RANT: Dam Spell Chequers!

[Dannyalcatraz]

In my sig, I call out rpg publishers for over reliance on spell checkers during the editing process. It seems that perhaps I didn't look around at the rest of the writers I read.

With this thread, I hereby call out those who publish ANYTHING and commit the same Sin of Editing.

So far this month, I've caught about 20 typos that no spellchecker would catch, but jar a reader, like...

A spell called a "K-1" called an "F-1" less than a page later...
or
A piece of fabric "died" a certain color...
or
A person wearing a wedding "wring"

and so forth.

This isn't in online stuff; its not fanfic. And no, it wasn't colorful writing meant to mimic lingo from particular era or region.

These errors and others were in stories by established pro writers and published in magazines, novels and anthologies for which I paid good money. (For the record, they weren't released by the same companies.)

I know that- individually- these are minor things, so just to be clear: I'm not asking for perfection. But it seems (to me at least) that errors like this are becoming increasingly common.

 

[Deset Gled]

It yule jest clam dawn a beet, whee kin awl whir con these tissue two gather.

 

[Rykion]

Magazines, newspapers, and even novels are often full of spelling and grammar errors. I've even picked up a few novels missing entire passages of text. Another novel had sections formatted to look like a computer file in which the letter f and any letter following it in a word were unintentionally left out. It's a lot o n trying to gure out what the author wrote. If publishers don't start doing a better job, I'll spend more time in a library and less time in a book store.

 

[Raylis]

it's a lack of anyone hiring proofreaders to actually print the pages and go over it line by line. Everyone is just relying on word's red and green squiggly lines (hate those stupid lines!)

I can't even count the times I see a single parentheses and spent the next 10 minutes trying to find it's mate.

 

[caperpger]

Hooced on fonics worcs four mee.

 

[Merkuri]

I wonder...

I believe the big problem here is money. The publishers don't want to pay more money for people to sit and proofread.

I wonder how many people would be willing to get to read books for free (and be one of the first people to read them to boot) if they agreed to look for spelling errors and typos? Give a pre-published copy to a few fans (who sign a NDA) and get free proofreading!

Edit: Here's a story I just thought up and wanted to add without posting twice in a row...

When I was in high school I was reading a book, and I came up on a passage that seemed very familiar. I realized I had read it before. The continuity was wrong, too. The characters were wondering about something they had figured out a while ago.

I looked at the page numbers and realized that it actually WAS a page from a while ago. It went from something like page 200 to page 150. And the next pages were 151, 152, etc. At first I was amused. They double-printed some pages. So I flipped through to the next instance of page 200, read half the page to remind myself where I was, and when I got to page 201 it didn't make sense again. It wasn't page 201, it was page 251! They double-printed fifty pages, replacing fifty other pages.

The publisher actually sent me a new copy after I sent in a letter, which was good, but another book in the series had a similar problem, except only with 5-10 pages instead of 50. They never returned my letter about that one.

 

[ssampier]

That's a printing problem, not a editing problem (the signatures get screwed up). I had a book with that problem and the store let me exchange it for a new one.

 

[MojoGM]

That's a printing problem, not a editing problem (the signatures get screwed up). I had a book with that problem and the store let me exchange it for a new one.

I work for a publisher, and this happens all the time. When you're printing 100,000+ copies of a book sometimes a certain percentage has screwed up signatures from the printer. Now, in the big scheme of things it is a very small number, but if you happen to get one of these it is a big hassle.

Basically, is someone contacts us about this we'll send a free replacement book no questions asked.