Re: RARA-AVIS: ARCs

From: John Williams ( johnwilliams@ntlworld.com)
Date: 04 Feb 2003


Joy wrote
> Can anyone tell me if ARCs are proofread and corrected before they become
> books in the warehouse? I surely do hope so. I'm reading an ARC for
review,
> and I've rarely seen more errors, even in first pages.
>
Depends rather in my experience. If it's a true ARC (rather than a bound uncorrected proof) then it's likely to be very close to the finished article. Generally, if it's typeset like a real book then the publishers probably aren't going to spend any more money proofreading it. I received little thanks from one publisher for pointing out, having read an advance copy of Jay McInerney's Last of the Savages, that he'd managed to have the year 1968 happen twice in succession. Recently had an uncorrected proof of Crais' Hostage - obviously not a finished book as it was clearly photocopied form the author's manuscript - including a chapter in which incautious use of the old 'find and replace' function - presumably to change a character's name from Don to Larry - resulted in people saying to each other things like 'I larry't believe you.'

John

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