Regarding missing/modified titles from Amazon
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@Timmaaah They're not defective, that would imply they didn't come out the way the publisher intended, and it's not like they're missing content either. Ultimately what it comes down to is probably time savings. By maintaining the same image location on all editions, it means that any corrections would be made in the exact same place on all versions as well. If you start having versions that have different image placement, a correction would then be made at a different spot in the file.
The main reason for images at the front is due to how publishing novels work when they're printed physically as well as a sales method for people who pick up one up and flip through the first few pages before deciding if they want to buy it or not. None of this really applies to ebooks. The only real reason to do that way in an ebook is because that's how Japan does it and they're probably only doing it that way because they want the ebook to line up with the print editions.
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@Timmaaah said in Regarding missing titles from Amazon:
@Village-Idiot Lets not over exaggerate here, it takes more than 5 seconds per book. It takes about 1-2 mins per book to go through the process of opening the book to see if it need fixing, to fixing it, to saving it, and then uploading it.
Also I'm not complaining about the time it takes to fix it, but the fact that as a customer I have to fix a product that I buy that is already defective. It also means that I can't do this when I'm out and about like I used to, or when I'm at work since I don't have the software installed on my work computer. I have to wait until I get home, and the ebooks release about 3-4pm on release days.
It is not as simple as "it's just 5 seconds"...For me the part that I don't understand is that the JNC edition is already different to every other edition that is published because of the premium content. So I don't know why it also requires to have the images at the back since it doesn't get sent to the other platforms.
YES IT SUCKS . but I as verified; the deletion (and required re-insertion) of images only applies to kindle editions. You don't need to go through any steps. Buy them elsewhere (i.e. JNC directly, or google books) You don't need to "fix" premium epubs (the images were never deleted from those). Kindle/MOBI versions of EVERYTHING are 'broken" to some extent. Formatted the way amazon wants, resolution (low) of images the way amazon wants, DRM, etc. If you are already jumping thru hoops (calibre?) to be able to have the files in google books vs the kindle app; I believe the bigger concern is: why jump thru hoops at all? The only e-books that amazon will get my money for is literally if they are not available anywhere else (I.e. Tentai new titles). Bezos has enough $$ (and there are other things I do purchase there) he will not get my few $$ for this too, it's a shitty platform if it allows for this kind of censorship and hassle.
I read banned books
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@Village-Idiot If it is this quick, why isn't JNC doing it? Why is it left to the customer to fix it?
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@Jon-Mitchell I think there is some misunderstanding here, I usually download from JNC, and straight upload to google books. No hoops being jumped through here.
Now hoops have been added to fix the premium editions so that the front matter is now at the appropriate place in the volume. -
@jpwong If you get a physical book and section of the pages are out of order, I would call that defective. It's the same thing here. The pages are now out of order and need to be fixed
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@Timmaaah The changes are approved by the Japanese publisher. They're not out of order. Now let's put this topic to rest, please.
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@Timmaaah said in Regarding missing titles from Amazon:
@jpwong If you get a physical book and section of the pages are out of order, I would call that defective. It's the same thing here. The pages are now out of order and need to be fixed
Only if you insist that the color pages have to be in the front.
I, personally, don't think it's a big deal. On JNC premium editions that include textless images as a bonus, they're at the back of the book, and it's trivial to flip to the back if you want to look at them. I don't see putting all the color pages in the back to be significantly different; front or back, they're easy to jump to from any position.
Right now, I'm far more annoyed by having to page through all the arguing over the issue than I'd ever be over having to scroll to the back of the book.
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@Jon-Mitchell said in Regarding missing titles from Amazon:
YES IT SUCKS . but I as verified; the deletion (and required re-insertion) of images only applies to kindle editions.
The removal of images is for the Kindle editions only, so you don't have to worry about putting any images back if you buy the books from anywhere else. However, going forward, all new series will have the images that would normally be in the front in the back no matter where you buy them from. That's what Timmaah is complaining about. It sounds like the decision is firm at this point, so anyone who doesn't like it will have to edit the books to move the images to the front. But no content will be missing - just re-ordered.
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All right, as I said, this topic is finished. We're sorry some people are disappointed. We're also disappointed that circumstances have forced us to make changes as well.
Any more messages concerning the location of images after this message in this thread will be removed. If you want to complain about it, please start a new thread.
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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@myskaros said in Regarding missing titles from Amazon:
@Flinkly Yes, only images have been removed, and they can be viewed at the webpage linked above. And this only affects the books on Kindle, other stores have the full, unaltered book.
Haaah... This is just frustrating... Sadly we can't apply here Arifureta's Hajime's theory of "95% of problems can be solved with violence" - it would've been so nice, if we could just to shut up Amazon with their vague guidelines.
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@myskaros I suggest to release premium version (that available on J-Novel) not only in EPUB, but also in KFX format (the only manually installable Amazon format that properly supports continuous scrolling). Just finished testing and playing around with Calibre and conversion into KFX format.
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If anyone has any suggestions, please open a topic in the Suggestions & Feedback section of the Forums. That will allow others to comment on the suggestion, and it will allow the comments not to get lost in the shuffle.
Thank you for your cooperation.
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@myskaros said in Regarding missing titles from Amazon:
@Flinkly Yes, only images have been removed, and they can be viewed at the webpage linked above. And this only affects the books on Kindle, other stores have the full, unaltered book.
So to confirm, are images are removed or have they been moved to the back of the books of affected titles? I am confused by that.
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@bloodthirstybeast said in Regarding missing titles from Amazon:
So to confirm, are images are removed or have they been moved to the back of the books of affected titles? I am confused by that.
Both and/or neither, depending on storefront and series. Repeating what has been said before....
@myskaros said in Regarding missing titles from Amazon:
Images being put in the back is a permanent workflow change. While we have removed the images we believe to be in violation of Kindle's content guidelines, it was ultimately a judgment call and not based on an exhaustive list of criteria. Putting the images in the back helps reduce the chance of future books being reported based on the sample preview. There are also other fringe benefits that have been discussed elsewhere.
As stated previously, series will be consistent moving forward, so only new series and affected series mentioned above will have images put in the back. Unaffected, ongoing/completed series will keep images in the front.Or put succinctly: New and already affected series are moving all front matter images to the back on all storefronts, with some of those images being removed outright on Amazon's storefront and uploaded at the page linked to in the topic post.
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@bloodthirstybeast Existing books that have already been released have had some images removed, only on Kindle. The images that were removed can be viewed at the webpage linked in the first post.
New series will have images placed in the back of the book. Some existing series will also have images moved to the back of the book. Ongoing, unaffected series will still have images in the front.
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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@myskaros Any word on what the plan is going to be for volumes where it appears as though the cover illustration may be too spicy for amazon?
Also I don't think it's covered, but is there anything in the amazon versions to indicate to the reader that there is content removed? I realize you've mentioned you can't link to the actual removed content site, but how will amazon buyer be aware there's anything to look for?
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@jpwong All I can say is we are working on it.
For removed illustrations, the only indication is the EPUB version number.
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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@myskaros "Amazon EXCLUSIVE!"
Don't have to say WHY it's exclusive to Amazon, or what's exclusive about it, so who could complain? Right? -
@SomeOldGuy While I can appreciate the ingenuity, I expect that it would backfire, because some people would take "exclusive" to mean that it's better in some way. It's unlikely that anyone would take it to mean that it's worse. Only those who already know about the situation would know that, and they'll be wary of buying the books from Amazon at that point anyway.
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@Kalessin Oh, but the Amazon Exclusive IS "better" in one way: it lacks the problematic pictures!
I still think that the AE versions need a disclaimer somewhere:
This book has been modified from its original version. It has been modified to fit this screen and edited for content.
