SBD: Where'd they go?
May. 14th, 2007 12:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bksKristieJ's talking comfort reads today at Reader Gab.
What do I have to SBD about today?
Yesterday as I read Seressia Glass’s No Commitment Required I hit a wall. Not because of the writing, not because of the plot, not because of anything internal. As I moved from the bottom of one page to the top of another, the transition made no sense. The paragraph ended at the bottom of the page, where did this dialogue come from? Then I checked the page numbers. I hit a wall because the freakin’ book skipped from page 146 to page 178. Now, I was cruising along, enjoying the book. It wasn’t screaming “keeper” for me, but I was liking it and wondering where the author was taking me since the book was not quite half way through. She had some work to do, since I was picking up some vibes about heroine’s mental stability that made me wonder about her as a candidate for an HEA. (Crazy People with psychological problems deserve love, too, but IMO it’s hard and I speak from family experience.)
Publishers, how do you skip 30 pages in a book and not notice? Did they just fall out? I know nothing about printing, but I think it unlikely that this happened in one book of a print run of 10,000? 100,000? How do they just disappear? (Note: I flipped through to see if it the pages were just out of order; nope, gone.) Do you care? You should, because those missing 30 pages lost a reader.
I’m probably not going to learn now where the author took the story, although presumably there’s an HEA. The vendor is sending me a new copy gratis and I’m returning my defective copy, but now that I’ve put the book down, I’m not sure when I’ll pick it up again, if ever. The new book won’t arrive for at least a week. And my attention span? Gnat-sized. Between now and whenever the new copy arrives, I’ll have read at least one more book, if not more, and I’ll have moved on to either something new or something that has been in Mt. TBR or (most likely) to one of the library books that I must read and return post haste.
Shame, 'cause NRC was a B read for me til I hit the page gap.
Post script -- loved the cover, loved it. But it seemed more suitable for an erotic romance. NCR had one or two love scenes (up to p. 146, at least) but they were not particularly hot.
What do I have to SBD about today?
Yesterday as I read Seressia Glass’s No Commitment Required I hit a wall. Not because of the writing, not because of the plot, not because of anything internal. As I moved from the bottom of one page to the top of another, the transition made no sense. The paragraph ended at the bottom of the page, where did this dialogue come from? Then I checked the page numbers. I hit a wall because the freakin’ book skipped from page 146 to page 178. Now, I was cruising along, enjoying the book. It wasn’t screaming “keeper” for me, but I was liking it and wondering where the author was taking me since the book was not quite half way through. She had some work to do, since I was picking up some vibes about heroine’s mental stability that made me wonder about her as a candidate for an HEA. (
Publishers, how do you skip 30 pages in a book and not notice? Did they just fall out? I know nothing about printing, but I think it unlikely that this happened in one book of a print run of 10,000? 100,000? How do they just disappear? (Note: I flipped through to see if it the pages were just out of order; nope, gone.) Do you care? You should, because those missing 30 pages lost a reader.
I’m probably not going to learn now where the author took the story, although presumably there’s an HEA. The vendor is sending me a new copy gratis and I’m returning my defective copy, but now that I’ve put the book down, I’m not sure when I’ll pick it up again, if ever. The new book won’t arrive for at least a week. And my attention span? Gnat-sized. Between now and whenever the new copy arrives, I’ll have read at least one more book, if not more, and I’ll have moved on to either something new or something that has been in Mt. TBR or (most likely) to one of the library books that I must read and return post haste.
Shame, 'cause NRC was a B read for me til I hit the page gap.
Post script -- loved the cover, loved it. But it seemed more suitable for an erotic romance. NCR had one or two love scenes (up to p. 146, at least) but they were not particularly hot.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 08:31 pm (UTC)Books are printed in 16- or 32-page "signatures" or groups of pages. The pages are printed on giant rolls of paper, then cut and folded into the right order. Then the signatures are taken over to a binding machine and placed (by hand) in the correct order. So in your case, the guy manning the binding machine messed up. The "page 146-178" bin ran out before he put more in, so some books got bound without one. It happens. They do quality control, but sometimes things get through. It won't happen to an entire run (they would notice that for sure), probably only a hundred or so, tops.
I know it's annoying. But if you think about those giant presses churning out 100s of thousands of books every day, it's not hard to imagine that mistakes can happen. I'm always amazed that there aren't more printer's errors. I'm glad you're getting a new copy.
-jennie (who likes to talk about printing way too much. :D)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 11:17 pm (UTC):)
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Date: 2007-05-15 08:55 am (UTC)You too?
I'm glad Jennie explained - I have heard about books with missing pages but *knock on wood* it hasn't happened to me!
CindyS
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Date: 2007-05-15 11:37 pm (UTC)kate r
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Date: 2007-05-16 12:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-16 02:42 am (UTC)Kristie(J)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-16 12:47 pm (UTC)I've had other printing irregularities and binding problems before, but never such a large chunk disappearing.
I'm reading an older book now (87 Harlequin Presents) and the pages are popping out. I think in this case, it is a matter of the glue in the binding being dried out and warped with age, though.