Any idea what might be causing this corruption of a Kindle file?

[Loose rivets]

I sent my book in and it reads reasonably okay. However, on my (sample only) Chapter 3a, it is readable, but corrupted with the following:


ABe calm. Everything will be alright. * No, don = t struggle. * Lie back.@

A is not there. = is obviously ' and the @ is almost certainly "


Oh, blimey. Have I answered my own question? That's a UK keyboard isn't it? It doesn't quite pan out, but I just can't think how this has happened.

By the next chapter it's back to normal. They tell me my .docx file is wrong, but the one I sent is fine. All HTML and Kindle conversions at home worked okay. In uploading it to them, it went wrong for one chapter.

UK set. = is the same. @ that checks. don't is normal. Can't be the answer.



I won't know until tomorrow if the new upload is okay.

[mad_jock]

Well I have bought it and downloaded it but haven't started it yet.

Will let you know if I can see anything.

Although with my spelling and grammar its got to be pretty drastic before I spot it.

[Loose rivets]

Thanks, mj. The new upload should be active within 10 hours, and I think one can reload it. My pal in the uK will know.

Any problems let me know and I'll go back to their support.

[mad_jock]

see what you mean it will be some formatting screwing with the coding.

should be starting reading it some point next week

[Loose rivets]

Sent the new update with some small improvements to the front end last night. Still not showing as of 3pm UK time. Longer than the first upload!

Very stressful because of my impending travel. 9 days should be enough to smooth out the problems however.

Any problems, I'll make sure you have one of my KindleGen generated copies which seems to be working okay. That way I'll know you've got a complete book. Same for other forum members.

R

[OFSO]

TD: Mrs OFSO says she can't believe how many mistakes she finds on the hundreds* of books she downloads for her Kindle. "Don't the expletive deleteds ever bother checking the text ?"

*She travels abt 30,000kms a year on the train so her Kindle gets a good using.

** LR, PM me with details, I'll buy it ! Probably. Out of Mrs OFSO's housekeeping.

[Milo Minderbinder]

don't PM the details
Post them. So we can ALL read it

[Loose rivets]

Hi, OFSO. Yep, I don't mind keeping it open, in the hope it will help others.


My Ver 2 of "The Perfect Code" is running in Amazon Books for Kindle now, but the tedious Ch 3a - a one-pager for emphasis - is still showing @ = < etc., instead of punctuation marks. Nothing I can do will reveal hidden (perhaps old Word Perfect) code on the page, but when it arrives, they say they can see it in the Word .docx (doc compatibility) file. It is readable, but supposed to be a very meaningful statement. That's why it has a mini-chapter to itself.

I can even turn it into a .mobi file via HTML FILTERED and show it on Kindle for PC This is always perfect. Nowhere can I find the reason for that one page to carry the faults.

I have plucked that page out and inserted a clean page and typed in the text. It will be submitted today when I have had some more rest.

I've had about 3 hours after losing my Table of Contents last night. Along with other things, like a vital missing page break, I spent hours on just getting it right again - which included a chapter by chapter word count against my written logs. Nearly a quarter-million of them.

Last night I felt very distressed about this. I hate to let people down, and the days are running out before I have to leave for the UK. There I'll be very limited on computers and wi-fi. Very, very bad timing.

However, Kindle have said faulty books can be replaced. Bit of a long winded procedure, but doable.


Just one of the support replies:

Hello Rob,

I apologize for the inconvenience caused and I would love the opportunity to correct this for you.

You may save your Word file to your Documents folder or Desktop in Web Page, Filtered (*HTM & *HTML) (for PC) or Web Page (.htm) (for Mac) format. This format is best suited to build a successful eBook.

Once you reuploaded and republished the revised version, you may write back with the details of the corrections made and we can initiate the review process from our end to notify your customers.

Thanks for using Amazon KDP.

[MG23]

Originally Posted by OFSO

TD: Mrs OFSO says she can't believe how many mistakes she finds on the hundreds* of books she downloads for her Kindle. "Don't the expletive deleteds ever bother checking the text ?"

If you're talking about old trade-published books, it would appear not. Many publishers just seem to be OCR-ing the text and throwing it out there with minimal proofreading. I've seen complaints about e-books from well-known publishers with insane levels of typos making them almost unreadable.

But that doesn't really surprise me. Lately I've seen typos in the back cover blurb on trade-published paperbacks, so if they can't even get those couple of hundred words right they're unlikely to get the interior right.

[Loose rivets]

It's incredibly hard to achieve the old standards of proofreading. I guess people want modern money to read these days. A book the size of mine would cost thousands for a real professional to check.

As I've mentioned, after 4 very good readings I found a word missing in one sentence. Bewildering - until you think how easy it is to read text that has the middle letters jumbled. I scarcely notice the difference.

[MG23]

Originally Posted by Loose rivets

As I've mentioned, after 4 very good readings I found a word missing in one sentence. Bewildering - until you think how easy it is to read text that has the middle letters jumbled. I scarcely notice the difference.

One thing I've done in the past is to load it into a Kindle and enable text to speech; problems like that are far more obvious when I'm listening to the book than reading it.

[Loose rivets]

Funny old voice though, isn't it? You just get settled with the flow and then the inflection changes just at the wrong moment.

It's astonishing how good Dr Hawking's voice is. Kind of fascinating. When offered a much more scientifically accurate voice, it's said the professor declined. Everyone had become used to the one we know and stand poised to listen to.

I spent a week reading my text to myself - throwing myself into theatrical and dramatic renditions of the scenes. Went out to meet some people and could only croak a few strangled words.

It really did pick out some bloopers however.

[OFSO]

For many years I was head of a small section producing technical documentation: descriptive, specs., procedures, operations. etc.

The ladies who worked for me were excellent, really accurate, but even so you could be damn sure that typos would only surface AFTER printing. Typos that had been on the screen and unseen by them and me no matter how often we read the pages. Auto-correct by the brain, I am sure.

There are two ways around this: having a machine read the text aloud, and reading the document from back to front. Both time-consuming and hence expensive.

P.S. "The Perfect Code" - jolly good !

[MG23]

Originally Posted by Loose rivets

Funny old voice though, isn't it? You just get settled with the flow and then the inflection changes just at the wrong moment.

I think that helps, though; anything out of the ordinary really stands out in the cheap and cheerful voice they put on the Kindle.

[Loose rivets]

I gather the latest version of me book is being sent out. The Rivetess, isolated as she is in her distant den, looked for the version on her email so mine wouldn't pick up on the stored old one. (Deleting the book and using CCleaner makes no difference.) Within ten seconds she found I'd misspelled my (new) Dedication to Gene Roddenberry. Roddneberry is what I put.

Next ver I suppose. After all the bloopers are reported to me.

Actually, when you upload the book for the first time, Kindle spell-checks the incoming. It only reported made up 3 words like splish, and boomf. Plus it picked up on wrent for rent, as in asunder. That was it in 232,000 words . . . probably.

I wonder if it would have noticed Roddneberry. This (FF) speller is picking it out and offering the correct spelling. As is MS Word. Nice to be famous.

Huh, the British Office of National Statistics database does not list one.

[mad_jock]

Just finished it last week on holiday.

I found it an enjoyable read and value for money.

The girl friend is currently reading it. She is none aviation and normal doesn't read SF and is half way through so it can't be to bad.

Now get your finger out I want to find out what happens next.

O and there are a few typo's and missing " etc but no more than any other book I have had on kindle.

Well done mate.