See, I'm a translator and most larger jobs go to a 'corrector' as we call it so I'm on that side of the fence - getting work back with red ink, suggestions, etc. and tight deadlines if we need to iron out things we don't agree on. In translation, in fact, the corrector is often where the buck stops and the translator doesn't even get to *see* the corrected version, which can be infuriating. I correct the work of other translators too, so see both sides. A text, as you say, is a living, complex thing with a million details, and people see the *one* that is wrong / hasn't been corrected, not the thousands details that are right.
At the same time, I'm a professional editor, mainly for academic papers but have also worked in (non-fiction) publishing and 'nursed' manuscripts from A to Z. I often wish a lot of amateur writers (and readers, for that matter) realised what this entails for all concerned - and bore that in mind before being quite so critical.
Yes, publishers and authors (and translators) have a certain 'duty' to get things *right*, and boy do we try. But a book or a published work - particularly fiction - is human and personal as well as a commercial product so errors do slip in. Technical or academic publications are reviewed over and over becaue it's *essential* the facts are right, although the style and grammar are often given far less time or attention.
All publishers I've ever known, however, walk a constant tightrope when it comes to the resources they can afford on editing, marketing, paying their authors. For popular authors, they also have to bend to public demand (or the author's wish to move on, in some cases) by getting a book out *fast* - so even if they have all the money in the world, there simply isn't time for yet another round of proofreading.
Sorry to ramble, but... yeah. Errors do slip in and they always will.
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Date: 2004-01-29 11:42 pm (UTC)See, I'm a translator and most larger jobs go to a 'corrector' as we call it so I'm on that side of the fence - getting work back with red ink, suggestions, etc. and tight deadlines if we need to iron out things we don't agree on. In translation, in fact, the corrector is often where the buck stops and the translator doesn't even get to *see* the corrected version, which can be infuriating. I correct the work of other translators too, so see both sides. A text, as you say, is a living, complex thing with a million details, and people see the *one* that is wrong / hasn't been corrected, not the thousands details that are right.
At the same time, I'm a professional editor, mainly for academic papers but have also worked in (non-fiction) publishing and 'nursed' manuscripts from A to Z. I often wish a lot of amateur writers (and readers, for that matter) realised what this entails for all concerned - and bore that in mind before being quite so critical.
Yes, publishers and authors (and translators) have a certain 'duty' to get things *right*, and boy do we try. But a book or a published work - particularly fiction - is human and personal as well as a commercial product so errors do slip in. Technical or academic publications are reviewed over and over becaue it's *essential* the facts are right, although the style and grammar are often given far less time or attention.
All publishers I've ever known, however, walk a constant tightrope when it comes to the resources they can afford on editing, marketing, paying their authors. For popular authors, they also have to bend to public demand (or the author's wish to move on, in some cases) by getting a book out *fast* - so even if they have all the money in the world, there simply isn't time for yet another round of proofreading.
Sorry to ramble, but... yeah. Errors do slip in and they always will.