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Originally Posted by Kevin8or
There's an army of unemployed college grads who'd be happy to earn money correcting typos and/or grammar. Lots of college-educated waiters and waitresses who'd like to supplement their income. It's not as if Random House has to physically expand, to buy new office space, to get the job done. This is tele-commuting work, for independent contractors paid on a piece-work scheme. (I'd prefer that they be hired as employees, but the economy I'd like isn't the economy we have.)
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Y'know, Kevin8or: honestly, there aren't. I know everyone thinks that there are affordable college grads up for grabs on every corner--but not at any type of piece-rate that is remotely affordable. I'm not being pissy about this, but as someone who does hiring moderately often, and just went through a spate of bodies for an admin ass't., it ain't as easy and affordable as it sounds. Most of the grads I interviewed wanted more money per hour (essentially) than my production crew leaders get; the latter of which are line, so earning me money, not staff, which don't. Nor will I make you roll your eyes by regaling you with my not one, not two, but myriad debacles with hiring new proofers and epub-editors, vis-a-vis your earlier comments about "outsourc[ing] the file to a low-wage proof-reader or two" and sending it back to "someone" in-house who makes the changes. That person in-house? Has to be paid. There's no magic wand that makes those changes. We find we can make about 30,
maybe 45 edits to an epub in an hour, tops. We get some epubs
with over 200 copyedits. I have to pay "someone" for those hours. That ain't free, and as I already said, the "low-wage proof-reader" is fantasy right up there with the belief that when you stealth-fart, no one smells anything, and no one knows it's you.
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If you're going to charge customers as much for e-books as you do for paperbacks, then you'd better damn well pay for proper proofing.
Publishers have zero sympathy from me on this. They're taking money hand-over-fist for e-books, without living up to their end of the bargain.
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Well, I'm not sure that the last statement is quite true; I suspect that like most folks, they are subsidizing their print costs with the ephemeral ebooks. Nonetheless, I concur with you that they shouldn't get away with egregious formatting/editing errors, and I stand by my last statement--SEND THEM BACK, and post nasty reviews. It rocked Harper Collins' world, which not only replaced every instance of
Reamde on
every Kindle and device out there (which had a purchased copy on it), but actually pulled the book while they fixed it--while the book was #4 in print, #6 in SciFi/Kindle and #36 in books overall. So...being adamantine WORKS. You guys are certainly vociferous enough here; now be vociferous where it will do some good.
P.S. - I also volunteer at DP, and everyone here bitching about proofing should, as well. I don't get there as much as I should, but it's a seriously worthwhile thing to do.
Again...just my $.02 for the day.
Hitch