Errors in Kindle books - why so many?

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Geektastic

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#242806 15-Nov-2018 09:48

I have noticed that there are often a lot of errors in grammar, spelling and homophones in Kindle books.

I presume Kindle text begins life in a word processor, as does almost every print book. This means the text has the advantage of Spellcheck, Grammarly and so forth.

How do so many errors slip through in Kindle that are not found in print?

xpd

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#2127005 15-Nov-2018 09:54

I've noticed that as well, including repeats of pages/paragraphs. For the price Im paying for some of the books compared to hard copies though, I put up with it.

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#2127080 15-Nov-2018 10:58

I'm guessing some sort of low cost transcription service is used or some sort of OCR type scanning.

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#2127102 15-Nov-2018 11:29

Can't say I've noticed an abundance of errors, but you can always highlight a word and the context menu will have an option to report an error.

TwoSeven

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#2127118 15-Nov-2018 11:58

Geektastic:
I have noticed that there are often a lot of errors in grammar, spelling and homophones in Kindle books.

I presume Kindle text begins life in a word processor, as does almost every print book. This means the text has the advantage of Spellcheck, Grammarly and so forth.

How do so many errors slip through in Kindle that are not found in print?

I understand Kindle books can be self published, which means they may not have been through the normal process of being edited.

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#2127173 15-Nov-2018 13:34

TwoSeven:
Geektastic:

I have noticed that there are often a lot of errors in grammar, spelling and homophones in Kindle books.

I presume Kindle text begins life in a word processor, as does almost every print book. This means the text has the advantage of Spellcheck, Grammarly and so forth.

How do so many errors slip through in Kindle that are not found in print?

I understand Kindle books can be self published, which means they may not have been through the normal process of being edited.

Yes, this. I have only noticed it on books that have been self published. I imagine writing a 300 page document it's reasonable to have a few typos - especially if you don't have a whole team of editors & proofers.

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#2127187 15-Nov-2018 14:01

Real books these days also have a high error count.

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FineWine

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#2127422 15-Nov-2018 18:38

Also Amazon Kindle use their own E format called "AZW3" to publish in so you need a converter program like Calibre.

Whether the errors occur during conversion, don't know but I do know that people rely to heavily on spell and grammar checkers these days. But basically kids are not taught proper spelling, grammar, syntax, sentence structure or just basic rules of the English language which after all is one of the, if not the, most bastardised language on the planet.

Whilst the difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer. However, miracles you will have to wait for.

DarthKermit

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#2127423 15-Nov-2018 18:47

Because proof readers are a critically endangered species.

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#2127436 15-Nov-2018 18:54

DarthKermit: Because proof readers are a critically endangered species.

Yes but if you read the "Forwards" or "Intro's" they all thank their family and/or friends for proof reading, what does that say ?

Whilst the difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer. However, miracles you will have to wait for.

DarthKermit

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#2127551 15-Nov-2018 21:28

It says they mostly suck at proof reading.

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#2128044 16-Nov-2018 16:25

Lack of proofing is definitely an issue, but the amount of errors in books I have read on my kindle recently bothers me, even for books that do not appear to be self-published.
My job involves knowing the difference between loose/lose and its/it's, etc., and at times, primary school-level errors like these are grating. Mind you, I'm the type who develops a twitch when a document has a double space between words somewhere on the page, or when it uses an en-dash when an em-dash is required, so I don't think I'm the norm :p

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#2128144 16-Nov-2018 19:34

I read kindle books exclusive, I rarely notice anything like this.

Geektastic

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#2128302 17-Nov-2018 08:43

Gurezaemon:
Lack of proofing is definitely an issue, but the amount of errors in books I have read on my kindle recently bothers me, even for books that do not appear to be self-published.
My job involves knowing the difference between loose/lose and its/it's, etc., and at times, primary school-level errors like these are grating. Mind you, I'm the type who develops a twitch when a document has a double space between words somewhere on the page, or when it uses an en-dash when an em-dash is required, so I don't think I'm the norm :p

I'm like that. Maybe I should be a proof reader!