--- David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b at dd-b.net> wrote: > Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com> writes on 22 April 2004 at > 14:56:58 -0700 > > --- David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b at dd-b.net> wrote: > > > Andrew Jones <chaosasj at bellsouth.net> writes: > > > > > > > Philip Hart wrote: > > > > > > > >> > > > >> Isn't it "typos"? > > > > > > > Yes, yes it is. It also begs the question: Why didn't the editor > pick > > > > up the typos? > > > > > > Same reason as for any other book; plus some extra for the > complexity > > > of Paarfi's prose. I don't recall that I've ever read a book > without > > > noticing a few typos. > > > > I didn't see a single typo in _Illumination_, by Terry McGarry. > > Of course she's a copyeditor. Steven's copyeditor sometimes. > > I'm sure there *are* some out there, and even more that I might not > *notice* anything wrong in some particular day just reading. I'm > using tht as a benchmark, though; if I notice errors in casual reading > regularly, there have got to be a LOT more than that actually out > there. I was deliberately looking for typos in _Illumination_. I've probably read other books that didn't have any. > > I proofread a 300-page science book in a few days one time--and I > > didn't notice a few typos. The one I remember is that one of our > > authors was listed as the discoverer of the human "teleomere". I > > don't think he was too please. (I mean "pleased".) > > I was glancing over an artist's proof of a $500 hand-made art book the > other day and spotted a word salad ("typo" being pretty tied to an > actual error of hitting the wrong key in my head; I find that even hitting the right key in my head doesn't always give the right result. :-) > this was the result > of attempting an editing change and stopping part way through, with > inconsistent words in the sentence). Luckily for this production > method, the *next* copy can lack this error. Now that's satisfying. > > Finding the last typo is like reaching absolute zero, but I'd still > > like it if publishers would spend a few extra days and maybe a few > > extra hundred dollars for a nice leisurely edit. What, they can't > > afford it? > > They'd rather give it to the author? Actually, a few hundred dollars > is significant compared to the size of a lot of book publishing > projects even from mainstream publishers. > > What bugs me is that even the top-line authors don't get the extra > attention. Publishers probably come up with some twaddle about needing to squeeze every possible simoleon from the best-sellers so they can take on risky or guaranteed non-goldmine books. ("This is gonna be a zinc mine!") In case it's not clear, I'm just thinking wishfully. Until Kelly's revolution, publishers have better things to spend any extra money on than that last typo. As you point out. (Does Tom Doherty have a yacht?) Jerry Friedman is waiting for someone to tell him that zinc mines make lots of money. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢ http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash