Do proof readers exist any more?

[stillcrazyafterall]

Not exactly a pedantic post but I know you will understand!

I read. A LOT. I am becoming more and more frustrated and disillusioned with the level of mistakes in books. Printed ones. By big companies. I read one the other week where 'she looked threw the window' I kid you not. I am currently reading ' A Foreign Country' by Charles Cumming. Excellent book, but I got annoyed when the main character 'racked his brains'. FFS this is happening in pretty much every book I read! I think I will start leaving reviews on Amazon and Good Reads with the glaring errors mentioned. Anyone else?

Yup I read recently "she chocked it up to anxiety..."

I find kindle books are particularly bad for weird spellings and typos. For older books I sometimes wonder if they have just scanned a print copy and the scanning software isn't very good.

I’ve seen loads of mistakes in books recently, drives me mad. As an aside I saw this van the other day

Racked his brains is correct I think? According to Collins dictionary anyway. I agree tho, stupid errors drive me mad. I work in this field and am amazed at the number of semi-literate people who are in highly paid positions (and send me their copy which makes me tear my hair out).

Yep, ‘racked’ is what I’d do to brains. You torture and extend them while thinking about the issue.

Toomuchleopard how many mistakes can you fit on one van?

I'm an editor and proofreader by profession but not working at the moment. I have noticed that when companies switch from print to online publications the need for proofreading apparently evaporates. Have lost several freelance jobs as a result of this.

@Toomuchleopard that van is just too much

I'm an occasional proofreader, mostly employed on a freelance basis by PhD students for whom English is their second language.

It is 'racked', btw.

@MountainDweller

Toomuchleopard how many mistakes can you fit on one van?

I'm an editor and proofreader by profession but not working at the moment. I have noticed that when companies switch from print to online publications the need for proofreading apparently evaporates. Have lost several freelance jobs as a result of this.

That’s because they are paying companies so much to sort out the damn online editing system and stop the ‘deleting all’ bug that crops up if you dare to type in the final paragraph/use Firefox instead of Chrome/ want to change a reference that they can’t afford wordsmiths any more.

Bitter? Me?

A friend of mine proof reads for a living, she's highly intelligent, i suspect as a profession it is a dying breed though.

Sympathies, MountainDweller. I have some spare e-proofs that I’m avoiding right now because DH is working in the same room and can’t stand the swearing that accompanies the process. How’s your blood pressure?

@stillcrazyafterall

Not exactly a pedantic post but I know you will understand!

I read. A LOT. I am becoming more and more frustrated and disillusioned with the level of mistakes in books. Printed ones. By big companies. I read one the other week where 'she looked threw the window' I kid you not. I am currently reading ' A Foreign Country' by Charles Cumming. Excellent book, but I got annoyed when the main character 'racked his brains'. FFS this is happening in pretty much every book I read! I think I will start leaving reviews on Amazon and Good Reads with the glaring errors mentioned. Anyone else?

What's wrong with 'racked his brains'?

Wracked is usually considered less correct, I think.

A pet hate of mine is the omission of the second comma from nonessential clauses. This seems to be becoming more common, particularly in Kindle books!

Yes, all books printed by reputable publishers go through multiple rounds of editing, including a copy editor. Most manuscripts will have been proofread by the author, then the author's agent, then the acquiring editor, then the acquiring editor again after changes, then the copy editor again, then the author again. But all those people are human and sometimes they'll all miss things, especially homonyms.

The author can also overrule edits. I've met some (albeit mostly self-publishers) who think comma usage is a "stylistic choice" instead of something that has actual rules. This is probably why comma splices are the most common error I see in well-published books.

Some small presses don't put in the same resources. Few self-publishers use proper editors.

Yeah, I find it really annoying. And kindle editions seem to be particularly prone to errors.

Honestly if you love books, don't buy from Amazon and especially not on Kindle Unlimited. Amazon's ambition is to squeeze out other publishers and dominate the market, and those other publishers are the ones paying for books to be properly edited. The more you buy from Amazon, the more standards go down.

‘Racked his brains’ is correct, isn’t it? How would one ‘wrack his brains’?

@HeyDemonsItsYaGirl

Honestly if you love books, don't buy from Amazon and especially not on Kindle Unlimited. Amazon's ambition is to squeeze out other publishers and dominate the market, and those other publishers are the ones paying for books to be properly edited. The more you buy from Amazon, the more standards go down.

Publishers sell their books on Amazon. Are you really saying that a Penguin book or Faber book is less well edited if it's sold on Amazon?

That van is unbelievable.

I read a lot of kindle books as my eyesight isn't great and am getting fed up of things like phased/fazed etc.

I visited a friend recently who proudly showed me her new garden sign -
The Taylor's retreat. My OH thinks I'm such a pedant as I told him I couldn't have that up in my garden

I have a book in where the character is named Ysandre.

The next book over she’s suddenly Yvette

Surely it's proofreader!

@JustGiveMeTwoMinutes

Surely it's proofreader!

Yes, proofreader and SIC 'racked'.

Also, not all 'Kindle' books are self-published. Some are e-versions of printed 'traditional' books and will have been proofread at the same time so if there's a mistake in the e-version there'll be one in the print version.

Luckily you may have been able to buy the ebook for 99p...

His eyes wondered around the room
Broccoli stork
Gauged his eyes out

I beta read for a couple of authors and have spotted errors their editors & proofreaders didn't spot.

Sometimes, Iklboo, it’s because removing 99% of the author’s mistakes has left even the diligent proofreader glazed over and despairing.

I’ve received work with entire repeated chapters, name-changing protagonists, chunks cut’n’pasted from elsewhere, collaboratively written in one author’s second language and another’s third; and always, always urgent.

I'm an editor and on my last book edit, I made more than 21,000 changes to the document (heavy edit with a dyslexic author). I guarantee I will have missed some mistakes as it's impossible not to, but that's why you have as many layers as possible (and some mistakes will still remain!). Ideally, everything goes through numerous rounds, but that costs money ...

The problem is that publishers tend to pay very badly. In fact, I've stopped working for publishers almost entirely and work almost exclusively for individuals as I make far more money (as in three or four times what I would on publisher work). Some of the rates publishers offer (and I'm talking about the big ones) are barely above minimum wage, so it's hardly surprising that experienced editors and proofreaders are moving away from working on trad books. It's a shame as I enjoy publisher work but it's just not feasible when I have limited work time due to looking after my DD and the pay is just not comparable with what self-publishers or corporate clients will pay.

There are also a lot of moving parts in book production, and the changes editors make can be ignored or vetoed by authors, which is more common with bigger names, or can be changed again by someone well-meaning but who doesn't really know what they are doing.