October 22, 2007 : SIX degrees for the scuola run this morning and a high wind whistling in the chimneys.
Just finished reading The Black Violin (actually, I started and finished in one sitting - or lying - I read in bed mostly). An intriguing and magical tale of passion for music, the artistry of the instrument-maker and the dehumanising effects of war. A short and thoroughly enjoyable read.
The Acorn Book Company is a small press making really lovely books at a decent price. I would do almost anything to see publishing like this continue in the face of the mass-market juggernauts of the publishing world.
But despite the pleasing cover, the tactile paper and the careful typesetting, one thing seems to have been forgotten.
The Acorn Book Company is a small press making really lovely books at a decent price. I would do almost anything to see publishing like this continue in the face of the mass-market juggernauts of the publishing world.
But despite the pleasing cover, the tactile paper and the careful typesetting, one thing seems to have been forgotten.
We don’t just look at books. We also read them.
And, Acorn Books, you need a proofreader.
He/she won’t be expensive. A professional proofreader with 20 or more years experience chasing semi-colons back to their colon and painstakingly checking Mandarin transliterations will cheerfully set you back less than the minimum wage. He/she might even work for free on such worthy titles as those published by Acorn Books even though the mortgage is in arrears, the kids need new dictionaries and the Citroen Deux Chevaux wants tyres. (Personally, I’d hold out for a twenty-quid Amazon voucher, but they always said I was too hard-nosed to be successful in publishing.)
Your proofreader will almost certainly be highly qualified - with at least eight years of higher education, culminating, possibly, in a PhD thesis on the saxon genitive. He/she is probably fluent in more than two living languages and a student of far too many dead ones to be healthy. He/she is no doubt an accredited member of the Society of Freelance Editors and Proofreaders and a passionate activist in the Apostrophe Protection Society. He/she can quote large tracts of Judith Butcher’s seminal work on copy-editing, and will be able to dispute Hart’s Rules with the best of 'em (preferably down the pub with a pint of Old Hookey and a fire burning in the grate)(1).
And the proofreader is always keen to tell you he/she is used to working to tight deadlines – especially that special category of deadline known in the trade as ‘Yesterday’.
Remember, Acorn Books, you’re making books for people who read, so get yer hyphens right!
Bibliography
Fermine, Maxence (trans. Chris Mulhern), The Black Violin, Acorn Book Company 2003. ISBN 978-0953420568.
Butcher, Judith, Drake, Caroline & Leach, Maureen, Butcher's Copy-editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Copy-editors and Proofreaders, CUP 2006. ISBN 978-0521847131.(2)
R.M. Ritter (Adapter) Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford, OUP 2005. ISBN 978-0198610410.(3)
(1) Do they still make Old Hookey? Anyone?
(2) Now why can’t they leave things alone? Butcher’s, it seems, is no longer Butcher’s. Hmmph.
(3) And Hart’s Rules is no longer Hart’s. Double Hmmph.
And, Acorn Books, you need a proofreader.
He/she won’t be expensive. A professional proofreader with 20 or more years experience chasing semi-colons back to their colon and painstakingly checking Mandarin transliterations will cheerfully set you back less than the minimum wage. He/she might even work for free on such worthy titles as those published by Acorn Books even though the mortgage is in arrears, the kids need new dictionaries and the Citroen Deux Chevaux wants tyres. (Personally, I’d hold out for a twenty-quid Amazon voucher, but they always said I was too hard-nosed to be successful in publishing.)
Your proofreader will almost certainly be highly qualified - with at least eight years of higher education, culminating, possibly, in a PhD thesis on the saxon genitive. He/she is probably fluent in more than two living languages and a student of far too many dead ones to be healthy. He/she is no doubt an accredited member of the Society of Freelance Editors and Proofreaders and a passionate activist in the Apostrophe Protection Society. He/she can quote large tracts of Judith Butcher’s seminal work on copy-editing, and will be able to dispute Hart’s Rules with the best of 'em (preferably down the pub with a pint of Old Hookey and a fire burning in the grate)(1).
And the proofreader is always keen to tell you he/she is used to working to tight deadlines – especially that special category of deadline known in the trade as ‘Yesterday’.
Remember, Acorn Books, you’re making books for people who read, so get yer hyphens right!
Bibliography
Fermine, Maxence (trans. Chris Mulhern), The Black Violin, Acorn Book Company 2003. ISBN 978-0953420568.
Butcher, Judith, Drake, Caroline & Leach, Maureen, Butcher's Copy-editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Copy-editors and Proofreaders, CUP 2006. ISBN 978-0521847131.(2)
R.M. Ritter (Adapter) Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford, OUP 2005. ISBN 978-0198610410.(3)
(1) Do they still make Old Hookey? Anyone?
(2) Now why can’t they leave things alone? Butcher’s, it seems, is no longer Butcher’s. Hmmph.
(3) And Hart’s Rules is no longer Hart’s. Double Hmmph.
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