HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: The new book is IN. YAY!
It's in production, which means they are making the bound manuscripts for early early blurbers, and then they will make the advance reader copies--not yet proofread, and not yet copyedited, to distribute to reviewers.
Meanwhile, the copy editor is at work on the manuscript, to fix all (we hope) the dropped words and repeated words and errors and mistakes and stuff you cannot even imagine that's happened in the 617,852 (that's the real number) of characters and spaces in the manuscript.
In two weeks or so, I'll get that copyedited version back, and make (I hope) all the corrections. And, as always, find even more errors. I have rally found some doozies in those copyedited versions--once when a character went to a place in an Uber, and then departed in her own car. AHHHHH.
It's always amazing to me, once I struggle and slog through that first draft (imagine Jenn climbing those boulders, that's exactly how it feels) how many changes get made in a book
Here's a page from the novel --on this particular day, the document was titled "NEWEST Trying no phone 5-8." (My file titles are always hilarious. Like: "New New USE THIS ONE 6-6 no steps." There must be a better way, but I have not discovered it. This is page 10. LOOK at all those changes!
Here's another page. Page 42. SO many changes!
When I look back, I see why I did the things--the sentence structure was awkward, or with the wrong emphasis. It was not a tight as it should be. Not as dramatic. Not as thematic. It was repetitive (one of my pitfalls) or overly internal.
(And looking at these pages, right now, I can still see several things I will change in the copy edits.)
I adore the editing process. It's my favorite part. It's when I take that unwieldy first draft and try to wrangle it into being the story I meant to write. I always find something new, and I always discover a theme I hadn't known was there.
And I am always always shocked and supremely thrilled when I get that final email from my editor--she'll say: "Pencils down! We're done!"
For this book--and you are the first people in the universe to see pages from it--we have no title that I can tell you now. And we will have no cover for a month or so.
But it's about a mysterious place crash. A missing influencer. Her frightened pre-teen daughter. And a writer who is searching for happy endings.
And it is almost done!
And now, Reds and Readers, I need a good idea for the next book.
You DO know that advance reader copies are NOT copyedited or proofread, right? They are for savvy readers who know how to read around the errors, and understand they are not reading a final version.
A while ago I was hearing a lot about typos in final books, though. Are those still as prevalent as they were at one point?
Reds and readers, are you finding typos in books? Do you tell the authors when you find them?
Authors, do you want to know?
As always, I'm looking forward to your new book, Hank! [But I had no idea there were so many changes to make.]
ReplyDeleteOccasionally I find a typo in a finished book, but not often. I just overlook it and read on . . . .
Hank, how exciting! We all know how much you love editing!
ReplyDeleteI probably missed my calling. In a perfect world, I would have been an editor of some sort. There are still plenty of typos, misused words (their - they're) and other errors in books. Some authors have few or none, some authors have several. If I get an early copy, I ask if the author wants to know about specific mistakes. Edith always wants to know, even if her book is already out. Jenn, on the other hand does not want to hear about it. (I wish I could reference the blog where she told us that;>))
Whoops, that was me, saying I should have been an editor.
ReplyDeleteFor while, in the not too distant past, I was finding many errors in finished copies of books. They are very annoying because they take me right out of the story. It seems like such shoddy work when the price I am paying for books keeps going up. I don’t tell the author; at that point what can they do? I suppose if you are reading an ARC in a timely fashion, it would be helpful to let someone know. I don’t read a lot of them. Lately, the number of errors I am finding seem to be fewer so perhaps copy editors have upped their game.
ReplyDeleteI found a couple of errors in my first quick pass of this blog post. Do you want to know about them?
While it is not overly common for me to find some typos in a finished book I'm reading, I have found an error here or there.
ReplyDeleteBut I have found other kinds of errors. A geographic impossibility, a day that starts one way and two pages later apparently had a different kind of start. And those are FINISHED books.
I've been lucky enough to have gotten in on two EARLY EARLY drafts where I spotted some mistakes. One was minor unless you were a devout comic book fan and then it would've been blasphemous if it had gotten into the final draft. Another was a name change for a character. And on that, I didn't even catch all of the examples of that error.
For the most part, I chalk it up to, "Sh*t happens". But I will say that one of the errors took me so out of the story that I actually haven't finished the book and it has been at least a year. I hate that about myself but I was so blown away by the error in continuity that I put the book down and just didn't go back to it yet.
If an author has asked for my notes on an early draft, I will give them the error news. If it is in a finished book, I tend to not say anything to the author unless it happens to be someone I have a strong enough connection with to be able to say, "Did you know...?" without risking becoming a victim in their next book.
Woo hoo, I am looking forward to the book! Like Brenda I noticed a couple of errors in the post. I assume you left them to make your point? It worked :) I do notice errors in books. Some drive me crazy. Nuff said.
ReplyDeleteI do occasionally find typos, but learned long ago to keep those things to myself. And no, please don't tell me if you find one (or more) in my already published book. If it's an ARC, fine. I might still be able to fix it. But once that baby is published, there isn't a darned thing we writers can do about it... except gnash our teeth.
ReplyDeleteSo excited to hear about the new book, Hank!
Hi. I'm not sure I find as many typos in "normal" books, as in academic ones. I generally can read a mystery or historical novel in a calm state at least as regards the production of the book. I've just now been going through the process of receiving copyediting and then proofs with a major, major academic press. Our copyeditor did a really, really horrible job (we of course had no idea of that), and the proofs were a disaster, only in part because of the copyediting. Totally an embarrassment. We'll get a new set of proofs, but there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of corrections; I don't expect to be happy with the final product.My co-editor pointed out that trade publishers provide better service to their authors than academic ones - things have really gone downhill in the last few years. Maybe our bad experience has been merely the luck of the draw (35 chapters written by 20 authors). And of course a book with loads of images, music examples, and poetry, will always present a problem.
ReplyDeleteBeth, I freelanced as a copyeditor for a company which provided this service to academic publishers. This particular company made a decision to have the copyediting done by their staff in India. These aren't native-born English speakers and it shows in the final product. I found that many errors were actually introduced during copyediting.
DeleteFlora, this was/is produced in India, and that explains some things. But the copyeditor was American, and I'm assuming he wasn't paid enough to do a better job. I have not yet asked. I'm waiting for tempers to cool down. For many, many years one of the best copyeditors around was a musicologist now resident in Oxford. She did my husband's previous books, though she worked on all sorts, not just music. But she's about 85 now, and no longer doing it, so our field (and others) suffers.
DeleteIt's a given, at least for me, that the first time one beholds one's latest publication the first thing spotted is an error.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations Hank! I love the premise of this new book and can't wait to read. Your draft titles crack me up--they are so Hank!
ReplyDeleteI have noticed while reading some books on Kindle it is possible to point out errors and suggest corrections. But should we? Some of the errors I have found are really glaring mistakes.
ReplyDeleteI would say yes - if no one says anything, they might assume they've gotten everything just write...err ... right!
DeleteSo many! errors these days in books. Typos and grammatical errors galore. And not just books - after the NY Times eliminated the majority of its copy editors, the errors skyrocketed. I assume that it's just another reflection of our society's thinking that rules don't apply to anyone.
ReplyDeleteOne book I received as a gift was obviously rushed to production since it contained - in the final version! - brackets for insertions, repeats of entire pages, all sorts of glaring errors. I think the publishers were so eager to get out the book, no one ever looked at the final printing. A perfect reflection of our society.
My hub reads naval war novels and it's upsetting when the author gets major facts about WWII wrong.
ReplyDeleteI do find errors in books and it drives me (a proofreader at a long-ago job) crazy. I don't inform the author, though - I figure by the time the book out in the world, it's too late.
ReplyDeleteI do see typos occasionally in finished books. You can't catch them all, can you? No, I don't notify anyone about them. I can't wait to see what you've dreamed up next!
ReplyDeleteHank, somewhere in that brain of yours, ideas are percolating--we all know this to be true! One will rise to the top and you will think, brilliant!! And, of course, it will be. The number of changes in your two pages is simply a reflection of your work ethic and the way that a fresh eye on a scene can spark new ideas. Easy for me to say, eh?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure when the notion that copyeditors are expendable parts of the publishing process took hold, but it's certainly evident in finished products.
Anon Flora, above.
DeleteAs a self-published author for my first book, when no fewer than three different editors helped read the manuscript and scour for errors, I know it is nigh impossible to find them all. No author WANTS them, it's just easy to accidentally type the wrong word, misspell a word, double type a word, or use the wrong but similar word, or skip a word altogether. No matter how many eyes scan it, including the computer. In fact, the computer sometimes makes it worse.
ReplyDeleteStill I had two letters from people horrified at "all the typos". Some people also THINK something is a typo when it isn't. So I refrain from pointing fingers at others, unless the error is so egregiously inaccurate, like the New York Times guest essay that used a whopper of a numerical error, either misinterpreting or misstating the results of a linked article. Of course they couldn't correct it in the print version, but the online one got the right number.
Hank, thanks for the peek! I hope Bea's okay. And I love the idea of the never ending story! The happy ever after always bothered me, too. Never another bad day, or even a happier one?
I did once feel like yelling at an author/editor who didn't know the difference between ancestors and descendants (in a multi-generation historical novel, no less!)
ReplyDelete