As for lie and lay, the way I was taught the difference (and what has stuck with me for many years) is that you lie yourself down, but you lay something else down. Thinking of it that way has rarely caused confusion for me. But I came across this site the other day, and I like it, too.

For whatever reason, Berkeley books do seem — of the print books — to have more errors that I catch. It does frustrate me, even though I always expect *some* errors, since it’s so incredibly difficult to catch everything (especially with Word catching only misspelled words). Someone mentioned the recent Kathleen O’Reilly trilogy, and the first book, which I bought in e-form, actually seemed to be missing words in several places, which both surprised and irritated me. I’ve actually found Harlequin books (at least the ones I’ve read) to be pretty clean. And lately I’ve noticed quite a few typos in some of the Avon books I’ve read.

I suspect that there are multiple reasons for the persistence of errors, but it’s something that does wear on me as a reader. Of course so does awkward grammar, misused words, and incorrect punctuation (serial abuse of the comma, especially). I realize that some of this is a matter of taste and judgment (and that knowledgeable opinions will vary), but it still makes me a little nostalgic for the bad old days when everyone learned to diagram sentences and had to do those boring old grammar drills. I especially wish the placement of prepositional phrases and dependent clauses would make a comeback in writing instruction. None of us is perfect; I make errors all the time, only some of which I catch in time (if only I had an editor, lol!). But I definitely seem to go through phases where errors in professionally written, edited, and published prose seem more common than I’d expect.

No, they aren’t (or at least Penguin doesn’t). I was under the impression that they still did, but then I had an interview on my site last year with a proofreader, and she said they convert the document.

RE: Through the Veil — I’m also hoping for more of this world.

Which makes goofs AFTER the final author alteration stage (we don’t get galleys) even more mysterious. Nothing makes my day like a reader pointing out an error I not only didn’t make, but never saw in any of the production stages. Grr.

What I see find most regrettable, however, is that even if there’s line/copy editing, story editing is often completely absent and sorely needed.

I think this tends to occur in two major niches: the books they know will sell no matter what (m/m, m/m/f, BDSM, etc) and the books they know won’t (f/f).

I have to say that at least in my experience with the pub process, by the time you get your galley proofs — which someone else has typeset from your original, hard copy manuscript, btw, and not an electronic file that you typed yourself…

All in all, if Samhain had published Shiloh’s book, the editing would probably been a lot better!

Tell me NY isn’t still having typesetters do the manuscripts by hand? WTF? Do the typesetters have a particularly powerful union? Why on earth wouldn’t they use MS word or any other word precessor out there? Why even bother line editing, if you’re going to hand it over to some fallible human being who could fuck up every other word?

I want to point out that some epubs, when careless with their editing, take immediate steps to correct the problem. I purchased an ebook from Samhain that was riddled with typos and grammatical klunkers. I fired off an email to Angela James, who is the senior editor at Samhain. She replied with a very gracious thank you for pointing it out and explained that this particular ebook slipped through the cracks before final editing. She said that she was appreciative of the fact that it was pointed out before the book went to press.

All in all, if Samhain had published Shiloh’s book, the editing would probably been a lot better!

Sara is right, after reading through a document so many times, the mind fills in missing words, etc. but that’s what crit partners and editors are for. That’s why authors don’t all self-publish, that’s the added value for which an author hands over a piece of the revenue. There really is no excuse for shoddy work to see the light of day.

What I see find most regrettable, however, is that even if there’s line/copy editing, story editing is often completely absent and sorely needed.

E-pubs seem to be putting less effort into editing from the examples I have in my 200+ e-book library (I saw a tract on the ‘tyranny of the ‘had’ not too long ago, in which the ‘editor’ encouraged writers to drop ‘had’ from their writing. That just made me want to reach out and tell that person that there is more than one past tense in the English language for a really good reason and to beg all authors to PLEASE use correct tempi in their works).

But it’s not just e-pubs; the recent O’Reilly Blaze trilogy was riddled with typos. Very disappointing! To me bad editing shows disrespect for the reader.

To stray off-topic, if you’re getting a lot of unexplained bruises, go get your white blood cell count checked asap. That’s a symptom of something not quite so much fun as being dragged into another world to fight a war and fall in love.

MD, there’s not medical issue on my end. ;) Unless you consider being a klutz a medical problem-although the docs I’ve worked with seem to find it amusing more than troublesome.

Yeah, unexplained bruises can be worrisome, but my main problem is that I bump into things, but it’s such a common occurence (likely due to my lack of attention) I forget when I do it and then bam, a day later, mongo bruises.

I think the stylistic trait you mention in the review is a sign of just not enough editing. I see that more and more in novels I’ve purchased from epubs.

MD, Ann already mentioned that this was a print pub with Berkley. But as much as I hate to say it, editing problems, in the end, are my mistake. I’m lousy at catching things, so I use proofreaders before I send it off, but the bottom line is that my name is the one of the book, so I’m responsible.

Kerry, I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it more. I wish there was a way I could have explained certain issues in way that might have worked better for some readers, but some of the things would have involved changing certain character aspects, namely Lee’s character-and I can’t change who the character has become in my mind. I can work on some things, smooth certain issues out, but I can’t change how she faces things. After a while, characters take own their own personalities, even in the writer’s mind, and if I try to change that, the story stalls and then stops. I wish it could have worked better for you.

I’ve always had to stop and think about the “lie on the bed” or “lay an egg” difference. And let’s not even get into laid, lain, laying, lying, etc. LOL

Sara…, I’m lousy at it. Utterly. Fortunately most of those issues get caught but unfortunately, some slipped through in this one.

Bzangl & JaimeK, thank you. :) I’ve gotten the okay from my editor for more in this world, now I just need to put the proposal together…hopefully after evil, awful, deadlinefromhell is reached.

I’ve always had to stop and think about the “lie on the bed” or “lay an egg” difference. And let’s not even get into laid, lain, laying, lying, etc. LOL

Perhaps I’m going to another realm!

I’ll look for this, because it does sound like an interesting premise.

I see that more and more in novels I’ve purchased from epubs.

I should point out that this is not an e-publication but a print book.

I should also point out that all epubs are not alike. My experience with Samhain is of extremely careful and rigorous editing, with a final pass through a separate line editor to pick up anything that was missed by me or my editor. Samhain also insist that no item is sent for review that has not been through the line-editing process.