When I began working inside an 80-year-old publishing house, I quickly learned two things about proofreading matters:
a) a daily cappuccino was my friend, and b) there was a bigger meaning behind two small shelves of books near my office (aka cubicle).
Proofreading Matters
Those shelves, it turned out, held our latest printed titles, and some of them – okay, many of them – had little yellow sticky tabs peeking out from their pages.
Those sticky notes marked dreaded typos. If a book sold particularly well, I would order a second (or third) printing. But I first had to check those shelves to see if any mistakes had been flagged. If so, the book file would need to be corrected before being sent to the printer.
Easy, right?
It was another few weeks or so before I discovered that we had an ENTIRE ROOM dedicated to books that might need to be reprinted sometime … and that hundreds of those had sticky notes flapping from their pages! (Kind of funny when you think about it … were Post-its even invented 80 years ago??)
Wait … traditional publishers never publish books with mistakes in them, do they?
Well … last year alone, I read several books from major publishing houses (including one that published several of my books) that contained typos—misspelled words, the wrong pronoun used, wordssquishedtogether.
Part of the issue is, well, money.
Publishers used to provide several layers of editing and proofreading. While it’s fairly simple and cost-effective to create a digital book from a paperback format, traditional publishers maintain high overhead and have had to cut somewhere. For some, those cuts are made in the proofreading process.
Cutting the Proofreading Process: an Example
In the past, publishers proofread books at least twice. Once before before the book went into design (also called typesetting) and again after the design stage.
But some publishers have dropped that second proofread altogether and replaced it with a cursory review of the designed book prior to going to print. If that.
But shouldn’t a proofread prior to design be enough?
It depends. Once I proofed a book and sent it to a designer. When she was laying it out, her fingers inadvertently grazed the keyboard and the book went to print with a key name misspelled! This error had not been picked up during the final cursory review.
Human error happens
Just a few minutes ago a friend sent me a copy of an ad she created that kept getting rejected by Amazon; she couldn’t find the error and wondered if I could help her. I took one look at it and saw that she had duplicated a word! Another reason why proofreading matters–fresh eyes can help spot errors.
Hence, the continuation of typos in books produced by traditional houses. On a side note, one of my traditionally published novels contained a major typo (a duplicate paragraph). None of my reader reviews mentioned it. However, I’ve often seen reviews of books by indie authors that mention typos. Best to be aware of that!
Don’t Shortcut the Proofreading Process
You want your manuscript to be the best it can be so you can reach hearts with your message or story. Deliver a thought-provoking, well-written book, and your readers will be on your team for life.
If paying for another proofread isn’t an option, have a second set of trusted eyes look it over for you in exchange for a free book (and maybe a cup of coffee ☕). Or check out author Carrie Padgett’s terrific primer on self-editing here: Self-editing for Authors: 5 Top Tips
And if you publish your eBook and still find a mistake? Don’t fret! Unlike trad publishers authors, an indie author can fix the error and upload the new file using something like Scrivener or Vellum in the time it takes to throw down a cappuccino 😉