Readers. At which moment would you inform authors that you spotted typos?

[queentess]

Originally Posted by Jessie Carr

I have authored two books in Kindle format and forsale on Amazon. I proof the books myself and have someone else proof them also, however, some errors do slip by. I appreciate any feedback i receive from readers, my goal is not to create an error free book, but to entertain and make the reading experience exciting and interesting. I'm do not do this to make money, at 99 cents that would hardly be profitable, but to enjoy the experience, any feedback that makes me better is welcome and appreciated.

JL Schneider

For starters, it's "typos", not "typo's" (from your post title, not your post itself). You should probably refrain from editing your own books, and not just because you're too familiar with the material.

And I should think you'd strive to write error-free books as much as possible. Entertainment is derived from the ability to lose ones self in a book, and errors can jostle you out of that world and make it less enjoyable. I am one person who will not be paying you any amount to correct your writing errors. If you want to write and be good at it, do so. If you're just playing around, stop charging people to correct your mistakes because you're not taking the craft seriously. I'm rather insulted by how you view your readers.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by queentess

For starters, it's "typos", not "typo's" (from your post title, not your post itself). You should probably refrain from editing your own books, and not just because you're too familiar with the material.

And I should think you'd strive to write error-free books as much as possible. Entertainment is derived from the ability to lose ones self in a book, and errors can jostle you out of that world and make it less enjoyable. I am one person who will not be paying you any amount to correct your writing errors. If you want to write and be good at it, do so. If you're just playing around, stop charging people to correct your mistakes because you're not taking the craft seriously. I'm rather insulted by how you view your readers.

I applaud your candor, and agree with your statements. If an author would like me to edit his/her books, then I expect a free copy of the book, especially as I'm not getting paid for the editing.

Originally Posted by Jessie Carr

I have authored two books in Kindle format and forsale on Amazon. I proof the books myself and have someone else proof them also, however, some errors do slip by. I appreciate any feedback i receive from readers, my goal is not to create an error free book, but to entertain and make the reading experience exciting and interesting. I'm do not do this to make money, at 99 cents that would hardly be profitable, but to enjoy the experience, any feedback that makes me better is welcome and appreciated.

JL Schneider

I am curious, Jessie, is English your first language? I have never heard anyone say "I have authored a book"; not that it is incorrect, just unusual phrasing.
As one who makes many typos, I would never, ever even think of proof-reading or editing my own book. I think self-editing authors are almost always asking for trouble. Based on the typos you've made in the post above, I would highly suggest that you have someone else proof-read and edit all of your professional work, no matter what your motivation (money or pleasure). Readers should not be expected to pay for errors, no matter how low the price.

[Russell Brooks]

Originally Posted by zespectre

My worst frustration with this sort of thing comes from the occasional technical reference where words are just missing. Interestingly when I've pointed typos and errors out to Novel publishers they seems to take it very seriously. Tech reference people not so much (how backwards is that?)

I find it funny that so far the Novel/book industry is taking the "high tech" ereader business more seriously than the technical reference book people.

The good thing about eBooks and POD is that the digital copies can be easily corrected.

[grumpy3b]

where is the option for NEVER? If the author does not care, neither do I. I am not here to do their job for them. Nice part is those who are so sloppy and/or arrogant that they could never make mistakes will die on the vine.

[sheffieldsteve]

I wouldnt inform the author ... bet he/she was the first to notice them when they read it post printing !!!
Steve

[speakingtohe]

In both pbooks and ebooks I leap to the conclusion that some one else has already reported these errors. (I read a lot of books where the author is no longer among the living)
In more current works I leap to the conclusion that the author doesn't care.
Possibly unfounded, but lots of free spellcheckers out there and even grammer and context checkers.

If none of these are sufficient due to a high level of writing incompetence, the author could do the grandmother test. If your own grandmother thinks it sucks, probably it really does suck.

[tomsem]

Ideally, there would be a way to report typos directly to the publisher. This would work something like this:
- highlight the error
- add a note describing the error and how to fix
- there would be a 'send a correction' button
- an automated response would be emailed with a case # you could use to track status, check for newer, corrected versions, or perhaps even see all the other error reports that have been logged for the version you have.

Feature should be available only to those who opt-in, and agree to some basic terms and conditions. Perhaps there could be 'reputation points' awarded to encourage more accurate and productive reviewers and give their feedback more precedence; publishers could gift them with free books from time to time.

To close the loop there should be a way to get a corrected version when it is available without any additional charge.

Publishers would be free to ignore the feedback, of course, but it might encourage them to at least improve their quality control to avoid the expense of correcting things after publication, which tends to be much more expensive than dealing with errors at their source.

In short there's no reason ebooks could not be much more error free than print books, given the possibilities of crowd-sourcing the error correction.

[Nyssa]

That is a pretty cool idea Tomsem!

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Ideally, there would be a way to report typos directly to the publisher. This would work something like this:
- highlight the error
- add a note describing the error and how to fix
- there would be a 'send a correction' button
- an automated response would be emailed with a case # you could use to track status, check for newer, corrected versions, or perhaps even see all the other error reports that have been logged for the version you have.

And just why should I work for the publisher for free?

[djulian]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Ideally, there would be a way to report typos directly to the publisher. This would work something like this:
- highlight the error
- add a note describing the error and how to fix
- there would be a 'send a correction' button
- an automated response would be emailed with a case # you could use to track status, check for newer, corrected versions, or perhaps even see all the other error reports that have been logged for the version you have.
...

Originally Posted by djulian

I wish Kindle/Nook/Sony/Etc had this option, but in the Libronix Digital Library System (Logos Bible Software), you have the option of highlighting a portion of text in an eBook, and clicking a "typo" button. It gives you a little window to add notes, correct the text, etc, and then it e-mails the publisher/software company. They log these and release corrections on a pretty regular basis.

I decided to add pictures for clarity (no typos in the selected text). I wonder if the e-readers could pull this off--it seems like a strong possibility. Amazon could use the same window they use for selecting and searching text--you could highlight it and press the spacebar and hit, "Submit typo."

Great minds think alike!

[caleb72]

I think since I've read books from quite a few independent authors I've made up my mind that I would definitely pay for an editor if I released a story/novel.

I would first hassle my sister for an unofficial edit/proof-read because I believe she'd be good at it (and I might get that service for free), but then I would pay for a professional editor as a second phase.

First stop - Richard H. Adin (rhadin).

No harm in checking out MR members first I say.

Regards
Caleb

[Russell Brooks]

Originally Posted by Catlady

And just why should I work for the publisher for free?

Good question. If there were a sufficient number of errors that you find, then out of good faith the publisher ought to send you a coupon or even hire you, IMO.

[DreamWriter]

When proofreading, my goal is to produce an error-free book. I wouldn't want bad formatting, spelling errors, and improper grammar to distract from the story. But I am only human, and so are paid professionals. It is a rare book that has zero mistakes, whether it's self-published or not.

If a reader notified me of mistakes in my husband's book, I would be very grateful that they took the time to do so. I would then correct the errors. But that shouldn't be their job. The authors/publishers are responsible for producing quality work.

When reading, I let a few errors (say, five or less) just slide. I might report up to ten to a self-published author or small publisher. I don't even bother with the large publishers. But if there are a large number of mistakes, I wouldn't report them. I'm always happy to help, but in those instances, it would just take too much time and effort on my part.

The most annoying mistakes (for me) are commonly misused words, such as their/there, it's/its, affect/effect, etc. If those types of errors are a pattern throughout a book, then it irritates me.

[idraw22]

Know what would be neat? If you could download a book, open in in Calibre, and click spellcheck, after which Calibre would scan your book for any typos... showing them of course so you can make sure it's a typo. Sure might save alot of complaints. But then... alot of people don't even use spellcheck anymore, sigh.But,it could work!

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by idraw22

Know what would be neat? If you could download a book, open in in Calibre, and click spellcheck, after which Calibre would scan your book for any typos... showing them of course so you can make sure it's a typo. Sure might save alot of complaints. But then... alot of people don't even use spellcheck anymore, sigh.But,it could work!

but it would still miss some of the more irritating errors such as

quite/quiet
weather/whether/wether
bear/bare
there/their
hair/heir

and some common OCR ones such as but when it should be hut
etc ....