Error in book?

58 replies

mavornia · 29/09/2025 23:50

I was looking at this book in Waterstones today. Surely it should be “in the Blakes’ careful facade” rather than “Blake’s” as written? Would Blake’s ever be acceptable?

OP posts:

PendantScorner · 04/10/2025 11:57

@Abominableday , they might be self-published. Spelling and grammar-checking seems to be done by applications not humans these days.

BellissimoGecko · 04/10/2025 12:25

PendantScorner · 04/10/2025 11:57

@Abominableday , they might be self-published. Spelling and grammar-checking seems to be done by applications not humans these days.

A lot of indie authors think they can’t afford editing or proofreadIng, so use Grammarly or ProWritingAid. Shudder. But you need to know about grammar to decide which ‘errors’ Grammarly is correcting are actually errors!!

BellissimoGecko · 04/10/2025 12:28

Abominableday · 04/10/2025 10:51

I notice a lot of mistakes in the kindle books I read now - if they jump out to me I can't see why they've haven't been similarly noticeable to the proof readers. However, some are 99p Amazon reads so perhaps the publishing process is different!

Not necessarily. Some might be self published, though. Check out the copyright page - that will tell you.

But many publishers offer truly abominable rates for editing or proofreading, well below the minimum wage, so it often means they can’t attract proofreaders who have training and experience…

Words · 04/10/2025 13:52

Blakes'. What absolute brain rot it sounds too.

AI generated fiction?

APatternGrammar · 04/10/2025 14:51

Riverswims · 30/09/2025 17:04

my dad once said “ ‘they’ always put an error in so the publishers can prove if it’s been copied” this made sense to me, I didn’t question it and I always find the deliberate mistake in a book, it’s usually just one spelling mistake, sometimes the name of a character wrong, never it seen it on the back cover though?

This is a strategy that has occasionally been used for confidential government documents; each set gets a different change that is recorded so that if a copy is leaked they known which it was. It doesn’t make sense for a publisher or for a novel.

SprayWhiteDung · 04/10/2025 15:26

APatternGrammar · 04/10/2025 14:51

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Ooh, sounds like exactly the kind of thing that The Five Find-Outers would be right on to

Abominableday · 04/10/2025 15:43

Maybe they were big fans of Blake's 7 and couldn't make the adjustment.

DuesToTheDirt · 04/10/2025 16:20

Yes, "Blakes'". But the book sounds like tripe anyway!

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