NobleDead.org - High/Dark Fantasy Fiction by Barb Hendee and J.C. Hendee

Of­fi­cial site for the high/dark fan­tasy books of au­thors Barb Hendee and J. C. Hendee, in­clud­ing the Noble Dead Saga (a.k.a. The Noble Dead se­ries), the Mist-Torn Witches se­ries, the Vam­pire Mem­o­ries se­ries, and TNDS: Tales from the world of the Noble Dead Saga.

The Writer’s Corner: Typeset Proof Pages

#writerscorner, #nobledeadsaga, #nobledeadseries, #misttornwitches, #barbhendee

crazy-boss-work-place-400x295There are three basic phases that a book goes through (after the ini­tial draft) when writ­ers work with a pro­fes­sional pub­lisher. J.C. and I have chat­ted with you be­fore about some of these:

  1. revision after receiving an editor’s notes,
  2. review of copy-edited manuscript, and
  3. proofreading the typeset pages (galleys).

Each phase has its own dif­fi­cul­ties and chal­lenges. At pre­sent, I am in phase 3 for MW2: Witches in Red. The most painful dif­fi­culty for any writer in this phase is a hard-set rule laid down by the pub­lisher…

Cor­rect only typos. Do NOT edit the con­tent. 

They are dead se­ri­ous. You’d think this rule would make proof­read­ing type­set pages eas­ier. It does not. Once I see my lovely words all laid out in per­fect type­set, I sud­denly see every over-used word, every awk­ward phrase, and every sen­tence that needs an­other re­vi­sion… and I can­not ad­dress any of those things. My job is to look for typos.

Now, the pub­lisher is not try­ing to tor­ture me. Among im­por­tant rea­sons for this rule is that this is the very last phase be­fore the book goes to press. If I re­quest an ed­i­to­r­ial change at this point, it means that some­one in the pro­duc­tion de­part­ment has to re-type­set the mas­ter file. There is a chance that he or she may in­ad­ver­tently add an­other typo that wasn’t there be­fore… and will not be found be­cause there will not be a sec­ond type­set proof­ing phase.

This hap­pens. We are all just human.

Read­ers who re­view books on Ama­zon rage against and be­moan typos in pro­fes­sion­ally pub­lished nov­els. Even with copy-ed­i­tors, pro­fes­sional proof­read­ers, and au­thor re­view, if an ed­i­to­r­ial re­quest is made at this last stage and a typo gets in­ad­ver­tently added… that typo goes to press.

S3B3_usa_192It’s em­bar­rass­ing for every­one. So you can see why the pub­lish­ers are so firm on the rule: do NOT edit the con­tent.

Some­times a writer doesn’t have a choice. If there is an in­con­sis­tency or some­thing missed in the con­tent, a change re­quest has to be made.

With the re­cently re­leased vol­ume in the Noble Dead Saga, S3B3: A Wind in the Night, J.C. and I caught a scene dur­ing proof­ing the gal­leys where pre­vi­ously both we and the copy-ed­i­tor missed a sit­u­a­tion in which Chane and Osha are in­side a room and crack the door to peer out. Af­ter­ward, Chane closes the door; two lines later, Osha closes the door. Yikes!

This made it all the way into the type­set proof pages, and we had to write to our ed­i­tor and say, “Um… we missed some­thing.” Of course, the pub­lisher wanted us to flag that. If it wasn’t re­vised, it would have more em­bar­rass­ing than any typo that made it into print.

MW2_usa_192How­ever, hav­ing said all of the above, as I go through the type­set pages for Witches in Red, I can­not help long­ing to do an­other full edit of the man­u­script. And I can’t. This hap­pens to me (and J.C.) every time we reach this phase, and I’ve heard many other writ­ers say the same thing.

So for you folks out there who sell a book to a pub­lisher, pre­pare your­self so that you re­ally un­der­stand when you get to this step. It is dif­fi­cult to con­tain your­self and sim­ply search for typos. Trust me.

—Barb

Follow Barb & J.C.

Sites to See