No More Advance Reader Copies
The copy of Lionel Shriver’s Post-Birthday World that I’m reading is an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) I picked up for $2.98 at my used bookstore. I have a few other ARCs on my shelves, that I’ve either bought used, or was given by kind bookstore friends. But since my to-read pile is usually so large that the book is not only released in HC, but available in TPB or even MMPB by the time I get to reading it, I want to eschew ARCs. They’re full of typos, so they offend my copyeditor sensibilities. They can contain narrative mistakes. They’re usually larger, cheaper quality, and uglier than the for-sale editions. I’m not saying I need to buy any more books. But I can use my library and get an actual copy in about the time it would take me to get around to a distractingly imperfect and homely ARC.
August 17th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
A copy-editing colleague of mine was angered by a book he was reading earlier in the week for its all typos — and this was no ARC. Perhaps this is something on the rise. The New York Times review of Newt Gingrich’s Pearl Harbor book just tore into the bad editing more than anything else.
Here is the review, not behind the pay-per-view wall yet, but it might be at some later date: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/books/24masl.html?ex=1187496000&en=353d37d56fb30a07&ei=5070
(And now he scans his own copy of typos…)
August 17th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Ugh. I knew it. “Scans his own copy FOR typos.”
August 20th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Scanning your own copy is probably the second step I’d advocate for a book. First, spellcheck and go word by word for the weird ones. Second scan own copy. Third, pay a professional to go through. And probably fourth, do three again with a different person.