Much as I love ebooks, I have come to the conclusion that there is a mountain of shuddy stuff out there. Some of the books for which I have paid top dollar are so peppered with errors and mispellings that I am sure they have never passed the scrutiny of human eye; at least not an eye that is versed in the English language.
Current target of my ire is the series of Bolitho naval-history novels by Alexander Kent. These books, rushed into electronic format by Random House's Arrow Books, are shoddy beyond compare. Every page is littered with errors, with nonsense substitutions of words by some self-opinionated automatic spell checker. No human being can have proofread these disgusting tomes. Proper names are misspelled at random, with two variations often appearing on the same page.
All this is inexcusable and we, the consumers, are being taken for suckers.
I believe these books contravene consumer protection laws and are actually unfit for sale. So I am preparing a complaint to the UK trading standards office against Waterstones who have supplied most of my books. These publishers need a navel broadside up their complacent south pole and I hope Admiral Bolitho can light the match.
Incidentally, not all ebooks are like this. I am currently reading Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy (on my iPhone) and the proofreading is beyond reproach. As it should be.