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When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

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Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#81

Post by alexey-salmin »

NeoTar wrote: post #77
HalfRadish wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This captures a new problem that's sort of sneaked in with the advent of digital publishing. In a print book, you can make corrections or revisions in a new edition, but the old edition is still potentially out there, in libraries and private collections, preserving its own history. In a digital publication, if you make a revision, the old edition disappears by default; older versions are only preserved if someone do…

But an advantage of digital texts could be that you buy a text in 2024, and it shows you all revisions of the text from 1948 to 2024…

Well somehow that's the opposite of what happened when Roald Dahl books were updated for political correctness.

"Readers who bought electronic versions of the writer’s books, such as Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, before the controversial updates have discovered their copies have now been changed.

Puffin Books, the company which publishes Dahl novels, updated the electronic novels, in which Augustus Gloop is no longer described as fat or Mrs Twit as fearfully ugly, on devices such as the Amazon Kindle."

https://archive.ph/20230302163549/https://www.thetimes.co.uk...

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#82

Post by alexey-salmin »

crooked-v wrote: post #70
themaninthedark wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: St. Paddy's day - where a lot of people dress up and claim to be Irish. Or when someone dresses up as a 1920 gangster, just always happen to Italian...

It's really the same rule of thumb of stand-up comedy: punching up vs punching down. Western European and North American pan-national stereotypes are typically comfortably 'up' (though targeting specific ethnicities can become 'down').

Well, this kind of adds up because the "punching up vs punching down" rule never made sense to me either.

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#83

Post by franga2000 »

> And once you have the right to make an ebook, that right may comes with certain stipulations, like the illustrator gets to approve it, or you must disable text-to-speech

Disable TTS? Can you please fucking not?? E-books were such a huge step forward for accessibility, now lawyers are here to ruin it all...

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#84

Post by NeoTar »

GJim wrote: post #50
NeoTar wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the book. If it is a novel, then clearly not. A fact-book, that lists the current heads-of-state of all world nations, then possibly yes. It's ultimately a decision for the author/publisher for each book. Is this a living text that should be kept up-to-date, or a historical record - after all, a book which lists all of the heads-of-state in 1958 is also valuable for different contexts. Perhaps more impo…

> A fact-book, that lists the current heads-of-state of all world nations, then possibly yes. It's a book, not a web page! I have old astronomy books that indicate the visual appearance of Mars changes due to seasonal vegetation! This was obviously updated in later editions; the old edition remains as an important historical record of what we once thought. > if a book says something dangerous Old editions of the 'Hom…

> It's a book, not a web page!

That's a distinction you are making - that books cannot or should not be updated, whilst web pages can/should be. It's no longer intrinsic to the nature of a book as a digital text.

Perhaps a list of heads-of-state is a silly example to use, but a text-book may be a better example - in a digital world it may be a reasonable expectation that a text-book would be 'correct', and so receiving updates would be appropriate. Or a particle physics data-sheet, where an updated value for the mass of a particle could be included.

Of course this should be consensual - "The publisher has provided an update to this text. Please accept, reject or review the changes", and it would be great if e-books and readers had a mechanism to scroll back and forward through editions (but perhaps that is a pipe-dream).

> I have old astronomy books that indicate the visual appearance of Mars changes due to seasonal vegetation! This was obviously updated in later editions; the old edition remains as an important historical record of what we once thought.

That's pretty much what I said in my comment. Sometimes the historical context is important, valuable or interesting.

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#85

Post by lkbm »

hoten wrote: post #44
dacryn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ah come on. It's halloween. Brothers dress up as their sisters, sisters dress up as their brothers, kids dress up as their neighbours. You are an acceptable costume. Face it. But context matters. The reading kid is not singled out, nobody is making this negative. It could also be perceived as a celebration 'hey I want to be like my adopted asian sister, she is cool'. Live and let live, and give context if the kid is…

Kids dress up as their siblings?

I haven't seen that, but at work we all once dressed as our boss once, and several times I've had friends have dressed up as me.

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#86

Post by watwut »

GJim wrote: post #41
watwut wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it was the case, but it is kind of massively easier to pick a book where you do not have to explain that. Sometimes you just want to read a book and children books are not all that much fun for adults anyway. You might not want to then have to go into explaining that racism was normal for the author, but we think differently jadda jadda ... it is additional completely pointless complication for what was suppo…

I could not disagree with you more. It is something you will need to explain to children at some point, and doing so over a light hearted story is an ideal approach. Shying away from the difficulties of bringing up a child isn't something you should be doing. Besides, the best children's books are also fun for adults! (I raise you Roald Dahl's 'Boy' and Judith Kerr's 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea')

No it is not ideal and that argument does not make sense at all. It would be explaining something mostly off main topic of the story. And I would rather explain it on something real rather then randomly.

And I am not always interested in research about the original reason - how much author was or was not racist.

I don't know how you define best children's book. I found most of then boring and kids taste was not the same as my taste.

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#87

Post by watwut »

47282847 wrote: post #72
watwut wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it was the case, but it is kind of massively easier to pick a book where you do not have to explain that. Sometimes you just want to read a book and children books are not all that much fun for adults anyway. You might not want to then have to go into explaining that racism was normal for the author, but we think differently jadda jadda ... it is additional completely pointless complication for what was suppo…

If you do not find it fun to read with your children and enjoy the stories equally you may want to consider picking different books or doing something else with them. They will pick up on it, and grow up to think you do not like to spend time with them - and later take that “truth” turned core belief to other relationships.

I kind of did not liked most of them. And the ones I kind of liked were still something I would not read if I did not had to.

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#88

Post by GJim »

crooked-v wrote: post #70
themaninthedark wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: St. Paddy's day - where a lot of people dress up and claim to be Irish. Or when someone dresses up as a 1920 gangster, just always happen to Italian...

It's really the same rule of thumb of stand-up comedy: punching up vs punching down. Western European and North American pan-national stereotypes are typically comfortably 'up' (though targeting specific ethnicities can become 'down').

What a ridiculous statement!

Perhaps you would like to give us all a 'hierarchy of the races' so we can all judge who punches up or down? You can call it the Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes.

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#89

Post by cxr »

evilduck wrote: post #52
djoldman wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a problem. The translation is a new work. The original work in the original language stays frozen. Incidentally, the translation is treated the same and is frozen in the same manner.

Individual beliefs aside, the Christian Bible makes for a fascinating case study in book translations. Some translations are modern takes on an existing language translation like translating the King James Bible into modern English as literally as possible, while some take their own liberties with interpreting the original text as it was written and come up with somewhat dramatically different results. Translations b…

It's a lot more complicated than that.

> some take their own liberties with interpreting the original text as it was written

The "original text" in many cases is simply not known; there are multiple "sources" to translate from, so part of the job of those who are putting together a new edition is to discern between the variant texts and work out which one should be treated as canonical. This can obviously have a major impact on the result, and it's all before any translation ever occurs.

Re: When Nothing Ever Goes Out of Print: Maintaining Backlist Ebooks (2016)

#90

Post by cxr »

NeoTar wrote: post #84
GJim wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A fact-book, that lists the current heads-of-state of all world nations, then possibly yes. It's a book, not a web page! I have old astronomy books that indicate the visual appearance of Mars changes due to seasonal vegetation! This was obviously updated in later editions; the old edition remains as an important historical record of what we once thought. > if a book says something dangerous Old editions of the 'Hom…

> It's a book, not a web page! That's a distinction you are making - that books cannot or should not be updated, whilst web pages can/should be. It's no longer intrinsic to the nature of a book as a digital text. Perhaps a list of heads-of-state is a silly example to use, but a text-book may be a better example - in a digital world it may be a reasonable expectation that a text-book would be 'correct', and so receivi…

> it may be a reasonable expectation that a text-book would be 'correct', and so receiving updates would be appropriate[...] Of course this should be consensual

It is implicitly consensual—when the consumer chooses to buy/download the newest edition. Don't try to "change" what's an an ebook, though. (Not that it's even possible.) Make new editions available if you want and allow the reader to decide whether to go for them. Otherwise, it is not consensual.

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