Do errors bother you?

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Sauroke
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Do errors bother you?

Post by Sauroke »

As the title states, do proof reading errors bother you in books? Errors easily corrected, improper use of words in sentences, no punctuation, etc? They seem to get on my nerves a bit sometimes. The latest, was in a sentence,

"...and he understand why the 16 year old..."
patrickt
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Post by patrickt »

If there are enough of those type of errors I'll dump the book. If the author doesn't have enough respect for his work to correct them, or have them corrected, I won't bother reading.

But, more important to me are factual errors. Even fiction needs to stick to reality. They can't create a beach with great surfing in Omaha and keep me reading. I don't require that authors know anything about guns for example but if they have a character who supposedly knows guns and he makes basic error I lose interest.

I belonged to a reading group years ago and a number of the members were veterans of WWII. We read a book in which the author had characters who were in the military in WWII talking about an army DC-3. The guys were outraged. In their opinion, no soldier would have called a C-47, the military designation for a DC-3, a DC-3.
Sauroke
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Post by Sauroke »

In their opinion, no soldier would have called a C-47, the military designation for a DC-3, a DC-3.

I pretty much agree with them, I still remember the cadences that include the c-47 in them!
On another note, do you think it may be the proof reader is just spell checking and not reading? It may not be the author's fault entirely, but I understand what you mean.
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Post by sand1 »

I have to agree I was reading the last few nights and the book drove me crazy because of the mistakes and it was obvious that it was more than likely the proof reader and not the author because of the type of mistakes that where there. The ones that bother me the most are the ones that change the sentence enough that two sentences later you figure out that that is not supposed to be there, or the wrong character name was written in a spot so you have to reread so you have the right info in your head! Small spelling mistakes and a word in the wrong tense or something that is obvious and easy to fix in my head doesn't bother me at all. I think proof readers are important, even if the author made a mistake it is their job to catch it and fix it!
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Post by lisateb »

I wish that they didn't because we all make mistakes, but they do bother me. I know that things can happen and things get overlooked. Normally, a few aren't that big of a deal, but I have seen books that are filled with them and I wonder how in the world they got published in the first place.
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Post by Ryan »

An author is considered professional and ought to be so. That means proofreading their work until not a single error remains. However, it also has something to do with the editor (if they have one) because they're meant to have a keen eye for those things too. Once the script is configured to be printed, the publishing house is unable to change it (due to copyright) so the chance to make corrections has passed. I wouldn't buy a bed and expect faulty bolts, so neither do I buy a book and expect faulty spelling/grammar.
"Reason is intelligence taking exercise. Imagination is intelligence with an erection" -- Victor Hugo.
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Nikki_ColoredGlasses
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Post by Nikki_ColoredGlasses »

lisateb wrote:I wish that they didn't because we all make mistakes, but they do bother me. I know that things can happen and things get overlooked. Normally, a few aren't that big of a deal, but I have seen books that are filled with them and I wonder how in the world they got published in the first place.
Well said, lisateb! We all truly do make mistakes, but it seems as though the frustration of finding a mistake or typo is inevitable! Understanding that print is a different animal, I wish there were a way for readers to help or submit notes to the author when reading published ebooks.

All of that being said, ryanj1 makes a great point regarding copyrights, as well as faulty bolts/faulty grammar. The whole ordeal is unfortunate.
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Post by Gravy »

I think for best selling authors it's almost uncalled for...however for new authors I expect it.
Unfortunately, authors who've got major support from their editors get the chance to correct the mistakes, new authors (or authors who don't earn as much) get left out to dry.
So at least in part I believe this is the publishers fault.
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Post by ALynnPowers »

Graverobber wrote:I think for best selling authors it's almost uncalled for...however for new authors I expect it.
Unfortunately, authors who've got major support from their editors get the chance to correct the mistakes, new authors (or authors who don't earn as much) get left out to dry.
So at least in part I believe this is the publishers fault.
You're right about that, my friend!

I have a close friend who got a publishing deal a few years ago for a book she had written. I had the read the book and edited it to the bets of my abilities. She had read the book who-knows-how-many-times before submitting it to the publisher for review. When it was accepted for publication, she didn't get an editor at all! I guess because it was her first book and she had no prior writing experience? For whatever reason, she was completely on her own. Needless to say, I got a copy of the book, and I found maybe 2 or 3 errors in it. Just small typos. Like, "and" instead of "an" or something like that. It looks so unprofessional to someone who reads the book, but it actually wasn't because the book wasn't edited. It just wasn't professionally edited. Hahaha... 8)
True story, by the way...
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Post by milliethom »

My answer to this question is basically, yes, errors do bother me, especially if there are a lot of them. But I do think that a really great plot and commanding characters can make many of the most picky readers overlook mistakes. A series of eBooks entitled, The Young Ancients, had /have umpteen errors of all types, yet the books still sold unbelievably well and gained the author, P. S. Power, an enormous following. Apparently (I haven't read the books myself) the main character, Tor, is excellent. I admit, I have to edit my own work very carefully because I'm the world's worst at making typos (even in these posts!).
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Post by MichaelMcManus »

When the human eye picks up a discrepancy, no matter if the problem is a misspelling, a misstated fact or an incorrect word usage, it has to stop. When that happens, the reader loses track of the idea being presented in the sentence, because they have to determine what the word or fact should be and apply that to the sentence. If that happens many times in a book, the reader loses interest. It happens to all of us. Even though we think we can tolerate mistakes, we really can't. That's why it is so important to have the work professionally edited before it is sent in for publication.
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Post by Brenna+3 »

These kind of errors bother me too if there are more than a few. I figure that maybe one per chapter is acceptable since no one is infallible.
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Post by mandap24 »

Minimal errors I can read over without a second glance when the errors become more frequent I become more bothered.
I mainly get bothered because, like others have stated, when there are errors on almost every page it seems a bit lazy especially when it's common grammatical errors.
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Post by ashleyalanarx90 »

Errors bother me so bad! Not necessarily typos, unless they change the context of the sentence, but the errors where you can tell that the author didn't do their research!
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Post by sahmoun2778 »

I'm currently reading an e-book where randomly a paragraph will be in a smaller font. It's annoying but I'm really enjoying the story. Actually I think typos bother me more than formatting errors.
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