Lately we’ve had a sudden influx of books that need editing. I barely finish one when another comes in. The last couple days we’ve had three novels arrive FedEx that are in the page proof stage. For those of you who don’t know what page proofs are, they are preliminary versions of publications. They are unbound, and in some cases electronic. They are created as part of the proofreading and copyediting processes, but can be used for promotional and review purposes also. At this stage most of the mistakes should be already corrected. Usually mistakes we find are from what was corrected in copy edit stage and entered incorrectly. At this point I’ve read the book so many times that it is sometimes hard to catch mistakes. This would be my last chance to catch a mistake. It really bothers me when something stupid doesn't get fixed. For example in Frankly My Dear, I’m Dead I did not catch that I had Margaret Mitchell’s husband down as John Walsh. His name is John Marsh. I knew this, but for some reason my brain didn’t catch it. That still bugs me. Let’s hope my brain is sharper this week. I'd better eat some fish.Friday, June 19, 2009
Rereading Overload
Lately we’ve had a sudden influx of books that need editing. I barely finish one when another comes in. The last couple days we’ve had three novels arrive FedEx that are in the page proof stage. For those of you who don’t know what page proofs are, they are preliminary versions of publications. They are unbound, and in some cases electronic. They are created as part of the proofreading and copyediting processes, but can be used for promotional and review purposes also. At this stage most of the mistakes should be already corrected. Usually mistakes we find are from what was corrected in copy edit stage and entered incorrectly. At this point I’ve read the book so many times that it is sometimes hard to catch mistakes. This would be my last chance to catch a mistake. It really bothers me when something stupid doesn't get fixed. For example in Frankly My Dear, I’m Dead I did not catch that I had Margaret Mitchell’s husband down as John Walsh. His name is John Marsh. I knew this, but for some reason my brain didn’t catch it. That still bugs me. Let’s hope my brain is sharper this week. I'd better eat some fish.
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I can relate. I'm not a writer but I do a blog - not near the amount of writing you do. Even with spell checkers and rereading, sometimes it gets by me when I press that enter/send/publish button. Good Luck!!!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, my wife started reading my copies of your Fresh Baked series. She has enjoyed the first two and is now on the last one. GREAT SERIES. Looking forward to your next one.
All I can say is thank goodness for computers. Before we had spell check I misspelled the in a book. It was a glitch in my brain. For some reason it was teh every time. Luckily we did have find and replace, so I was able to fix the errors quickly. Can you image all the white out that would have taken?
ReplyDeleteI’m a little dyslexic, so I am a fairly slow reader. This is why all of the page proofs at one time is throwing me for a loop. I like to get things done early and I’m barely making the deadline. Being dyslexic also makes tax time interesting.
Thank you for the kind words about the series.