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Typos after publsihing
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Danielle
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Aug 20, 2018 06:21PM
My book has been out for about 6 weeks now. It was self published. Some readers have told me that they found a couple of typos. I'm wondering if it's worth going back to my formatter (again) and having him make the small changes (again - I think he's getting a little annoyed with me), and then uploading to Createspace (again), go through another proofing process and hopefully not find any errors on their end, and then uploading the new files. OR just let it be? The book is already in the library, I already purchased an inventory for giveaways. Sales have plateaued. I find typos all the time when I read books, even in traditionally published bestsellers. I had decided when the book was finally out that I was DONE with this project after working on it for 10 years. At some point, you have to move on, right? Thoughts?
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If you don't have direct and sole control of the formatting and publishing process.Move on.
Graeme wrote: "If you don't have direct and sole control of the formatting and publishing process.Move on."
I don't have direct control. I'm definitely leaning towards moving on. Thanks, Graeme.
I'm a fiddler - but I own every step. I update the front and back matter of my books whenever I release a new one.I always take the opportunity to fix any typos, they are all very small now, but I do have the use of 'ascent' for 'assent' in my third book and that's waiting for a fix.
Graeme wrote: "I'm a fiddler - but I own every step. I update the front and back matter of my books whenever I release a new one.I always take the opportunity to fix any typos, they are all very small now, but ..."
Yeah, this is my first book and the whole process is new to me. My formatting editor has already made a few revisions when I don't believe any were included in the price. So for future books I'll have to learn how to format it myself so I have complete control. I also don't want to deal with Createspace again as the first proof was missing some page numbers. I just feel I should leave well enough alone. What program do you use to format?
Graeme wrote: "I'm a fiddler - but I own every step. I update the front and back matter of my books whenever I release a new one.I always take the opportunity to fix any typos, they are all very small now, but ..."
I have "to" and "too"
Hi Danielle,I write in Scrivner, format in MS word, then run my word.doc through Calibre to produce an ebook that I submit to Kindle.
I have an MS .docx for createspace.
To put that more clearly...
[1] All raw text is prepared in Scrivner, where every scene is a specific text file, grouped into chapters (folders).
[2] I create a raw MS word doc as an output of Scrivner with minimal formatting.
I then cut & paste each chapter into a prepared word doc with the correct format for createspace.
I update any details like ISBN numbers in the front and back matter.
Then I cut and paste this into another MS Word file for Kindle or Ebook.
This second file has the chapter index and hyperlinks to the next book, etc.
[3] At this point I have 2 MS Word files with nearly identical format. One for createspace, and the other for ebook/kindle.
I then push the 2nd one through Calibre to get and ebook of it and send that up to Amazon. The reason I do this is because Kindle is more reliably presented across platforms if the source file is an ebook rather than a MS word .doc.
There are some other details and intermediary steps, but that is the gist of my process.
I fall over on,to/too
your/you're
its/it's
commas
consistent use of capitalization for proper nouns.
Those are the main ones.
That sounds like a lot of work upon first reading it but I guess it really isn't. I have Scrivener. I guess I'll have to get Calibre for future books.
Yeah, there should be the moment of finality, at least for some time. However, if the feedback that you get from the readers is that typos and similar stuff detract from the enjoyment of reading your book, introducing small changes to excel your 10 year long project doesn't seem excessive. I'm not sure correction of typos must go through a formatter each time.I've updated my books a couple of times to address some small issues, but I probably wouldn't bother for something microscopic -:)
Calibre is an amazing bit of software for managing books and I keep my whole collection there. Even published ebooks have so many typos and errors where they have been lazily scanned in and not proofread afterwards and I like to make corrections if I read something that's terribly edited.Amazon tend to be bad at pushing updated typo fixes so its easier to DIY.
Hi Nick, but that is a big effort on your part - a labour of love I assume.
Yep, I only do it as I read so its not a mammoth effort.I didn't even attempt it with Sonja blue however.
That begs a question ... how did you find my scribblings?
Thanks, Nick and Graeme. I've slept on it, and spoke to a librarian/friend of mine, and she says let it go. She sees so many typos in books; unless it's a huge error, like a paragraph out of place or a wrong character, it's not a big deal. I'm moving on. :-)
Two things:
- First, we are human. To expect perfection is not realistic.
- Second, DOWN WITH THE GRAMMAR POLICE! I am sick and tired of people who read books seemingly just to search for typos, so that they can put the writer's nose down in the mud. Concentrate instead on the quality of the storytelling and of the world-building. See the first rule.
- First, we are human. To expect perfection is not realistic.
- Second, DOWN WITH THE GRAMMAR POLICE! I am sick and tired of people who read books seemingly just to search for typos, so that they can put the writer's nose down in the mud. Concentrate instead on the quality of the storytelling and of the world-building. See the first rule.
Michel wrote: "Two things:- First, we are human. To expect perfection is not realistic.
- Second, DOWN WITH THE GRAMMAR POLICE! I am sick and tired of people who read books seemingly just to search for typos, so..."
So true, Michel! Thank you :-)
Graeme wrote: "That begs a question ... how did you find my scribblings?"Very good for an ARC read, I think I pointed out 2 errors in the set of 3 books and you'd already fixed them anyway.
Michel wrote: "Two things:- First, we are human. To expect perfection is not realistic.
- Second, DOWN WITH THE GRAMMAR POLICE! I am sick and tired of people who read books seemingly just to search for typos, so..."
Hear, hear
Michel wrote: "Two things:- First, we are human. To expect perfection is not realistic.
- Second, DOWN WITH THE GRAMMAR POLICE! I am sick and tired of people who read books seemingly just to search for typos, so..."
It's not grammar police for me, I read to read but if a sentence doesn't make sense due to errors and you have to re-read it 5 times just to work out what it said or the flow is interrupted by something that breaks me out of reading then I notice it and want it to be fixed.
I'd generally hope authors would want their work to be as good as possible too even if its just keeping a master copy updated and submitting revision fixes eventually to amazon et al to push out to users for ebooks.
Nick, we are talking here about isolated typos here and there, not about pidgin English that is nearly unreadable. You are mixing apples and oranges here. It takes me 4-6 months on average to write a 300-500 page novel, with lots of prior research and repetitive checks and editing. I am sure that most other authors also care about the quality of their writing and do their homework. Even professionally edited books still can have small errors and typos and I can assure you that this is not because of lazyness or carelessness on the part of the authors.
My view is that if someone tells me about a typo, I will correct it on the master copy, but for one I will not recompile. I have only recompiled once, when someone pointed out a character changed his name to something very similar - that was embarrassing because I had been writing it while writing another, and the other character slipped in. Naturally, I changed that and recompiled. (They two names were very similar.)I also write reviews to help and my view is the odd typo I can ignore, while if they are sufficiently frequent that they irritate me, I mention that. As for grammar, my question is, does the writing flow and do I know what it means? If so, I am relaxed, but if I have to go back and re-read sentences to work out what they mean, then I get grumpy. My view on this is that nobody uses grammar perfectly. An interesting test I have is, does the author use subjunctives properly? If so, I will give them a bonus star in the grading :-)
Nick wrote: "Graeme wrote: "That begs a question ... how did you find my scribblings?"Very good for an ARC read, I think I pointed out 2 errors in the set of 3 books and you'd already fixed them anyway."
Cool. Thanks
Michel wrote: "Concentrate instead on the quality of the storytelling and of the world-building...."That's what I notice first.
