A question about Advance Uncorrected Proofs

[srboone]

Two of these that I have recently received from CD had glaring editing errors in them (at least they were to me) and when I looked at the corresponding S/Ls printed from them, the errors were uncorrected. In Burkes's Kin, twice in the openning section, the protagonist was haid to have shifted her eyes in a certain direction when she clearly only had one. In Little's The Mailman, Doug's wife Trish was identified as "Tritia" (I havn't read much of the book, so that may trun out to be the actual name or a pet name).

So here is my question?

What is the realtionship between the Uncorrected Proof and the final product? Is it uncorrected in the sense that it hasn't been edited and that process is still ongoing; is the editing done in house or is it outsourced? Or is it uncorrected in the sense that the format and design hasn't been oked? In the case of Kin, it was a new book and the eye/eyes faux pas really stands out; The Mailman, on the other hand, is a reprint of an 20-yearold text. Perhaps that error appeared in the original printing and textual integrity was being maintained.....that sounded like a plausible idea when it occurred to me, but seems ludicrous as i write. I ask this a READER and not a collector, since that is what I condsider myself. As a reader, it's really annoying to have to back track in a book to see if I missed someting vital. And the point is, I had to stop reading. I only got to page 13 in The Mailman before I stopped. I'll probably try to pick it back up tomorrow.

CD does a great job and many books hve such glaring errors in them. But it's brings the pleasure I get from reading a book to a grinding halt. In the case of The Mailman, I never even got started.

EDIT***EDIT*** Now that I think about it, "Tritia" would he pronounced "Trisha." I never had seen that spelling. My bad. But the question still remains. What is therealtionship between the proof and the final product?

[peteOcha]

I noticed the "eye deal" in Kin as well. But sometimes things like that slip by, even if five or ten people proofread the book. I do some proofing at work (we have 2-3 people who do it as well) and sometimes we miss something very obvious that is spotted by someone else completely not involved.

On a side note, I'll gladly accept ARC's if CD needs some extra proofing.

[Dan Hocker]

It really depends on the ARC. Sometimes the ARC really is corrected and is really just produced because we need something to send to reviewers before the book is actually published. In most cases it falls after the book was designed, but before the design is proof read.

We typically have different 3 different phases of proof reading. Phase 1 is where we have the un-designed manuscript proof read. This can happen several times before we move onto the next phase, depending how "clean" the manuscript is. Phase 2 is after the book has been designed. We usually only do one or two pass's at this phase as the hope is that most of the problems where fixed in phase 1, and phase 2 is to catch any problems that happened during design and make sure TOC's / page numbers match what they're supposed to. Phase 3 is what the "Bluelines" are for, they come from the printer and problems can be fixed here, though we usually are only looking for major problems at this point not really proof reading. Sometimes problems just slip through sadly.

[Dan Hocker]

I noticed the "eye deal" in Kin as well. But sometimes things like that slip by, even if five or ten people proofread the book. I do some proofing at work (we have 2-3 people who do it as well) and sometimes we miss something very obvious that is spotted by someone else completely not involved.

On a side note, I'll gladly accept ARC's if CD needs some extra proofing.

Heh, ARC's are never really produced for proof reading. With the exception of some of the King ARC's we've made. They're usually printed too late in the process to be of much use for proof reading.

[srboone]

I was just wondering and I realize nobody's perfect (least of all me), but things like that jump out at me. There was also one in Hell Hollow ("Chuck" was spelled "Chick"), though I never saw an ARC of it...Thanks for answering.

[Xiabei]

I'm the same way. Not intentionally; it's just something I tend to notice. Happens a lot from the "big houses" too. Typos always throw off my rhythm, because when I read one I'm like, What was that? And then I reread it to make sure I'm not missing something or perhaps misread something. And when it's an honest-to-goodness typo, my mind then starts to wander... How did they miss that? All it takes is a cursory glance to see it's not right!... Why didn't I become a proofreader?

[Dan Hocker]

Personally I'd be an awful proofreader. I read too quickly to catch most things.

[peteOcha]

Heh, ARC's are never really produced for proof reading. With the exception of some of the King ARC's we've made. They're usually printed too late in the process to be of much use for proof reading.

That's ok Dan. I'll still gladly accept the ARC's anyway.

[Dave1442397]

I was just wondering and I realize nobody's perfect (least of all me), but things like that jump out at me. There was also one in Hell Hollow ("Chuck" was spelled "Chick"), though I never saw an ARC of it...Thanks for answering.

I just read Hell Hollow, and one that jumped out at me was the horses "reigns" instead of reins.

I've noticed a lot more of these errors since spellcheckers became widely used.

I like Stuart Woods' take on this issue:

Q. A lot of readers want to know why there are so many errors in a published book.
A. There are two kinds of errors — those of spelling, punctuation, etc. and those that the writer makes in plotting or in fact. The publisher employs, in addition to the book’s editor, a copy editor, whose job it is to deal with the minute details of the book, correct mistakes of both kinds, and make sure the plot and timeline track well. By the time the book goes into production, it should have been read by several people, but, unfortunately, errors still slip through. I know that errors annoy readers, but there does not seem to be any economic way to avoid all of them.
Q. Why do you ask, in the introduction to the email function on your website, that readers not write to you with corrections?
A. Because, by the time the readers read the book and write to me, the process is already out of my hands, and I will already know about it. If you find some large, important error and send it to my publishers, perhaps a correction can be made for the next printing, but that doesn’t often happen. The book is going to remain pretty much as it’s first published, errors and all. Also, readers who like to report errors to me always seem to think they’re the first to notice, when, in fact, I may have already heard from hundreds of others on the same subject. ( I must have had a hundred emails from helicopter pilots, commenting on my description of Stone’s helicopter flying in Two-Dollar Bill. My point was, Stone knows nothing about flying helicopters.) I sometimes make errors such as changing a character’s name from book to book, something which no one needs to point out to me, since that has been done many times already. God help me if I make a mistake about a firearm. I’ll get a ton of email from gun folks about it, and most of them volunteer to be my firearms consultant. Too many readers seem to belong to the AHA! Police. In short, save time for yourself and me, and PLEASE DO NOT write to me about errors and corrections. If you do, I’ll simply refer you back to this interview, and I’ll probably yell at you..

[Dan Hocker]

That's pretty much right on the money for the big publishers. I'm pretty sure with us small publishers (and I could be wrong as I'm not really involved in the process and am just speculating) we don't really do "editing" with plotting or facts. That's typically done by the author / author's editor. To my knowledge we don't typically make changes of that nature to the stories. Again I'm really just speculating here as that's way outside my department.

[Xiabei]

I just read Hell Hollow, and one that jumped out at me was the horses "reigns" instead of reins.

I've noticed a lot more of these errors since spellcheckers became widely used.

I like Stuart Woods' take on this issue:

Q. A lot of readers want to know why there are so many errors in a published book.
A. There are two kinds of errors — those of spelling, punctuation, etc. and those that the writer makes in plotting or in fact. The publisher employs, in addition to the book’s editor, a copy editor, whose job it is to deal with the minute details of the book, correct mistakes of both kinds, and make sure the plot and timeline track well. By the time the book goes into production, it should have been read by several people, but, unfortunately, errors still slip through. I know that errors annoy readers, but there does not seem to be any economic way to avoid all of them.
.

Sure there is - hire somebody good enough to find them! :-) Typos, that is.

What he addresses in the second question has never been a concern of mine; I wouldn't, for example, complain about a firearm being described incorrectly. But those damn typos!

But his response made me think: who is a good writer? Is it really that prevalent? "Ok, you wrote a story, but now I need to go through it and make sure everything works." It seems odd to me that a person who writes for a living isn't in a position to know if it makes sense or not! I would hate that - "You wrote it, now I have to see if you wrote it correctly."

[Dan Hocker]

Sure there is - hire somebody good enough to find them! :-) Typos, that is.

What he addresses in the second question has never been a concern of mine; I wouldn't, for example, complain about a firearm being described incorrectly. But those damn typos!

But his response made me think: who is a good writer? Is it really that prevalent? "Ok, you wrote a story, but now I need to go through it and make sure everything works." It seems odd to me that a person who writes for a living isn't in a position to know if it makes sense or not! I would hate that - "You wrote it, now I have to see if you wrote it correctly."

With the New York publishers, it's usually not about if you wrote it correctly, it's more about did you write it in a way that we can sell it.

[Dave1442397]

I can deal with most of it, but the errors that really bump me out of a story are things like silencers being put on pistols, or in one case an author turning a revolver into an automatic and back again more than once in the same book.

Another memorable one was in one of Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels where a passenger rolls down the rear window of a Ford Probe to shoot at a car behind them. There are only two doors and two roll-down windows on a Probe, and you sure as hell can't roll down a window if you're sitting in the back.

[Martin]

I have no problem with inaccurate facts. I have no problem with an author messing with reality. Typos generally do not bug me too much, an example is the recently finished Buffalo Hunter. The character Marty was referred to as Mary once, it did give me pause to ensure I had the correct person in mind but it did not bother me too much. The continuity issues that cause me to leave the story to figure thing out do bug me.

[Dan Hocker]

I have no problem with inaccurate facts. I have no problem with an author messing with reality. Typos generally do not bug me too much, an example is the recently finished Buffalo Hunter. The character Marty was referred to as Mary once, it did give me pause to ensure I had the correct person in mind but it did not bother me too much. The continuity issues that cause me to leave the story to figure thing out do bug me.

Hey Martin, where was that error in Buffalo Hunter? Since that one hasn't been announced officially yet I don't think it's in production yet, so we can probably get that one fixed. Thanks!