My first ebook problem

[Ktrek]

I downloaded the latest Star Trek novel called Inception the other day and the text is messed up.  The text is littered with question marks throughout and in the weirdest places. Words are missing and a question mark appears instead. It's been very frustrating trying to read the story. I finally wrote B&N customer service and told then I wanted the ebook fixed or credit my money back. We'll see what they do but I imagine they won't do anything. 

Kevin

[inkonvelvet]

That sounds dismal. I hope B&N actually cares and that something is done.

[Tomas]

I purchased a Clive Cussler novel from B&N recently that was sprinkled with numerous typos, most clustered near the beginning of each chapter. Here's my exchange with B&N:

Dear Customer,
Thank you for your inquiry regarding order #126823___, and for alerting
us of typographical errors. We are in constant contact with publishers
about any errors found in the eBook. We will update them as soon as they
become available.

If you have any further questions you may email us or call digital
support at 1-800-THE-BOOK.

We look forward to your next visit.

Sincerely,

Evan
Customer Service Representative
Barnes and Noble
http://www.bn.com/

Original Message Follows:
------------------------

Order Number: 126823___
IP: __.__.__.__
Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US;
rv:1.9.1.7) Gecko/20091221 Firefox/3.5.7

Hi!

I just recently bought an ebook from B&N and the number of typographical
errors in it is abysmal. (Same with both my nook and B&N ereader)


http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ean=9781101151501

I understand the problem with the high number of errors are probably
with the publisher rather than B&N, but I'm hoping that B&N can pass
this complaint on to them.

Thank you,
Tom

[Ktrek]

I got nowhere with them Tomas other than a suggestion to redownload the file, which made no difference.

Kevin

[Klaatu]

This is another complaint I have about the cavalier attitude the publishers take towards ebooks. Not only do they think we, as consumers of ebooks, are dumb enough to pay almost hardcover prices for ebooks but when they issue back catalog titles some of them just don't bother to edit the OCR'd ebooks and correct the errors. Last year I purchased Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series from fictionwise.com and the number of OCR errors in the ebooks was abysmal. I haven't come across anything like it yet from B&N, fortunately, but it is only a matter of time if I continue to shop at the B&N online store.

Regards,
Michael

[Baka no Kami]

Have you tried sideloading it to see if it's any better?  I know that sideloading sometimes fixes the B&N books that stick on the "opening" screen.

Otherwise the questions marks seem like a font problem.  You get questions marks in place of characters the nooks built in fonts aren't capable of displaying.  Possibly the publisher used non-english characters for some of the words like none human names?  You also might try opening it in the desktop B&R reader.  If it's a problem with the nook not having the right font to display the book it should look right in the reader.