Proofreading

Proofreading is a pain. I proofread Mortal Touch three times, the last on hard copy, and I thought I was going to need psychotropic meds by the time I was done. Apparently, even mainstream publishers are foregoing this practice, however, in favor of letting spellcheckers and similar software handle the job of finding mistakes. PMA President Florrie Binford Kichler discusses this in her column in the current Independent (the PMA bulletin). But I already had gathered this from the typos I’d been noticing in books–for example, P.N. Elrod’s Song in the Dark, published by Ace, in which I noticed at least three glaring “homonym” typos (like there-their). These were typos a proofreader would have spotted a mile away, but which sail right by a spellchecker and even, in many cases, “grammar checkers” as well.

None of them, however, were as funny as one of the typos that Kichler gives as an example:

“We proudly feature some-day shipping.”

I laughed so hard, there were tears in my eyes. 🙂

The Independent also has a very interesting article, available online, about literary agents and small publishers for those who are looking for or working with agents.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

4 Responses to Proofreading