Hi, My genre of choice is the romance novel, specifically paranormal romance. Last year I bought several books in this genre from major publishers to get a feel for what is out there. I have to say that I was disappointed at the amount of errors in the books, that should have been caught by proof readers. These were publishers such as Leisure Books, Harlequin and Ballantine. Or maybe the job of finding errors rests with the author? I thought good publishers edited and proofed. I was also a little dismayed by the plots, but that's another post. Has anyone else found this to be true or did I just find some unusual examples? Thanks, Ellen
I haven't encountered more than a few errors in any given book, so I'm guessing you have some unusual cases. I'm also surprised that the editor didn't catch them. But I feel the author is partly responsible as well. After all, it is the author's book, and he/she should be more careful when going back to revise/edit.
I wouldn't completely discount the possibility than some errors are introduced by the publisher. That should occur less frequently with manuscripts submitted electronically, but I have seen errors that clearly took place in typesetting (like transposed lines). But authors are human, and so are submissions editors. It's a monumental task to proof every word of a 100K-word manuscript, and not everyone is fastidious about proofing. The romance genre is notorious, rightly or wrongly, of being a pulp mill, so throughput may be of more concern than editorial perfection in some cases.
yes... if you're seeking perfection of plot and print, the romance market is the last place you should be looking... they're not considered a 'pulp mill' for nothing...
