Editing mistake or printing mistake?

Greenwolf103 · Nov 7, 2009

Recently came across these in a novel I just read:

*Characters are misidentified. "Timmy" in one sentence is named "Billy" or "Jim" in another sentence. I have no idea who Billy or Jim are, but they made appearances in the story.
*Words are missing. As in: "She sat the on the table."
*The end quote marks are inserted into dialogue at wrong places. For instance: "I know what she" was talking about, Jim.

Those are just the major flaws. The author is also an editor, so I was surprised to see them. Are they just the result of a tired editor or printing goofs?

Jamesaritchie · Nov 7, 2009

Or a writer mistake. The writers always gets the last look at a manuscript, and with modern printing techniques, this shouldn't happen.

It's teh wrietr's book, and teh writer always gets the last chance to proofread, so the writer always deserves the lion's share of blame.

IceCreamEmpress · Nov 7, 2009

It's an editing mistake.

The copyeditor should have caught it before the final proof went to the writer.

The only "printing mistakes" you see anymore are things like pages out of order or blank pages--books are typeset electronically, so any in-text errors come into the process well before the manuscript gets to the printer. There's nothing a printer would do to a manuscript that would cause that kind of mistake.

cptwentworth · Nov 7, 2009

There's a popular YA book out now that misspells the MC's foreign name a few times. You'd think that name would be programmed into the spell check and be caught.

I always find mistakes in self-published material.

IceCreamEmpress · Nov 7, 2009

cptwentworth said:
I always find mistakes in self-published material.

I always find mistakes in all published material, from self-published books to Big New York houses to university presses. The last book I read that didn't have a single error in it was months ago--even Diana Athill's memoir had what I presume was her error of "Mary Casson" for the painter "Mary Cassatt." (Athill, a longtime UK editor, at least has the excuse of being 91--her editor, on the other hand, should have caught it.)

Jamesaritchie · Nov 8, 2009

IceCreamEmpress said:
It's an editing mistake.

The copyeditor should have caught it before the final proof went to the writer.

The only "printing mistakes" you see anymore are things like pages out of order or blank pages--books are typeset electronically, so any in-text errors come into the process well before the manuscript gets to the printer. There's nothing a printer would do to a manuscript that would cause that kind of mistake.

It's your book, and if you expect the copy editor to catch mistakes, I guarantee your book will be FULL of mistakes. He'll catch as many as he can, but expectin him to catch them all just ain't gonna happen. No writer ever has the right to blame an editor for such mistakes. The writer gets the last look, the writer's name goes on the cover, and it's always the writer's job to make certain such mistakes do not get into print.

Gary Clarke · Nov 10, 2009

James though I agree you should keep as much control over your ms for as long as possible and though most good houses are very accommodating, in many cases the writer does NOT get the last look before print. Believe me.

Plus writers are NOT editors nor are they copyeditors, they are writers. The copyeditors get paid to do that particular job because ( one would hope) they have been trained in it - not only that but they know how to mark a file up so that the printer knows what's what ( in terms of spacing, italics, proper quotation marks etc) These are technical things ( literally - a technical way of digitally marking up an ms so that the printer can use them) which have nothing to do with writing a good book. Methods can also vary from publisher to publisher in relation to 'house style'. If I had to actually copy edit each of my ms's for each different publishing house I'd need seven heads.

Greenwolf103 · Nov 10, 2009

Thanks, everyone, for your feedback on this.

Jamesaritchie · Nov 10, 2009

Gary Clarke said:
James though I agree you should keep as much control over your ms for as long as possible and though most good houses are very accommodating, in many cases the writer does NOT get the last look before print. Believe me.

Plus writers are NOT editors nor are they copyeditors, they are writers. The copywriters get paid to do that particular job because ( one would hope) they have been trained in it - not only that but they know how to mark a file up so that the printer knows what's what ( in terms of spacing, italics, proper quotation marks etc) These are technical things ( literally - a technical way of digitally marking up an ms so that the printer can use them) which have nothing to do with writing a good book. Methods can also vary from publisher to publisher in relation to 'house style'. If I had to actually copy edit each of my ms's for each different publishing house I'd need seven heads.

Every last legitimate publisher I know sends galleys to the writer. All of them. This galley is the last chance. No one but the writer touches the manuscript after this point.

All the technical aspects have, at this point, been completed, and the only step remaining is proofreading, and the writer does this.

It has nothing to do with in-house style because this, too, is finished before the galleys arrive.

The galley is ready to send directly to the printer, and no changes at all will be made, unless the writer makes them. The typesetter them implements the writer's changes.

The writer who is not also an editor, a copyeditor, and a proofreader is a writer who will ALWAYS find errors in his published book.

If you rely on an editor or a copyeditor or a proofreader to make your book error free, you have no one but yourself to blame when an error shows up.

It's your book, and it's your responsibility to make it error free.

Gary Clarke · Nov 10, 2009

Galleys fly too and fro many times during the editing process, James. They are not the printed copy. There's tons of mistakes can be made between the last galley the writer sees and the printing process and I'm telling you that the writer does not always get to see the final copy before it goes to the printer. That's just the way it is. There's no point saying it never happens, sometimes books go to the printers without the writer having seen the finally proofs and that's the truth. Also I can't help but reiterate, if there are copyedit problems in the final proof it is the copyeditor's fault! That's the job they're paid for. It's nuts to expect a writer to also be an editor and a copy editor! The training will simply not be there in most cases, whereas one would hope that the editorial staff of a publishing house would be trained as such.

Thump · Nov 10, 2009

Being able to write a darned good story doesn't necessarily mean you have a perfect grasp of spelling or grammar. Copyeditors are there to make sure very few mistakes make it into the finished book but everyone misses things, even the experts (especially after they've spent hours with a ruler and their proofreading marks memory-cards hunched over a pile of loose sheets of text). Also, after a certain stage, there are mistakes that will be noticed but not removed because it would change the number of pages or mess with the sections in the finished product which would throw off all the production costs and typesetting.

Also, not all corrections a writer suggests will make it into the book either, again, because of costs. Publishers factor in the cost to author corrections but it's only a teeny percentage of the budget allowed for production. It's just the reality of things and most people won't notice a small number of errors anyway or if they do it won't bother them too much.

Gary Clarke · Nov 10, 2009

Thump, all true true true.

Deleted member 42 · Nov 10, 2009

Jamesaritchie said:
The galley is ready to send directly to the printer, and no changes at all will be made, unless the writer makes them. The typesetter them implements the writer's changes.

Err . . . no. Speaking as a typesetter, I've had editors ask me to make changes minutes before sending the postscript file to the printer.

If they are minor, and I do mean minor, they are made.

What I think may have happened in the OP case is that the wrong file may have been sent to the printer.

It is very easy to actually send the wrong file; I never have, but I do know about large houses having accidentally sent the wrong file. The uncorrected proof might be sent, or the copyedited but not proofed version . . .

DeleyanLee · Nov 10, 2009

There's also the question of whether or not the publisher even HAS a copyeditor on staff. I know of at least one SF/F one who doesn't. All the responsibility falls solely on the writer. My friend who publishes with them (and adores them despite this inconvenience) and hires an outside copyeditor to go over her books and galleys (which is very costly, since galleys never have a long turnaround time).

My experience is that errors can come in at any stage and not get caught by everyone before they see press. Publishing is a collaborative effort, which means it's hard to pin down exactly where something falls through on any given project.

I think Medievalist is right about the OP's copy, though. Those are some serious word processing errors that really should've been caught by someone.

IceCreamEmpress · Nov 10, 2009

Jamesaritchie said:
It's your book, and if you expect the copy editor to catch mistakes, I guarantee your book will be FULL of mistakes.

As a professional writer AND a professional copyeditor, I can tell you that the copyeditor should have caught it first. Then, when the edited proof went to the writer, the writer should have caught it.

The printer, however, is completely blameless, which was the point of the question.

In other news: the Tor paperback spine of Nancy Kress's Beggars in Spain gives the title as Beggers in Spain, for which Kress most likely bears zero responsibility.

eqb · Nov 10, 2009

Medievalist said:
It is very easy to actually send the wrong file; I never have, but I do know about large houses having accidentally sent the wrong file. The uncorrected proof might be sent, or the copyedited but not proofed version . . .

I know at least one case where that happened. I was astonished, because that publisher has a very good reputation for editing and copyediting, but then I found out it was the uncorrected proof. Oy, the typos.

Gary Clarke · Nov 10, 2009

eqp and medievalist, I am thinking of a similar situation. Whatever about the typos; Oy, the waste o money!

laharrison · Nov 11, 2009

Just to echo what others have said, and add my personal experience, I was told that I would be the last person to touch my book before it was printed. I was sent the 'PreFinals' as my publisher calls them, and I made a lot of changes (a lot of errors had been introduced in copy editing).

Now I have my hands on a copy of the book, I see that I did indeed miss several things when I looked the chapter over. More worrying, however, is that some of my changes were ignored, and there were some changes made in between me seeing the PreFinal and the book being printed.

So yes, some blame should lie with the author for errors, but sometimes even if the author thinks they're the last person to touch the book, they aren't.

eqb · Nov 11, 2009

Everyone--author, editor, and copyeditor--works hard to catch and fix errors of plot and prose. But we're all human, and sometimes an error gets past all three guardians of the prose.

Irysangel · Nov 11, 2009

I guess it depends on the house. I went over my galleys, my editor's assistant went over my galleys, and the production editor went over them before it went to print. And the production editor caught something that we'd missed every round up until that point, so thank god for that.

That being said, I'm sure there will still be plenty of errors, even after 10 different people have looked at it since the copyediting stage.

Parametric · Nov 11, 2009

IceCreamEmpress said:
In other news: the Tor paperback spine of Nancy Kress's Beggars in Spain gives the title as Beggers in Spain, for which Kress most likely bears zero responsibility.

The title is misspelled?

The TITLE?

That's horrifying.

Namatu · Nov 12, 2009

Parametric said:
The title is misspelled?

The TITLE?

That's horrifying.

I allow for some errors in the text of a book, but the cover? The title on the cover? That's sloppy.

ladyinpink · Nov 13, 2009

Jamesaritchie said:
Or a writer mistake. The writers always gets the last look at a manuscript, and with modern printing techniques, this shouldn't happen.

It's teh wrietr's book, and teh writer always gets the last chance to proofread, so the writer always deserves the lion's share of blame.

i was going to say the same thing.

Terie · Nov 14, 2009

Medievalist said:
Err . . . no. Speaking as a typesetter, I've had editors ask me to make changes minutes before sending the postscript file to the printer.

If they are minor, and I do mean minor, they are made.

What I think may have happened in the OP case is that the wrong file may have been sent to the printer.

It is very easy to actually send the wrong file; I never have, but I do know about large houses having accidentally sent the wrong file. The uncorrected proof might be sent, or the copyedited but not proofed version . . .

Uh huh. I know of a major author for whom the wrong file was sent to the printer and the first printing of the book has hundreds of mistakes....things that had been fixed in the copy- and proof edits but reappeared in the printed book.

Also, in this author's most recent book, there's a / in the middle of a word in the very first line of the book. The / doesn't appear in ANY of the edits and was obviously accidentally introduced right at the last second and went to print. After the first fiasco, it was absolutely awful to see something like that in the very first line of the book.

Donna Pudick · Nov 14, 2009

Nobody's perfect, as I learned years ago.

At our publishing house, before I became an agent, we always labelled the proof copies as they were created 1,2,3, etc. When we were satified that the last copy was clean, we deleted the old proof copies before sending the final to the printer. We always used galleys, proofread them, and then asked for page proofs. They were also proofread and corrected, then we ordered blue-lines. They were proofread before we put the book "to bed."

Oh, and we always used two people to proofread together. One to read aloud the original and one to follow the galley/page proofs/blue lines. It was the most foolproof (and expensive) way to eliminate mistakes. But a few always got through anyway.

Editing mistake or printing mistake?

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