Talia_Brie

To the best of my knowledge the process for producing a book is as follows
1: Author submits novel to publisher
2: Publisher/copywriter edits and resubmits to author to check corrections
3: Author resubmits after changing back half of copywriters "corrections"
4: "Draft" copy of novel is printed, can't think of what they call it right now. They make about 50 to 100 copies and these are distributed to various agencies, the author and some friends. These people all check for errors.
5: final print is commissioned and the novel is typeset and mass-produced.

This is why the chance of errors are few, but because this is all human checking, some are going to slip through.

And the cost of undertaking this process is why classic novels are not re-typeset.

AFAIK

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JustWrite

Guess what? I've been hearing about this certain author for a long time. And, you all know I can't mention the author's name. That wouldn't be right. I'll say this, though. The author is a black female who writes erotica. Very popular woman, I might add.

Anyhoo...

I paid a visit to Barnes & Noble the other day and ran across her latest novel. Man, y'all, that book had so many damn errors, it wasn't even funny! I'm talking about errors like...

I starting unbuttoning my blouse. Correction... I started unbuttoning my blouse.

"Is said person invisible?" I asked. Correction..."Is the person invisible?" I asked.

Admitting it caused a breakdown. I grabbed a pillow and broke out into tears. Correction...Admitting it caused a breakdown, I grabbed a pillow and broke out into tears.

Your mother thought it best that he leave. Correction...Your mother thought it was best that he leave.

He was a hundred ninety years old. Correction...He was a hundred and ninety years old.

AND THE LIST GOES ON AND ON!

I didn't think any less of this author, just thought that her editor sucked! I give credit to ANYBODY that tries to accomplish something in life, 'cause it ain't easy!!!!!! Y'all know what I'm saying.

I do have one question, though. Is this grammatically correct?

She was in actuality laughing on the inside.

Me, personally, I would say, "In actuality, she was laughing on the inside." It just sounds better. Or, maybe it's just me.

If the author of the book I'm referring to happens to be reading this, please know that I STILL admire you and enjoyed your story. I just wanted to let everyone know something that they already know. WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES!

Peace.

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"You can never win the battle if your mind is too weak to fight."
Paula Edwards
Love Provocative black fiction? Then this ones for you: www.justwritepublishing.com

fairygirlfairies

Personally, grammatical errors throw you but major errors such as the ones described above. Or errors where the information that I know on a subject is wrong (i.e. multiple personality disorder is now known as dissociative identity disorder, problem from a recent book I read) then it will continue to pester me for quiet awhile. That's why after you write the book you edit it yourself, then have an editor do it, then do it again. What fun but it's worth it.

-Faith

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"Know thyself."

sully474

You will always get errors. It sucks, but most readers will skim right over them.

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"Sure there have been injuries and deaths in boxing - but none of them serious." - Alan Minter, Boxer
"I get to go to lots of overseas places, like Canada." - Britney Spears, Pop Singer

bobgelinas

Storytelling is an art form, like signing or playing a musical instrument. It is performed by humans who have the propensity to "hit a sour note". Obviously, when listening to a singer or musician, it's a turn-off to hear a mistake. For a professional performance, audiences expect perfection.

Yet keep in mind that for a singer or musican, a three minute song may only contain a few hundred notes--a few hundred occasions to make a mistake. A novel may contain around 100,000 words, and over half-a-million characters. That's an exponential opportunity to make a mistake and deviate from perfection.

Indeed, perfection is what we shoot for. In reality, we get there about 99.99% of the time (which means in a book of 100,000 words, 10 of them could be wrong). If you only see one or two mistakes, that's pretty amazing. And if you don't see any, it's probably because you missed it too, just like the author and editor did. I'd never take the bet that in any 100,000 word book there wasn't one single error. Such an example of perfection may exist--I'd just never take that bet.

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Bob Gelinas
publisher@archebooks.com
www.archebooks.com

Twice

Besides, perfection is boring, anyway. And a bit creepy.

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-Ann-

Creative_Insanity

Sure, typos bother me a bit, but it's not a huge deal. I think most people would understand how hard it is to write a book (let alone make it perfect). At least I'm certain that all of us creative beings here on this discussion board would understand.

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“No.” We walked a bit in silence and then the Fool said quietly, “Fitz, home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see it what is not there anymore.”

NoWorries

For what it's worth, all of those were correct prior to the correction. The last one, the way you wrote it would say, he was 100.90 years old. When speaking math, "and" is synonomous with a decimal point.

Errors happen, live with it, read over them. A book isn't about words, it's about stuff. Read it for the stuff.