What errors might exist in an ePub file?

Woollybear · Nov 6, 2019

I have been working with a formatter and it's a good experience. Formatting the print version of the book makes sense to me, and I re-read the book again after it was formatted to make certain there were no typos introduced (a few snuck in and another handful had been there all along).

She just finished a 'draft' of the e-pub file. She asked me to look over it.

I'm not sure what sorts of errors I should b on the lookout for. Everything is on the user to adjust font and so on, right? Am I supposed to scan for typos again?

What errors would you expect to see at the electronic stage of formatting (generating a mobi or epub file)?

sandree · Nov 6, 2019

I would look for alignment issues. Is the body copy justified all throughout? I found a few of those on mine. Do the chapters begin on the right hand page? They don’t have to but it is common in print books. Does the front matter and back matter look correct? Is anything missing? Do the paragraph breaks look ok? No weird sentences with words stretched out across the page?

Woollybear · Nov 6, 2019

That's helpful.

The chapter starts will all be continuous on the e-copy, though, correct?

I do notice the indents are feeling 'too-small.'

(By the way, I have not yet found a single typo in Seeds of Change.

For what it's worth. I want your editor's name!)

Woollybear · Nov 6, 2019

Hmmm. Yes, most of the right margin is ragged in the e-version, although some chunks are 'fill-justified.' (print version is fine, flush, fill justified.)

I don't read on kindle viewers (etc) preferring paper books instead. What is standard on an e-pub? Flush on both edges, or ragged right edge?

sandree · Nov 6, 2019

I think justified is usual for ebooks too. Even with an ebook, a chapter starts on a new page.

Funny about typos and Seeds of Change. I did have an editor and they proofread it also. I assumed that it was clean and published it. Then a reviewer called out a science error and I went back and rewrote that part, saw a typo and proofread the whole thing myself. There were typos, misspellings and format errors. I was horrified. Lesson learned - I will never trust anyone but myself to do a final proofread after everyone else is done.

cool pop · Nov 6, 2019

Friendly tip that will save you time and money in the future, learn to format yourself. It's not hard at all once you get the hang of it. There are plenty of free tools you can use to generate epubs. You can even use Draft2Digital and they will make a beautiful epub for you that you can use anywhere for free. You can make good epubs yourself with Calibre and other free tools. It is worth learning. I format my own books and it's easy peasy. All it takes is a little bit of learning. It's not as hard as you might think. If you are publishing wide (on retailers outside of Amazon) they all generate an epub for you. All you do is upload your document.

Also, a good thing about formatting yourself is if you run into any issues when you upload, you know how to fix them and not have to go track down some formatter who might be booked up or will charge you more money.

Woollybear · Nov 7, 2019

I think I will learn it down the road--I started doing so for this novel but there's a lot to get a handle on with the first book. Even learning the jargon was part of it. I was happy to hire someone so that my brain could be put toward all the other things. Marketing, for example. The options with kindle and what an ingram spark even is. How to get books into book stores and libraries.

Really steep learning curve, but I do expect to (probably) learn formatting down the road.

Hiring professionals does bring one huge benefit that I wouldn't have stumbled onto on my own--their artistic sensibilities and experience with things like 'which font do people prefer to read' and so on. I'm happy.

So -- Why is some of my text ragged in the kindle preview, but not all of it?

Al X. · Nov 8, 2019

It would be helpful to know what software you used to produce the print version.

What errors might exist in an ePub file?

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