2.99 ebook has only ONE page?

[compulsiveread…]

The Dress of the Season  

This ebook has no description and is listed as having only ONE page for 2.99. I'm sure this is a misprint and hope for the authors sake that B&N fixes it.

[javabird]

You could always download a sample and see how many pages the table of contents has

[Ya_Ya]

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compulsivereaderTX wrote:

This ebook has no description and is listed as having only ONE page for 2.99. I'm sure this is a misprint and hope for the authors sake that B&N fixes it.

---

The way "page numbers" are determined when an epub is created means that thiscould be entirely possible, IIRC.  If there were no chapter breaks et al... then the book will think it only has one page, even if it has the contents of a 100+ page printed book.

Doug can explain better and I could be mistaken - but I remember him pointing out that page numbers mean little more than nothing in an epub as they are currently determined...

[MacMcK1957]

Maybe it's a really, really good page.

[deesy58]

I have recently had two experiences with e-book purchases that give me cause for concern.

The first of these was the purchase of an "e-book" that was actually nothing but a short story.  The "book" was not free, but it was very short (26 pages).

The second experience was the purchase of an e-book that also was not free, but was supposedly copyrighted in 2010.  However, the book (a novella) was actually first published in a magazine in 2000.  I can't imagine that it was not copyrighted when it was initially written, or when it was first published.  I think it is deceptive to change the copyright dates on stories that are being re-published as e-books.  I seem to recall that B&N used to include copyright dates for the books on their Web site, but now show publication dates, which can be misleading.  

Neither of the descriptions of these e-books that are to be found on the B&N Web site included the number of pages in the book, although the file size (in bytes, I presume) was provided.  Why should readers have to perform arithmetic operations to try to determine the length of an e-book before making a purchase?  Can't the publishers and retailers simply state a length for the book (in pages) assuming a particular font size?  

In any event, the second book (the novella) purported to be 125 pages in length when I began reading it.  In actuality, on my NOOK Tablet, the story began on page #2, and ended on page #124.  If one counts the pages between these two, however, there are only 111 pages in the story.   How is this possible?  The page numbers simply skip a page periodically (about every ten pages, or so, a page number is skipped).  How can we know the actual length of any e-book?

It might take a while, but sooner or later readers are going to "wise up" to these deceptive practices by authors, publishers and retailers.  Purchasing an e-book from B&N (and, I assume, any other e-book seller) is a little like walking through a mine field.  One has to be very careful to ensure that the value received is commensurate with the price being charged.  IMO, this isn't such a problem with DTBs because it is really easy to see if one is purchasing an entire book (novel), a novella, or just a short story.  Besides, page numbers are actually printed on the pages.

If anything at all can kill e-books, these kinds of deceptive business practices can do it.  

[Ya_Ya]

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deesy58 wrote:

Neither of the descriptions of these e-books that are to be found on the B&N Web site included the number of pages in the book, although the file size (in bytes, I presume) was provided.  Why should readers have to perform arithmetic operations to try to determine the length of an e-book before making a purchase?  Can't the publishers and retailers simply state a length for the book (in pages) assuming a particular font size?  

---

 "Pages" in an epub mean little.  They aren't pages, they're related to the way the original document is compiled. And pages numbers have nothing to do with font sizes in an epub.  The number of screens will change, the number of pages will not.  (The old .pdb format page numbering was screen dependent, though.)

Kindle announced that their books will have the same number of pages as a DTB edition, and I would assume that because of that, Kindle books have page numbers in their listings.

It has been suggested that B&N instead mention the wordcount with a key so that we can determine the approximate length of the story.

It's not deceptive; it's the way the technology, as currently employed, works.

[compulsiveread…]

That is all probably true, I still feel bad for the author if this deters others from buying the book.

[Fred011]

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Ya_Ya wrote:

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deesy58 wrote:

Neither of the descriptions of these e-books that are to be found on the B&N Web site included the number of pages in the book, although the file size (in bytes, I presume) was provided.  Why should readers have to perform arithmetic operations to try to determine the length of an e-book before making a purchase?  Can't the publishers and retailers simply state a length for the book (in pages) assuming a particular font size?  

---

 "Pages" in an epub mean little.  They aren't pages, they're related to the way the original document is compiled. And pages numbers have nothing to do with font sizes in an epub.  The number of screens will change, the number of pages will not.  (The old .pdb format page numbering was screen dependent, though.)

Kindle announced that their books will have the same number of pages as a DTB edition, and I would assume that because of that, Kindle books have page numbers in their listings.

It has been suggested that B&N instead mention the wordcount with a key so that we can determine the approximate length of the story.

It's not deceptive; it's the way the technology, as currently employed, works.

---

Your two quotes (and YES I did read Doug's excellent post): "Pages" in an epub mean little." and "It's not deceptive..." seem to me to be quite contradictory.

Since the concept of books and pages predate ebooks by perhaps hundreds of years, and to most people have a specific meaning, the use of the term "page" in ebooks when it means nothing vis a vis a printed page, does in my opinion represent something that is deceptive.  Whether it is intentional or not is another story.

[Fred011]

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compulsivereaderTX wrote:

The Dress of the Season  

This ebook has no description and is listed as having only ONE page for 2.99. I'm sure this is a misprint and hope for the authors sake that B&N fixes it.

---

Does it have any pictures?

[deesy58]

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Ya_Ya wrote:

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deesy58 wrote:

Neither of the descriptions of these e-books that are to be found on the B&N Web site included the number of pages in the book, although the file size (in bytes, I presume) was provided.  Why should readers have to perform arithmetic operations to try to determine the length of an e-book before making a purchase?  Can't the publishers and retailers simply state a length for the book (in pages) assuming a particular font size?  

---

 "Pages" in an epub mean little.  They aren't pages, they're related to the way the original document is compiled. And pages numbers have nothing to do with font sizes in an epub.  The number of screens will change, the number of pages will not.  (The old .pdb format page numbering was screen dependent, though.)

Kindle announced that their books will have the same number of pages as a DTB edition, and I would assume that because of that, Kindle books have page numbers in their listings.

It has been suggested that B&N instead mention the wordcount with a key so that we can determine the approximate length of the story.

It's not deceptive; it's the way the technology, as currently employed, works.

---

Do you find it interesting that none of the PC-based text editors or word processors seem to have a particular problem with page numbering?  Does Adobe Reader have such a problem?  Is there any specific reason why e-books must be formatted into HTML?  

HTML works great for formatting Web pages, but is it really the best format for electronic publishing?  It is certainly the case that determining page numbers could be a problem when working with long HTML files that must be (somewhat arbitrarily) divided into segments that might be roughly equivalent to "pages," but shouldn't there be a better way?  

Just asking.  The current system, whether by design or not, is misleading.  So is changing copyright dates.   

[Tim40744]

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Ya_Ya wrote:

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compulsivereaderTX wrote:

This ebook has no description and is listed as having only ONE page for 2.99. I'm sure this is a misprint and hope for the authors sake that B&N fixes it.

---

The way "page numbers" are determined when an epub is created means that thiscould be entirely possible, IIRC.  If there were no chapter breaks et al... then the book will think it only has one page, even if it has the contents of a 100+ page printed book.

Doug can explain better and I could be mistaken - but I remember him pointing out that page numbers mean little more than nothing in an epub as they are currently determined...

---

I think you're pretty close. Part of the Amazon description: "This is a work of 31,000 words (approx. 100 pages)." Add a couple zeros to the one... 

[Strayer]

A page in Word is not the same as a page in an ereader. Page numbers aren't put on ebooks as a rule because they would show up at different places than the screen page. The file size tells you how much there is in the book, be it text or pictures. If a book has pictures, the word count could be quite low.

[deesy58]

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Strayer wrote:
A page in Word is not the same as a page in an ereader. Page numbers aren't put on ebooks as a rule because they would show up at different places than the screen page. The file size tells you how much there is in the book, be it text or pictures. If a book has pictures, the word count could be quite low.

---

True!  But a file size is not particularly useful, either, because it contains all of the XHTML5 tags, CSS data, XML, JavaScript and it might be coded in either UTF-8 or UTF-16.  So if word count and file size are not particularly relevant to the number of pages in an e-book, then what metric are readers to use?

Do we really believe that it is not possible (and never will be possible) to make a relatively accurate determination of the number of pages of actual text in an e-book, and to present reasonably accurate page numbers to readers during the process of reading the book?  Is this one of the deficiencies in the EPUB 3 specification?  Is it really more important to be able to play audio and video files from within an e-book than it is to provide an accurate page count? 

By trying to make e-books useful to everyone (including those who do not normally read such books), are we sacrificing a measure of utility for those who wish to read?  You know, actually READ ... text?   Is EPUB really a more useful standard than its predecessors? 

Makes one wonder!

A few have posted questions regarding the usefullness of the EPUB standard for school textbooks and it occurred to me that it might be a bit difficult.  I imagined a teacher assigning homework to his/her students: "For our next class, students, please work problems #3 and #6 on page number 'I don't know,' then work problem #15 on page number 'have fun finding it.'  After you have finished those three problems, choose one of the essay questions to be found on page number 'I have no idea' and write a brief two-page essay.

"See you in class Thursday."

[bklvr896]

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deesy58 wrote:

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Do you find it interesting that none of the PC-based text editors or word processors seem to have a particular problem with page numbering?  Does Adobe Reader have such a problem?  Is there any specific reason why e-books must be formatted into HTML?  

---

Even though a word processing program is generally set to where a page equals a standard sheet of paper, the number of pages on a word processing document can change depending on the default printer.  We ran into this at work and did some testing.  We found up to a 6 page difference in the number of pages in a report, depending on what printer Word was pointing to the time.  Which is why we issue our reports in pdf, because no matter who looks at it the pages are fixed.  Which also makes pdf files not so great for eReaders.  

[Fred011]

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deesy58 wrote:

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Strayer wrote:
A page in Word is not the same as a page in an ereader. Page numbers aren't put on ebooks as a rule because they would show up at different places than the screen page. The file size tells you how much there is in the book, be it text or pictures. If a book has pictures, the word count could be quite low.

---

True!  But a file size is not particularly useful, either, because it contains all of the XHTML5 tags, CSS data, XML, JavaScript and it might be coded in either UTF-8 or UTF-16.  So if word count and file size are not particularly relevant to the number of pages in an e-book, then what metric are readers to use?

Do we really believe that it is not possible (and never will be possible) to make a relatively accurate determination of the number of pages of actual text in an e-book, and to present reasonably accurate page numbers to readers during the process of reading the book?  Is this one of the deficiencies in the EPUB 3 specification?  Is it really more important to be able to play audio and video files from within an e-book than it is to provide an accurate page count? 

By trying to make e-books useful to everyone (including those who do not normally read such books), are we sacrificing a measure of utility for those who wish to read?  You know, actually READ ... text?   Is EPUB really a more useful standard than its predecessors? 

Makes one wonder!

A few have posted questions regarding the usefullness of the EPUB standard for school textbooks and it occurred to me that it might be a bit difficult.  I imagined a teacher assigning homework to his/her students: "For our next class, students, please work problems #3 and #6 on page number 'I don't know,' then work problem #15 on page number 'have fun finding it.'  After you have finished those three problems, choose one of the essay questions to be found on page number 'I have no idea' and write a brief two-page essay.

"See you in class Thursday."

---

And if the student decides to submit the essay in EPUB format in keeping with the level and type of technology adopted for the textbook, the essay would be how many pages exactly?

[deesy58]

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Fred011 wrote:

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deesy58 wrote:

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Strayer wrote:
A page in Word is not the same as a page in an ereader. Page numbers aren't put on ebooks as a rule because they would show up at different places than the screen page. The file size tells you how much there is in the book, be it text or pictures. If a book has pictures, the word count could be quite low.

---

True!  But a file size is not particularly useful, either, because it contains all of the XHTML5 tags, CSS data, XML, JavaScript and it might be coded in either UTF-8 or UTF-16.  So if word count and file size are not particularly relevant to the number of pages in an e-book, then what metric are readers to use?

Do we really believe that it is not possible (and never will be possible) to make a relatively accurate determination of the number of pages of actual text in an e-book, and to present reasonably accurate page numbers to readers during the process of reading the book?  Is this one of the deficiencies in the EPUB 3 specification?  Is it really more important to be able to play audio and video files from within an e-book than it is to provide an accurate page count? 

By trying to make e-books useful to everyone (including those who do not normally read such books), are we sacrificing a measure of utility for those who wish to read?  You know, actually READ ... text?   Is EPUB really a more useful standard than its predecessors? 

Makes one wonder!

A few have posted questions regarding the usefullness of the EPUB standard for school textbooks and it occurred to me that it might be a bit difficult.  I imagined a teacher assigning homework to his/her students: "For our next class, students, please work problems #3 and #6 on page number 'I don't know,' then work problem #15 on page number 'have fun finding it.'  After you have finished those three problems, choose one of the essay questions to be found on page number 'I have no idea' and write a brief two-page essay.

"See you in class Thursday."

---

And if the student decides to submit the essay in EPUB format in keeping with the level and type of technology adopted for the textbook, the essay would be how many pages exactly?

---

Could lead to all kinds of problems, couldn't it? 

[deesy58]

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bklvr896 wrote:

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deesy58 wrote:

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Do you find it interesting that none of the PC-based text editors or word processors seem to have a particular problem with page numbering?  Does Adobe Reader have such a problem?  Is there any specific reason why e-books must be formatted into HTML?  

---

Even though a word processing program is generally set to where a page equals a standard sheet of paper, the number of pages on a word processing document can change depending on the default printer.  We ran into this at work and did some testing.  We found up to a 6 page difference in the number of pages in a report, depending on what printer Word was pointing to the time.  Which is why we issue our reports in pdf, because no matter who looks at it the pages are fixed.  Which also makes pdf files not so great for eReaders.  

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Modern computer systems use the operating system (OS) to specify and control printers, not the word processing applications program.  Was your company using the correct printer drivers?  Were they printing from different computers with different operating systems installed?  Were they mixing PostScript and PCL printers with the same output file?  Was Windows the OS being used?  Was it an older version? Which word processing program?

I guess I have never seen this phenomenon when printing reports. 

There are a lot of variables when printing.  Word processing programs can be set to adjust output for different paper sizes, for example, and that would certainly change page numbering.  The real question is: Were the page numbers correct when viewing on the screen?  That would be more nearly like reading an e-book. 

[Ya_Ya]

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deesy58 wrote:

A few have posted questions regarding the usefullness of the EPUB standard for school textbooks and it occurred to me that it might be a bit difficult.  I imagined a teacher assigning homework to his/her students: "For our next class, students, please work problems #3 and #6 on page number 'I don't know,' then work problem #15 on page number 'have fun finding it.'  After you have finished those three problems, choose one of the essay questions to be found on page number 'I have no idea' and write a brief two-page essay.

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But, all copies of the same file will have the same number of "pages".  If one converts, all bets are off, but as long as everyone is using the same file, the "page" numbers are consistent.  (So a class requirement is "you must buy the file from the college bookstore, not X, Y, or Z.)  Alternately, instead of referring to Page 132 problems #3 and #5, one might refer to Lesson A-12, problems #3 and #5.  This is not an insurmountable issue - we adapt to technology all the time, or so people tell me.

As for the "essay" all one need do is assign a word count vs. a page count.  Heck, profs were doing that 15 years ago because the difference in number of pages between Times New Roman 10 and Helvetica 12 was paragraphs in short papers, entire pages in longer papers.  (I'm sure they were doing it longer ago than that, too, but I can attest to fifteen-year-ago era...  )

Is epub the best format for a standard?  I have no idea (nor do I really care, because I don't think ebooks are suitable for anything but leisure reading and have no issues if the standard is only functional for leisure reading, personally) but that wasn't really the original question, the one I supplied Doug's well-written answer for.... 

[Ya_Ya]

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deesy58 wrote:

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bklvr896 wrote:

[SNIP] We found up to a 6 page difference in the number of pages in a report, depending on what printer Word was pointing to the time.   

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[SNIP]

I guess I have never seen this phenomenon when printing reports. 

[SNIP]

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I've encountered it in practically every setting where I've used networked printers.  Not generally to the degree described above, but in all cases, when choosing to print I would need to preview the page breaks after selecting a printer because each printer would cut the pages in different places.

I've encountered it with spreadsheets as well as word proccessing docs as well.

[bklvr896]

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Ya_Ya wrote:

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deesy58 wrote:

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bklvr896 wrote:

[SNIP] We found up to a 6 page difference in the number of pages in a report, depending on what printer Word was pointing to the time.   

---

[SNIP]

I guess I have never seen this phenomenon when printing reports. 

[SNIP]

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I've encountered it in practically every setting where I've used networked printers.  Not generally to the degree described above, but in all cases, when choosing to print I would need to preview the page breaks after selecting a printer because each printer would cut the pages in different places.

I've encountered it with spreadsheets as well as word proccessing docs as well.

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I don't know that I've ever had it happen with a spreadsheet, but definitely with Word documents.  If you print document on two different printers, there are subtle differences in the spacing, etc of the print.  That 6 pages was one of the extremes and was on a 50+ page report.  And I agree with Ya_Ya, it happens with any settings on the networked printers.  It doesn't happen with all reports/documents, but it does happen.  I spent several days using a number of reports and documents of varying lengths researching this so I could tell the bosses, deal with it.  If I prepare based on one printer and you're pointing to another, there may be odd page breaks and there's nothing to be done except (1) convert the reports to pdf or (2) only buy one type of printer for the entire office.

We also found, when we started converting them to PDF, that we have to check the page breaks, because the pdf a different print driver.  If the report is prepared on a computer defaulting to an HP printer, when you change the default printer to PDF, we found that page breaks were in the wrong place.  This is especially true if you have a lot of manual page breaks in a document.

The point is, even on a PC, that knows the size of the font and the size of the page, there are descrepancies in pages.