Sandi Shilhanek | Editing

When my TBR blog was posted last week I went back and read it. I was so embarrassed to have my name attached to it because of the mistakes I found where I obviously hadn’t gone back and proofread it. This got me to thinking about when I read a book with poor editing, and how it can pull a reader from the story.

I recently read a galley of Overnight Sensation by Karen Foley, and I was amazed at the number of mistakes I caught. It pulled me from the story, and truly affected my enjoyment of it. I didn’t mention it in my review, because I’m confident that in the editing process the mistakes were caught, because if I were to be honest I would tell you that for me to notice it has to be blaring, so I’m positive that a professional editor or proofreader would catch the errors and have the author correct them. I have no doubt that the final copies that readers are buying from their local bookseller are perfect, and that readers will thoroughly enjoy Overnight Sensation.

I am not trying to single out Ms. Foley’s work by any means, but this is the most recent book that I’ve read that immediately calls to mind how poor editing can affect a reader’s enjoyment of the book. I can remember reading a book, but unfortunately not the title where the character’s clothing changed in the middle of a dinner. How was something as simple as that not caught?

I can recall another book I had to read for review, and had a printed ARC complete with a back blurb. In the back blurb the hero had a different name than what he was actually called in the book.

These are just a few things I’ve noticed, and while not enough to affect the enjoyment of the story overall they are enough to make me wonder about the editing/proofreading process.

I don’t want to bash a book or an author because I do realize it’s difficult to be creative and continue to come up with the stories that entertain us, and take us away from the drudgery of our daily lives, but I’m curious to know have you read a book where the editing/proofreading was enough to make you stumble over the otherwise easy flow? Did that or did it not affect the overall pleasure you normally get from your reading material?