Do you edit your eBooks?

[Aleron Ives]

People would still argue. You probably need to use the word "modify" to avoid anyone misinterpreting the word "edit" as "copy edit" in this context.

[Vaalberg]

No, that's a bit too much effort compared to what I would like to modify. I like my ebooks raw.

[Victoria]

I said no, but misunderstood the question. I would never change an author’s text, even to fix a misspelling. But I do import books in Calibre, and might add descriptions, fix formats, that sort of thing.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Victoria

I said no, but misunderstood the question. I would never change an author’s text, even to fix a misspelling. But I do import books in Calibre, and might add descriptions, fix formats, that sort of thing.

Changing the code of the book is not the same as changing the author's text.

[mikeayers]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Can you list some of the ones from here that do not start the chapters on a separate screen/page? Thanks.

here is one from 2022
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...t=past+masters

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What eBooks don't have chapters starting on a new page/screen? I've not seen this.

I've seen this with several poorly-formatted omnibus editions by self-published authors. Each book is an entire file. It tends to lag (and on rare occasions, entirely lock up) my Kobo.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I've seen this with several poorly-formatted omnibus editions by self-published authors. Each book is an entire file. It tends to lag (and on rare occasions, entirely lock up) my Kobo.

I've seen this on a couple of very indie books I've purchased.

[Jane Eyre]

Honestly, yes. I seldom rebuild them entirely. For instance, when chapters are in one single xhtml page o in a few pages...

[lumping-sugar66]

I yearn for the day I don't need to, but I almost always have to. It's a 50/50 between formatting and actual HTML content.

All my books come through Libby/Calibre. I usually edit the metadata to behave nicely, also sometimes change the cover to something I like. I wouldn't say I like seeing the characters depicted on the cover (don't even get me started on photographs), so that's usually the first thing I do.

There's almost always something wrong with the formatting: sometimes, the background color is hardcoded grey; sometimes, the chapter dividers need to be appropriately set; and sometimes, there are premature line breaks. These are often easy to catch and fix with a regex pattern, so retouching is almost always needed.

I often change or introduce chapter marks to my books. I like to draw my dividers based on the theme of the book and add them to my books; they're my personal touch.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Karellen

I guess we are trying to make a distinction between...

Incidental Changes - changes that happen automatically because you have tidied up some metadata which Calibre and Sigil then automatically flow into the ebook
and
Comprehensive editing - pre-planned changes that affect the structure, layout, look and feel of the book by adjusting css, xml tags, tables, lists etc etc

And I am assuming that editing the ebook, does not mean editing the story text. For me that is a no-no, except to fix typ-o's.

I do edit the text sometimes. I remove spaces around em-dashes and around ellipses. I don't like the spaces.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I don't think so. Anything calibre can update with 'edit metadata' doesn't count as editing the ebook. There's a reason there is a second button called 'edit book'

That's how I see it anyway.

I agree.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Victoria

I said no, but misunderstood the question. I would never change an author’s text, even to fix a misspelling. But I do import books in Calibre, and might add descriptions, fix formats, that sort of thing.

A misspelling may not be the author's text. I've seen some eBooks that were scanned and OCRed and had errors because the people making the eBook did not bother to properly check for errors. The errors were not the author's text.

Also, I've read in some cases where the author mentioned a mistake in the text and I was then able to go and fix it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mikeayers

here is one from 2022
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...t=past+masters

I've just had a look at the code. It really does need (IMHO) cleaning up.

[mikeayers]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've just had a look at the code. It really does need (IMHO) cleaning up.

I have to admit that the main reason I edit books like these is just to keep my reg-ex skills up... I could read them with out the changes I do just fine....

[aborh]

If it's a book that I love, I will make notes of typos (which irritate me, especially in ebooks I paid for), and go back to my original in Calibre and fix them for when I want to reread them.

If it's one of the marvelous books available from Standardebooks.org, I will email them and the errors will be fixed within a few days. Standardebooks.org is a great organization and they rightfully take a good deal of pride in producing ebooks which are a joy to read.