is a beautiful and acceptable copy that will ensure the only thing the people are going to judge the book by is the merits of the writing.
In the last couple of weeks, I've been honored with some wonderful writers allowing me to review their works. I might add, I'm always grateful for any attempt to further reading opportunities by sending out a review, and I have been given some great things to read, all of which were mobi copies. I can read them wherever I go and enjoy them. Yet, I noticed a few things about those ARC's and that is an inconsistency issue.
Hear me out, this will make sense in a moment. I am on Twitter regularly, and my fellow writing friends are continually pouring their love and souls into their works in progress, or #wip on Twitter. They bare their souls out into a manuscript, then spent endless hours editing and loving on drafts that with care and precision are put together. Beta readers scrub and tirelessly work on the loopholes and plot points only to make them better.
And yet, despite all of this work, when it is uploaded to make a mobi copy, what a reviewer may get may not be nearly as good as the best version of the manuscript. Why? That makes no sense right? All that work that the author put into the piece, but somehow it's not as good on mobi? The problem my friends likes in file formatting.
Here are a few examples of common mobi issues I've encountered.
1. Text formatting.
Justified text that is more stretched out than the worst plastic surgery ever did to anyone.
2. Disappearing words in the middle of a sentence, only to start the next page where it should have been later.
For example:
Billy went to the store and bought
(end of current page)
(top of next page)
As Billy cradled the dying body of his wife in the parking lot of the store, he cried in sorrow and cursed those around him for not doing more to stop the killer.
Do you see how jarring that is? This happened on two different books that I've read. At first, I thought it was one copy, and I talked to the writer about it, but when I saw it on a different work entirely and tested it on two different Kindles, I realized it had to be some file error.
And number 3. My all-time favorite Mobi error, no page spaces between chapters, and the reason it's my favorite are that it leaves me intrigued and probably is a sign of spacing problems.
Imagine this is one page on your e-reader for a moment.
Elsie pondered what other things they could do.
Chapter 3 - Elsie goes to the Dairy
Elsie spent the next week...
All three of these things happen pretty consistently if just uploaded and not checked, some more frequent than others, and all three are easy to fix. In one case it's a spacing issue. In another example, it has to do with the page breaks. The last one is a mix of page breaks or trouble with the file itself having some sort of corruption in the upload.
I also know it's directly related to the mobi copy, because, on occasion, authors send me mobi and a pdf. That spacing error for example with the chapters is not found in the PDF most times.
I've done a little research into figuring out the cause of some of the issues, but ultimately it comes down to some formatting choices when setting to mobi. It's not always an easy fix either, in some cases it takes page by page reviewing the manuscript to find these things.
Edit: To help I did even more research, and if you are using Amazon to update and create your copy of the mobi, here is an excellent page for the tools and resources with Kindle Direct Publishing.
But is it worth it to review and make sure that this is fixed ahead of time?
Yes.
Going back to what I said above, formatting on a file has nothing to do with how good your book actually is. Page breaks also have nothing to do with how well you wrote your book. So please, do not let those little things get in the way of someone who doesn't know that it has nothing to do with how hard you worked, nor actually cares enough to figure it out.
I happen to care. I'm a rare individual indeed, but as a reviewer, I do care about what authors and writers put into their creation. That said, I also care about making sure the public can enjoy what they are reading and know what is involved good or bad.
One of the reasons that I put weight in my scoring based on manuscript structure, grammar, and overall appearance, is because most people love the aesthetics. I didn't use to care a fig about it by the way.
Regarding presentation to your books though, another reviewer I talk with occasionally, pointed out something that has stuck with me. People eat with their eyes, people read when book covers attract them, and people buy cars that look pretty. So if someone is going to read a book with a pretty cover, then the writing had better be beautiful to look at also, or they will stop reading it.
Thus, if the presentation is necessary to get a win on Iron Chef, why wouldn't presentation be considered with reading an e-book?
Now most of the time depending on what the author uses to publish the book on the e-reader they can fix and prevent most of this, but let's say hypothetically that does not happen. Whatever you do, do not panic.
Before you let out any of your little e-copy babies into the reviewing world to be checked by a reviewer, make sure you test it. Check your Kindle, check with your beta readers to have them look too. Look for those things before you send it out.
If it turns out someone finds it after, again don't panic. Fix it and talk to people. Find out whatever was said in the review either by asking the reviewer, or checking it out yourself. I am not sure how all reviewers are, but I for one am delighted to help any author know what is happening ahead of time. If you were kind enough to ask me to read your baby ahead of time and give an honest review, please know that I'm a good babysitter and I will tell you what is going on probably before I finish the review.
I may ask you in a DM "Hey did you intend for your book to have bold print every other sentence?" because that has happened. If you did, great! I can review that. If you did not intend on making the text look like it did, then that is also great! I can help you out and anyone else who reads your book.
But I am not a beta reader. I am a reviewer, and while I am a nice person, not everyone who reviews is. So keep that in mind.
In the end, this is basically me sending out a public service message to my writing friends and confidants. I review because I love books, and I want anyone who writes a book to have a fair shake at selling it. Not all reviewers do that, so listen to this nice one, check your mobi copy before you send it out.
But, that's my opinion guys. What do you think?
Do you think I'm silly by pointing this out?
Do you think maybe that others were harsh over this kind of thing in a review?
Tell me your thoughts in the comments down below and, as I always hope, thank you for reading this. I look forward to any and all thoughts and opinions.
With much love,
Mrs. Y
