When publishing a book be careful with your global search and replaces

Here is a good example of why we should be careful with our global search and replaces.

The other day I downloaded the Sample of Mein Kampf, translated by Matt Kirkland.*

*Disclaimer: I do not like Hitler or the Nazis, their ideology, politics, et cetera. However as an amateur historian I try read every side of an argument to get the larger, fuller picture of the historical period.

The sample only contained a few pages, but I noticed a few strange words in those few pages. Keep in mind this an English translation, but these words at first seemed really odd.

recrimicountry
indigcountry
examicountry

At first I was very puzzled until I saw the repetitive pattern and realized what the publisher had done. S/He had globally substituted the English term "country" for the term "nation". I'm sure s/he had a reason as these two terms can convey different meanings in English. The goal of a translation is to convey the closest meaning intended in the original. However, s/he got sloppy and didn't verify all the global changes and apparently never considered that "nation" can be used at the end of a verb or adjective to form a noun. Thus:

recrimicountry should have been written as recrimination
indigcountry should have been written as indignation
examicountry should have been written as examination

Since the book cost $8.99, I deleted the sample and chose not to waste my money on what probably would have been a very sloppy edition/translation.

[DiapDealer]

Hah! Nice reverse S&R sleuthing.

That's a perfect example of why the "Replace All" button should be used extremely sparingly (if ever) in commercial endeavors. Verify each Replace before confirming.

[RDaneel54]

So much for proofreading!

LOL! I think proofreading is rarely used for eBooks. Even eBooks I purchase via the major publishers seem riddled with typos and other errors. However most of the errors seem to be sloppy typos and formatting issues. It is terrible to read a scholarly work that is riddled with these errors. If the authors/scholars who wrote them saw all these errors in their books I'm sure the literary pooh would hit the fan!

[SCION]

Good stuff!!!

[Blossom]

The Harlequin Treasury titles I buy are full of OCR errors. Like one book the Hero's name was Clay and several places it read Glray.
These books retail at $4.99+ with FW coupons I usually pay $2.50 or below that. I know they are not proofread. There is missing quotes, punctuation and words that make no sense. Still I buy them up like hotcakes. It's because modern HQ titles are just so formulated and uncreative most of the time.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by Blossom

The Harlequin Treasury titles I buy are full of OCR errors. Like one book the Hero's name was Clay and several places it read Glray.
These books retail at $4.99+ with FW coupons I usually pay $2.50 or below that. I know they are not proofread. There is missing quotes, punctuation and words that make no sense. Still I buy them up like hotcakes. It's because modern HQ titles are just so formulated and uncreative most of the time.

besides, you can have fun fixing the really crappy stuff...er...if you approach it with the right...um...positive attitude

Originally Posted by Blossom

The Harlequin Treasury titles I buy are full of OCR errors. Like one book the Hero's name was Clay and several places it read Glray.
These books retail at $4.99+ with FW coupons I usually pay $2.50 or below that. I know they are not proofread. There is missing quotes, punctuation and words that make no sense. Still I buy them up like hotcakes. It's because modern HQ titles are just so formulated and uncreative most of the time.

I read a lot of history and science books and many of them have been out of print for two or more decades. That generally means the eBook is OCRed and often in Topaz. Nevertheless they usually cost more than $10 because they expect to sell far fewer than say a non-fiction novel. The OCR errors are typically numerous and show that no proofreading was even attempted. I doubt the publisher would get away with that for a new print edition. It is almost as if the publishers are saying that people who read eBooks don't deserve the same quality as people who read print books.

[RDaneel54]

^Exactly. I read Volume 3 of Winston Churchill's history of WWII recently. He referenced that big body of water between Europe and the Americas.

The e-book version would have us believe it's called the Adantic Ocean, but I'm thinking it's something else, any ideas?

Annoying, not that I can't figure it out, but that I have to when reading e-books.

In my last job before I retired, I wrote my own books for the classes I taught. I made sure they were properly edited and proofread by our team, before publication, because it was my reputation on the line.

Apparently, that is not a concern for publishers today.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by RDaneel54

^Exactly. I read Volume 3 of Winston Churchill's history of WWII recently. He referenced that big body of water between Europe and the Americas.

The e-book version would have us believe it's called the Adantic Ocean, but I'm thinking it's something else, any ideas?

Annoying, not that I can't figure it out, but that I have to when reading e-books.

In my last job before I retired, I wrote my own books for the classes I taught. I made sure they were properly edited and proofread by our team, before publication, because it was my reputation on the line.

Apparently, that is not a concern for publishers today.

Adantic Ocean.... No Clue

We need a company that proofreads OCR copies. It's obvious, it's a much needed service.

At the very least they could use editing software with a spellchecker! I know there are OCR checkers that search for common OCR errors. OCR errors get even worse with books that use a lot of special characters and letters with umlauts and diacritical marks. OCR also has a tougher time with serif text, and most printed books seem to be in serif. I get tired of reading 'I' instead of T, as well as all the other common errors.

I'm currently reading a history of the European theater during WWII. I am annoyed by the dozen or more ways that Fürher has been spelled due to the OCR getting totally confused over umlauted ü. Add to that all the German, French, Dutch, etc. words that use umlauted letters and parts of the book are really annoying to read.