The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufreader
Oct. 12th, 2011 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogIt's 11:00 and time to rant. Dum de DUM de dum dum....
I'll read just about anything put in front of me. Cereal boxes, court reporters, and all make and manner of book. My latest choice, another random new-book pick, is about criminal case records from the 1930s. And it's interesting, dammit- about as much suspense as you can get out of a cataloging system.
Still, I must pause to vent some QM1-695, about the way these books are being edited and proofread these days. Now I may be pickier than most, since I used to do this. As I worked my way up the college newspaper ladder from reporter-writer to editor, I made a long stop in the proofreading department. It was the only paid position on the staff, mainly because it required you to be the last set of eyes on the paste-up before it went to the printer, usually at 2 to 3 a.m. You got the princely sum of 40 cents a page for the task (average issue length, 16 pages, 12 on a slow-news or low-ad day, 20-plus on Mondays after a heavy sports weekend. So, yeah, dinner for one at McDonalds.) You also got a credit on the masthead and the hatred of the writer, copy editor and the Ogre in charge of the composing room if you missed anything. So I rarely did. I then did a stint in law school on Law Review, the only field in which students, rather than tenured professionals, edit the peer-review articles. THAT took proofreading to an OCD level, and I still retain it- enough so that little things just piss. Me. OFF.
Among the more recent novels I've finished, all of them heavily promoted products of well known publishing houses, I've run into these:
- highly touted, imaginative speculative fiction piece, from Crown Publishing, a Random House imprint: Just about halfway into the story, a major continuity error occurs: A refers to B by a name that A will not know until virtually the last page of the book. This leads the inquiring mind to wonder if A is a spy, stooge or soothsayer about B's identity. It turns out to be none of these things, but distracts the hell out of you for almost 200 pages before you figure this out. There may have been some other nitpicks about the text, but this one annoyed me all the way through it so much, I can't remember the rest of them.
- bioharzardous suspense novel set in, and not the least bit disguised from being, Cornell and its Ithaca surroundings, from The Dial Press. The author, a tenured Cornell professor, does an excellent job with the story and a complaint-free job with the spelling and such, but he requires one literal leap of belief concerning the contortionist abilities of an 86-year old to jump off a bridge encased, almost literally, in prison bars; and then adds a fellow tenured faculty member, of Russian descent, who speaks for most of his appearance in a distracting Boris Badenov style of speech that, I am told, is probably not appropriate for a native Russian speaker resident in this country for that long and in that setting. Probably the least nitty of my picks, these, but they wouldn't have gotten past my first pass of the book.
- and the one, just now, from St. Martin's Press, somehow making a 1930s vault of records surprisingly tense. So tense, perhaps, that dude forgot to check his Words Most Confused list. Using "auger" (a tool to bore holes with) when you mean "augur" (to portend) is just sloppy. Naming a hotel after the Prado on one page, and then changing it to the Prada one page later, is just devilishly stupid. Eventually, I stop paying prime attention to the actual story, and start pulling out paperclips to mark your misteeks and see if I can turn your book into a drinking game of counting them.
That's just from the most recent crop of reads. I could have done the same with most of the books I've read in the past few years. I suspect it's because as publishers are having their traditional models challenged by the Kindles and Lulus of the world (note the shameless plug there and PLEASE find the final typos that WE missed;), and are cutting back on the editorial process to make up for losses elsewhere. That sucks. Fortunately, I am here to help:
You, or your agent or editor, or someone you know, has something they need read for this very kind of thing. I like to read. Thus, I offer my yenta-car services to put those two together. Send me one of your (or their) Advance Reading Copies, and tell me when you need it reviewed for this purpose. If I can commit to it, I'll email you the promise and then the delivery within the specified time. (If I can't, I'll snailmail the book back to you, or them, on my dime.) You get your typos, massive continuity errors and that sort of thing fixed before the final galleys go. And. If I miss something (and I have, sadly), I will double down on my mistake and donate two copies of the book to one library of your choice and one library of mine, each with a handwritten erratum and apology from the dumbass proofreader so the next reader will be annoyed at me rather than you.
Offer subject to withdrawal without notice. Void in Nebraska. Nothing praising the New York Yankees or any Republican. Other than that, though, it's on.
I'll read just about anything put in front of me. Cereal boxes, court reporters, and all make and manner of book. My latest choice, another random new-book pick, is about criminal case records from the 1930s. And it's interesting, dammit- about as much suspense as you can get out of a cataloging system.
Still, I must pause to vent some QM1-695, about the way these books are being edited and proofread these days. Now I may be pickier than most, since I used to do this. As I worked my way up the college newspaper ladder from reporter-writer to editor, I made a long stop in the proofreading department. It was the only paid position on the staff, mainly because it required you to be the last set of eyes on the paste-up before it went to the printer, usually at 2 to 3 a.m. You got the princely sum of 40 cents a page for the task (average issue length, 16 pages, 12 on a slow-news or low-ad day, 20-plus on Mondays after a heavy sports weekend. So, yeah, dinner for one at McDonalds.) You also got a credit on the masthead and the hatred of the writer, copy editor and the Ogre in charge of the composing room if you missed anything. So I rarely did. I then did a stint in law school on Law Review, the only field in which students, rather than tenured professionals, edit the peer-review articles. THAT took proofreading to an OCD level, and I still retain it- enough so that little things just piss. Me. OFF.
Among the more recent novels I've finished, all of them heavily promoted products of well known publishing houses, I've run into these:
- highly touted, imaginative speculative fiction piece, from Crown Publishing, a Random House imprint: Just about halfway into the story, a major continuity error occurs: A refers to B by a name that A will not know until virtually the last page of the book. This leads the inquiring mind to wonder if A is a spy, stooge or soothsayer about B's identity. It turns out to be none of these things, but distracts the hell out of you for almost 200 pages before you figure this out. There may have been some other nitpicks about the text, but this one annoyed me all the way through it so much, I can't remember the rest of them.
- bioharzardous suspense novel set in, and not the least bit disguised from being, Cornell and its Ithaca surroundings, from The Dial Press. The author, a tenured Cornell professor, does an excellent job with the story and a complaint-free job with the spelling and such, but he requires one literal leap of belief concerning the contortionist abilities of an 86-year old to jump off a bridge encased, almost literally, in prison bars; and then adds a fellow tenured faculty member, of Russian descent, who speaks for most of his appearance in a distracting Boris Badenov style of speech that, I am told, is probably not appropriate for a native Russian speaker resident in this country for that long and in that setting. Probably the least nitty of my picks, these, but they wouldn't have gotten past my first pass of the book.
- and the one, just now, from St. Martin's Press, somehow making a 1930s vault of records surprisingly tense. So tense, perhaps, that dude forgot to check his Words Most Confused list. Using "auger" (a tool to bore holes with) when you mean "augur" (to portend) is just sloppy. Naming a hotel after the Prado on one page, and then changing it to the Prada one page later, is just devilishly stupid. Eventually, I stop paying prime attention to the actual story, and start pulling out paperclips to mark your misteeks and see if I can turn your book into a drinking game of counting them.
That's just from the most recent crop of reads. I could have done the same with most of the books I've read in the past few years. I suspect it's because as publishers are having their traditional models challenged by the Kindles and Lulus of the world (note the shameless plug there and PLEASE find the final typos that WE missed;), and are cutting back on the editorial process to make up for losses elsewhere. That sucks. Fortunately, I am here to help:
You, or your agent or editor, or someone you know, has something they need read for this very kind of thing. I like to read. Thus, I offer my yenta-car services to put those two together. Send me one of your (or their) Advance Reading Copies, and tell me when you need it reviewed for this purpose. If I can commit to it, I'll email you the promise and then the delivery within the specified time. (If I can't, I'll snailmail the book back to you, or them, on my dime.) You get your typos, massive continuity errors and that sort of thing fixed before the final galleys go. And. If I miss something (and I have, sadly), I will double down on my mistake and donate two copies of the book to one library of your choice and one library of mine, each with a handwritten erratum and apology from the dumbass proofreader so the next reader will be annoyed at me rather than you.
Offer subject to withdrawal without notice. Void in Nebraska. Nothing praising the New York Yankees or any Republican. Other than that, though, it's on.
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 04:06 pm (UTC)At least, no-one post Theodore Roosevelt. Whose policies the modern ones are trying to eradicate as much as his later cousin's.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 04:14 pm (UTC)I keep telling her she is mastering a dying art, and she can't believe publishers don't care about this stuff.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 04:57 pm (UTC)Also, as someone who used to work in Educational Publishing, this sort of thing makes me NUTS. The sort of unmitigated crap we used to receive from professors was amazing.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 06:32 pm (UTC)As with anything you see here that isn't either friends-limited or otherwise says in its text that it's not to be shared.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 06:33 pm (UTC)Plus, the saying-no part.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-13 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-13 10:55 am (UTC)