Thursday, September 21, 2006

Publishing errors in books

So I am re-reading the Riftwar saga (and the following books) by Raymond E. Feist.

As I am reading each book, I am finding numerous errors in the books. I can't blame Raymond Feist - with 600ish pages per book, and 15 books in the series, he's really a creative force. He has at least one editor who goes over these things, and these books have been in print for over 22 years. Certainly by now someone has found these errors and can have done something about it. Yet books I have bought this year have these errors.

Examples:
Book "Prince of the Blood," ISBN 0-76783-0045

Pg 100, Last paragraph, starts with "The lady you road with..." And it should be, "The lady you rode with..."

Pg 189, first paragraph (continued from Pg. 188), referring to a sword someone is carrying. "...and across his back was a leather sheath, containing what appeared to be a half-and-a-half-, or bastard-sword."
I've read a lot of fantasy novels, and have studied military weaponry of earth's past. I know this to be a "hand-and-a-half-sword," not a "half-and-a-half..."

Pg 199, 2nd paragraph. "Borric and his companions put heels to their mounts and galloped to keep up with the chariots." Borric isn't involved in this scene. It's his brother Earland. At this point in time, Borric is lost in the desert, and Earland and James think he is dead. On Page 197, it is detailing Borric's attempted journey to reach Earland, and it will take him 4-6 weeks of traveling to do so - he is probably hundreds of miles away.

I have found four other errors in this book alone. I have found 4-6 errors in each of the other books in this series (there are 7 books I have read this year in this series).

I have written to the publisher and asked who to report the mistakes to. No response.
I have written to the printing company – they have a link that says that we can report errors, but have received no response from them either.
I am willing to bet that other people have reported these errors to Doubleday and Bantam Dell in the last 22 years, but they have been ignored, just like they are ignoring me.

When I finally publish books, I hope I have an editor who catches these little errors.

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