Formatting ebooks can be a nightmare. Reading poorly formatted ebooks causes headaches. IF the poorly-formatted ebook is begun, it is less likely to be finished than a well-formatted story.
When I was a kid, The Goodies TV show was on endless repeat, usually running at 6pm on weekdays, followed by Doctor Who at 6:30pm. During the halcyon days of my childhood, I learnt the consequences of not getting it right. The Goodies regularly ran a comedic advertising segment where Tim Brooke-Taylor was supposed to laud the virtues of Beanz Meanz Heinz and regularly screwed it up. The consequences for Tim frequently included being yelled at and dowsed with food.
Authors, editors and publishers need to learn The Goodies‘ lesson: GET IT RIGHT.
Books need to be edited, not just for spelling and punctuation (although this is important! More please!) but books need to be edited for correct ebook formatting. This week alone I discarded THREE ebooks before I started reading the story because of formatting problems in the front matter and on page one. I figure if the book is that badly formatted at the beginning, reading will be a nightmare.
If you value your book enough to want to sell it, if you value your readers enough to hope that they will read your novel and, perhaps, come back for another novel later, you need to focus more on book design for electronic readers and GET IT RIGHT!
