From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 20:41:49 -0400 You are being much too kind to Amazon. If "Ulysses" is a bad example, try another. Amazon's metadata is worse than sloppy. It's not uncommon for Amazon to list multiple editions (hardcover, paperback, Kindle), but the Kindle version may be of a completely different text. Publishers seek to correct this all the time, but Amazon turns a deaf ear. Joe Esposito On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 7:35 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > From: Wilhelmina Randtke <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 14:57:23 -0400 > > I think Ulysses is a bad example. There are many editions. From the > beginning it got censored and there was some shape shifting to try and > get copyright coverage across national borders. The problem isn't > publishers now; it's the whole history of that work. It's a case > study in publishing oddities, starting with the very first publication > of the first chapter. It also was used as a case study in copyright > oddities in the recent Without Copyrights, so saying it's public > domain isn't the same as it would be for a book that was published in > definitive form in 1922. You say that "You just want the real thing." > but here that's meaningless. You are picky about what you don't want > only, but probably if you already knew which edition you liked, then > you could find that one. Same thing if you pick a random foreign > language book then don't like the translation. Same thing if you want > a bible and "just want the real thing" but then don't like any of the > translations you randomly click on and don't know of a translation you > like. It's so inherently complicated and twisty that you need to know > before you look exactly what you want, and you cannot reasonably > expect anyone in a bookstore, library, or online support to know the > publishing history of the specific book you are looking for. > > It's silly to pick a book with so many editions and maybe no > definitive edition at all (you can't name you preferred edition for > Ulysses), then say that shows how disorganized publishing is now. > > This also has nothing to do with eBook vs print vs print-on-demand. > Ulysses is a hot mess as a fluke of its entire publication history > from day 1. > > -Wilhelmina Randtke > > > On Thu, Sep 17, 2015 at 6:36 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > > From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]> > > Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2015 10:28:53 -0700 > > > > I had very few comments offline and none on-list to my request to > > identify e-book vendors we might find it easy and productive to work > > with. Are there really no exciting choices out there? With five > > campuses and tens of thousands of online degree candidates, we need to > > be able to deliver digital content as much as possible, but the > > present set of choices we see is unsustainable. > > > > And it's not getting any easier to buy print books -- quite the > > reverse, as I learned in a startlign experience last night. Imagine > > that you want to buy a copy of Joyce's Ulysses. You want a well-made > > paperback book, new from the publisher, with a reliably edited and > > proofread text. There are a couple of oddities about editions of > > Ulysses and the work is now in the public domain. You don't want the > > "original 1922 edition", which was fairly widely spread around for a > > while when it was supposedly public domain and the corrected edition > > was not; and you'd just as soon avoid the controversial 1980s Gabler > > edition. You just want the real thing. > > > > You can duplicate this experiment by going to Amazon and searching for > > the book: easy to do. What you will find are dozens of pages of hits > > with a vast mishmash of dumped-to-digital e-books of dubious > > provenance, dumped-to-POD p-books equally dubious, secondhand copies > > of classic editions you recognize but can't be sure what condition > > they're in. When I did the experiment, I gave up because I don't > > actually need a copy right now but because I genuinely could not find > > one that met my relatively simple criteria -- new, well-made, reliable > > edition. This problem is one part "everybody's a publisher" > > superabundance of offerings, but it's another part Amazon's failure to > > pay heed to metadata. > > > > One example: when you get a given title on Amazon, it generally lets > > you choose among Kindle, hardcover, paperback, and sometimes audiobook > > versions of the same book. Time after time on the Ulysses pages, you > > will be given that choice, but the three or four versions whose tabs > > appear on the same screen turn out, when you click on a tab, to be > > *completely* different editions. What looked like a possible > > contender for the paperback choice offered a "hardcover" tab that > > linked to an out-of-print edition by a completely different publisher. > > > > A reasonable person on this quest for the Joycean grail would give up > > and go look for a bookstore. I was shocked. > > > > Jim O'Donnell/ASU