From Dick: This FAQ is in regard to the importance of making changes BEFORE the book is released rather than AFTER:
Occasionally, (very occasionally), an author will ask for changes to be made after the ebook is published. This is very nearly impossible for several reasons. Please read the below--
* Making changes after the book has left the gate is very nearly impossible. First, I would have to remake all our ebook formats. Then, for the HTML, PDF, MSR, and Mobipocket versions, (those formats we sell specifically from Awe-Struck), I would have to password protect them and then reupload them to our server.
* And that's not the real problem. I can control our end of it. The unsolvable problem is reuploading the Fictionwise format, the Amazon-Mobipocket format, the Ebook Corp. format, and the Lightning Source format. Those are our four big distributors. And although that's possible to do, the real problem lies with the dozens of smaller portals that these four big distributors sell our content to.
* Ebook Corporation, for example, would have to send the new version (with your added dedication) to their own portals, and I can just about guarantee they won't do that. They expect the book to be correct the first time around. And well they should. They don't have the time to dink with new versions.
* Getting an ebook ready for publication is a very biggity big deal. It takes, quite literally, weeks to get all my ducks in a row so that on the day of release a clean book goes up. It's very easy to fall into the idea that digital content like an ebook can be instantly changed. Yes, the book itself can be fixed pretty quickly. It's all the messing around in the complex process that follows that makes it impossible to simply upload a new version.
* More important, keep in mind that although we deliver your ebooks to our distributors, we have no control over what the distributors might do. We don't even have any way of knowing if they send out a newer version to their smaller distributors. In fact, we don't even know if they post the newer version on their own main site. They may simply ignore it. Chris might upload a newer version to Fictionwise, our largest distributor, but it's doubtful they will make all new ebooks--they make 15 different formats from the one specially formatted RTF I send them--let along post them or send them to their smaller portals.
* So please keep all this in mind when you get the urge to make changes to a book after it's been published. That Word file you send me has to have whatever you might want in the book already there. When I send you my final edit for your final inspection, that's when you have to tell me what else you might want to add--like a dedication. After publication is too late.
* Final suggestion: Be industrious. Be as relentlessly careful in editing your ebook as you would if the book were to go to print. We think that a print book is difficult to make changes to after publication. It is. But it's equally difficult to make changes to an ebook. And we have no guarantee, other than buying your ebook from every possible distributor, that they are selling your latest version. At least with print there is only one tangible version that every distributor is selling. With digital content we're not so lucky.