What happens when you catch a typo too late?

[Michael Hopcroft]

I heard from my printer this afternoon and she said they were going to send me my proofs tomorrow (whoich is good) and they;'d found a couple of problems (which is bad).

THis then caused me to look over the book again and find some typos that are annopying to say the least. I don't know whether a printer will allow me to send a new PDF source file that includes the reapirs, whether I have to go through the expensive marklup process, or whether I have to live with the errors. What should I do here?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Michael,

My printer allowed me to send one-page PDF corrections for specific pages. As long as the correction didn't mess up the pagination, all was well. I had one chance to do this, and it did hop the price up a small amount.

Of course, that only reduced the number of mistakes; it didn't eliminate them entirely. Publishing a book carries with it, inevitably, dying a thousand deaths upon reading glaring errors and typos that somehow made it through the editing process. The only solution is to try to keep them few enough and minor enough to keep from being totally awful, and to post an Errata page on the website.

Best,
Ron

[Michael Hopcroft]

I don't know for sure what to do then. I don;t know just how flexible my printer will be, and my typesetter will ne sending me the entire file again.

THis does not make me look very good, does it....

[Cynthia Celeste Miller]

Just makes you look human.  We all make goof-ups.  The best you can do is correct what you can and, like Ron said, put up an errata page on your site.  There's no such thing as a "perfect" product, so try not to lose any sleep over it.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Not lose any sleep? How can you losed what you never had?

[Chris Passeno]

Chances are the printer had to make some adjustments to get it to the proof stage: placing pages inpostion, check links, etc.   It may be more cost effective to have the printer make the type corrections.  That way they don't have to start from scratch.

Later,
Chris

[Matt Gwinn]

Chris is right.
The printer can make text changes directly to the film as long as they have the font and it is minor.  I would give them a call and see what you can work out.  If you are printing a lot they may cut you a deal on making changes, especially if you intend to send them more business.

Speaking as someone that lays out about 1500 catalog pages a year, you can never catch all the typos; I don't care how good your editor is.  My company has at least 3 people proof our catalogs every year and we still find mistakes that were written years ago (even though we proof it every year).  It's bound to irritate you, and probably make you feel a little incompetant, but you're not alone.  Simply make a note of the mistake and fix it before then next print run.

,Matt G.

[Adam]

I don't know for sure what to do then. I don;t know just how flexible my printer will be, and my typesetter will ne sending me the entire file again.

If you need single pages, tell him to send you just the pages you need, one PDF file per page. It's more than possible; it's drop-dead easy in modern publishing software. If he isn't willing to do that, shop elsewhere the next time you need a book layout done.

My take on things: If the problems don't effect actual game rules [typos in rules, charts with errors, etc] don't worry about them for the print release, unless the cost to fix them is negligible or unless your print run is absolutely huge, which I don't believe it would be.

We at The Shadowrun Supplemental have a fairly strict "Do not 'ship' the magazine with any known errors" policy, but we're publishing strictly PDF so things are a bit different.

Still, live and learn - make sure that the next book has a full once-over from a freelance editor before reaching the layout stages. Editing your own work is a sure way to let mistakes slip through.