Posted by Julie at Sep 26, 2012 10:17 am
First, I apologize for the lateness of the blog.
Second, yesterday, I was re-reading my book, DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS, in preparation of writing the third and fourth installments of this once abandoned and now revived (thank you, readers!) series. The book was originally published in 2005 by Simon & Schuster. When I wrote it, I read it over carefully. It was my first big single title release and I wanted it to be great. I want all my books to be great, of course, but this one was really special to me.
I checked and double-checked a gazillion things. I had my aunt, a twenty-year Spanish teacher, go over all the Spanish in the book, as my character, Marisela Morales, is bi-lingual and peppers her conversations with phrases in her second language. (She’s second generation American, so in my mind, she learned Spanish and English concurrently). My aunt found errors, helped me correct them and then I sent a detailed edit to the publisher.
Somehow, the publisher did not input those edits. They might have done a few, but on publication of the book, I was horrified when my aunt told me that the changes, for the most part, weren’t made. But in a print book, there isn’t anything I could do except make sure that the sequel, Dirty Little Lies, never reached the publisher until I’d vetted every word.
Why am I telling you all this? Because I want to let readers in on something that is something forgotten–authors care. We care about giving our readers a clean version of our books. We beg our friends to proofread. We exchange favors for this, often reading each other’s books in order to get things right. We train family members to pick up on any nits that need picking. Then there are editors. Line editors. Copy editors. Professional and freelance proofreaders whose job it is to catch mistakes from typos to continuity errors to out-and-out mistakes.
But things still slip through.
Back to yesterday…so I’m reading along, this time with the expressed purpose to making note of any facts I’ve laid down in the book that will be helpful in the new version. Frankie’s eyes? Hazel. Check. Marisela’s age? Twenty-eight. Check. Her parent’s store? At the corner of Tampania and Habana…check? Wait, what?
My eyes nearly bugged out of my head. I read and re-read the line three times…this can’t be in the book. I went and checked the print version. Habana and Tampania. Only…Habana and Tampania run PARALLEL to each other. They are a full city block apart. I know, because the house I grew up on was one house in from Habana and about twelves-fourteen houses in from Tampania. My grandmother lived on Habana. My great-grandmother lived on Tampania.
I know this like I know that the sky is blue and the grass is green and water is wet…and yet, there it is, in black and white, WRONG.
Oy!
This isn’t a huge error. I know it isn’t. Only readers from that particular neighborhood in Tampa would catch it (and after posting on my Facebook page about it, two such readers admitted that they’d both gone right over it without noticing). But there was a lesson to be learned in finding it…a lesson I have taken to heart…and that is, I no longer get annoyed when a writer makes a mistake like this. It happens. But even if it takes me out of the story, I’m going to be forgiving. It’s going to have to happen on page after page after page before I put the book down.
I feel this way about all books, print or digital. If an author said in an offhand comment in one book that her heroine has a sister and three books later in the series, sibling shows up and is a brother, I’m okay with it. If an author says on one page that a character is a countess, but for pages and pages afterward, the countess is a duchess, I’m okay with it. Mistakes happen. Authors, upon finding out about such mistakes, are usually horrified.
The good thing is that with independent publishing, I can make a fix. The next version will be corrected and up in the next month or so. I will have to pay someone to do this, so it’s neither easy nor quick. But I’ll do it because I owe it to my readers.
Why am I writing this? Just to let you know that as an author, I care. All the authors I know care this way. If you feel compelled to write an author and let them know about a mistake, either real or perceived, be kind. They didn’t mean to make the mistake. Also, please accept that sometimes, as readers, we’re wrong. The Amazon reviewer who said my book has a lot of typos? That person is wrong. I’m halfway through reading and I’ve found ONE–a missing open quotation mark. But if they wanted to write to me and tell me precisely where these typos are, they can feel free! But please don’t berate or lecture or accuse me of nefariously trying to put out a substandard product. I ASSURE you, that is not the case.
Shew…okay, got that off my chest! Now, back to reading!
How do you feel about the occasional typo/mistake? Does it totally ruin your reading experience or can you look behind the random error to the story within?
Those kind of things don’t bother me… I remember watching a tv show set in my home state and they had the highway running the wrong way… which I just thought was really stupid because everyone knows that even number roads run east and west and odd numbered ones run north & south… highways and interstates… duh…
That’s okay a few years ago a TV show supposedly was in my home town of Lubbock, TX and there were mountains in the background. Um… There are no mountains anywhere close to here. We are in the plains and surrounded by cotton farms.
I don’t have a problem with typos as long as there aren’t lots of them. One here and there is okay .
As long as it is not blantently concerned with the story, I really don’t care. Authors take liberty all of the time (as long as it’s not something that is openly critical in the story, I am fine with it). To me, that should be the thrust of the book.
A few typos don’t bother me either. We are all human and therefore not perfect. The one book that I read that was a little disconcerting had replaced the rn in a word with m. So turn would become tum.
Once I figured out what happened, it was a little easier to understand what I was reading. I don’t remember what the book was (it was many many books ago)but I think it was digital.
First noone tries to write typos and errors, that is why they are called mistakes. Typos I don’t mind, so long as there are only a few. As for “facts” about places and characters that happen to get changed within a book or series, they tend tobother me. I used to fixate on them, but since I started my book review website I focus more on the story. Minor little mishaps happen, it is the story-telling that matters most.
I can live with one or two typos in a book. But plot errors like calling a character by the wrong name in part of a scene and then switching to the right name in the middle of the scene or, having a character abandon a car with the keys in the ignition when he hotwired the car in the first place bother me. I feel that an author should have someone beta read the manuscript and those type of things should be caught.
Sandy, trust me…the author probably wishes that she and her ten beta readers had caught it, too! Not saying all authors have ten betas…but most have at least five different people reading a book before it goes to print. That’s why it’s so frustrating when errors get through!
I can still read with the mistakes in the story, but I am one who would email the author about it. I already figured authors cared!!!
I sent a private email to an author after I read her latest in a series and there were many more grammatical and typo errors than I had ever seen in one of her books. I didn’t mean it as HER fault but thought that editors should have caught these before publication. Her reply was that in 100,000 word books, errors are to be expected. I guess I’m too old school but if my name is on something, I’d expect it to be done correctly. I find fewer errors in older books which makes me feel that editors are more careless these days or just feel readers are more accepting- a sad commentary on our educational system.
I think that some typos are not a big deal. Little things that don’t really affect to story don’t bother me. But I’m also one of those people who can watch a movie based on a book and not get caught up in what they do wrong but enjoy it for what it is. My hubby drives me crazy anytime we watch something with Marines in it and they get stuff wrong, lol!
Have a wonderful day!
Julie,
I had a good laugh yesterday since I never picked up on it. Especially since my Abuela lives on Columbus Dr. Haha
Those kinds of errors don’t bother me. I usually gloss right over them. What bothers me is when i have to re-read sentences or even a couple sentences in a row because something doesn’t make sense. lol That drives me nuts. Even once isn’t so bad but when it happens several times in a book that really pulls me out of the book, annoys me and makes it harder to follow. Thankfully that doesn’t happen often. I don’t write but i blog and do reviews and i try to stay in the habit of reading when i write out loud because that’s usually how find my typos lol If i don’t later i find them when the post is live which isn’t so bad unless it’s a glaring mistake lol
We’re all human but people like to nit pick people who are not standing right in front of them cause they feel safe they can get away with it.
Lisa
ps i didn’t read this out load so i hope there aren’t any typos!!
A couple of typos are no big deal. Continued typos make me question author and editor. Sorry, just does.
Same with the occasional inaccurate detail. If I’m unfamiliar, chances are it slipped by me and doesn’t matter. If I’m very familiar, it can jar me and lessen my love for the story. Sorry, just does. The flip side is that a story is oh so much more delicious when the little details of geography, people/places/things, how-to with which I’m familiar are spot on.
But I like forgiving and being forgiven. Because I always wonder how writers could possibly fact check every single thing, much less insure everything is perfectly correct in a manuscript. I know writers research, but they have to first believe they need to verify something or that they don’t know something. If there’s no question in their mind, they likely writer from what they believe they know.
I choose to believe the vast majority of writers do their best to put forth their best work. That covers a lot of sins.
Wrong character name is my biggest peeve and it does bother me. I have learned to just re-read the sentence with the correct name but first read-thru it is annoying.
Just found one in a recently pubbed Special Edition. The character Caroline was talking and said something like “Caroline will do it.” When she meant another character altogether.
If there are tons it bothers me but I tend to blame the editor and not the author because in the frenzy of writing mistakes happen and that’s why they pay an editor to go over it. /shrugs That’s just my two pennies though
I honestly do understand when readers get frustrated. As a reader, I get frustrated, too. But I have a different understanding of it now…and I know it’s not really any person’s fault, especially in digital books, where the problem could be caused by a glitch. I had one instance in Dirty Little Secrets where with the newest upload, an apostrophe had somehow turned into a series of weird symbols. Just one instance…but Amazon got a complaint, so they contacted me and demanded I reformat the book immediately or they’d take the book down. I had it fixed, of course.
But I get it…I do! I just know that authors ARE careful and editors work hard and yet…mistakes happen. It’s just as frustrating to the author as it is to the reader. And in the case of a work put out through a publisher, there is NOTHING an author can do to get it fixed.
These thing don’t bother me. I don’t pay attention to things like this and never notice them most of the time. I am reading for the story.
I don’t have a problem with an occasional error.
I don’t have a problem with the occasional error. I figure editors have checked over things, but we all are human.
Most of the time, I tend to absorb the book so quickly that I get the main points and don’t focus too hard on the minor details (eye color, hair color, street that they’re on -although that can sometimes bite me in the butt when location is important). But when I do catch a typo, it doesn’t bug me that much. A human wrote the book. A human edited the book. Humans make mistakes.
For me it depends on the amount and types of errors. And let me qualify this with the fact that I am the type who see the plane flying over head in the 1800′s cowboy western. Small or occasional mistakes aren’t a big thing. But I’ve read a few where I wondered if there had been an editor used at all.
It’s great that you care enough to re-read your old book in order to make it and the sequels better. For the most part, I am willing to forgive and forget but the thing that really drives me bonkers is when the totally wrong word is used. Like using ‘brake’ when they meant ‘break’. I can pass over this one even as a case of dyslexic fingers but if it’s a problem that constantly re-occurs, it really starts to bug me. I want to buy them a dictionary and a basic grammar book! It seems like many of the editors and publishing houses have gotten careless in the last few years which is inexcusable since that’s their job and they are getting paid to do it. I am finding that authors who self-publish are doing as good a job if not better than the ‘big houses’ because as you said, authors care! I’m looking forward to reading your ‘cleaned up’ versions. Keep up the good work!
I’ve found that a alot of reviewers do not read the entire book. As for editing and copy editing there is quite a bit of room for improvement in both areas.
I have found out what bothers me the most are characters description errors. Especially when the books are in a series. One book will have the hero with blue eyes and then in the following book he will have green eyes as an example. But as far grammar errors such as commons, quotation marks, I just over look them for the most part.
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