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Topic: Asked to re-proofread?
| Author | Message |
| robbo | Posted – 2/25/2008 2:03:55 PM | show profile Hello! I finished a proofreading job for a publisher a couple of weeks ago. I was contacted recently by the editor and asked to look over the proofs again because he found a mistake in the first few pages and is worried there are more I missed. My question is: is this standard? I'm assuming I won't be paid to re-proofread this. I have not come across anything like this before. |
| Mr. Biggles | Posted – 2/25/2008 2:40:46 PM | show profile I'm a project editor for a book publisher, and I've never asked a freelancer to start a job all over again. I will give specific feedback if a lot of errors were overlooked or the freelancer didn't follow our style manual, but making him or her re-read the project seems counterproductive, especially if you're dealing with a tight schedule. |
| Marie | Posted – 2/26/2008 11:33:27 AM | show profile I would "look over" the proofs again quickly but definitely charge for the time. If you spend two hours on this (slug and scan, don't give it the same attention as the first time around), charge for two additional hours. |
| Mirage | Posted – 2/26/2008 1:37:13 PM | show profile Strange If I had hired a proofreader who had missed a significant number of errors, I would have hired someone ELSE to look over the pages. If he has lost faith in your work, why is he asking you to do the work again? Very odd. |
| rhino writer | Posted – 2/26/2008 1:43:42 PM | show profile I've never come across this, either. And I agree -- I would think the editor would ask someone else to check the work. It's too easy to miss the same things the second time through. Unless it's a specific thing, like the head was styled wrong, or a correction didn't make it in, which it might be easier to scan quickly for. Do you know what the error was? |
| InsomniacNOT | Posted – 2/26/2008 6:07:11 PM | show profile I have hired proofreaders who did a lousy job and the last thing you want to do is bring them back in. You want to hire someone you can trust -- especially on a tight deadline. I would ask them to clarify exactly what they want done -- and if this was originally a job paid by the hour, charge for the extra hours. If it was a flat rate and you didn't do a great job, I'd look at the proofs again but not expect any more work from this particular client. |
| robbo | Posted – 2/27/2008 12:54:03 PM | show profile Thanks for the responses, everyone! I called and spoke with the editor and he said it was standard policy with them and he would pay me to do the "re-proofread." I still find it odd, especially in light of the points brought up by everyone here. I read through it again and that's all done. Now I have a new problem. I found quite a few mistakes I missed. I feel awful! They were punctuation errors mainly. I'm wondering how common this is. It was about 350 pages and I had about 3 days to proofread it. The book had a lot of errors (punctuation, formatting, misspellings, and plot continuity problems) and I caught around 200. I missed around 35. Is there an "acceptable" amount of errors for a proofreader to miss? Or am I justified in feeling like I should take my little red pencil and drive it through my proofreading hand? |
| editordebit | Posted – 2/27/2008 1:29:19 PM | show profile "It was about 350 pages and I had about 3 days to proofread it. The book had a lot of errors (punctuation, formatting, misspellings, and plot continuity problems) and I caught around 200. I missed around 35." If there were still plot continuity problems when it got to the proofreading stage, there was someone else falling down on the job way before it got to you. Also, figuring three days as 24 hours work, that's 14-15 pages per hour! Typically even a clean text may run 10 pages an hour (though many editors can manage more), and that's figuring standard pages of 250 words: typeset pages are usually more dense. See http://www.the-efa.org/res/rates.html . I can't tell without looking at your work, but it sounds to me as though you may have done quite well on what was essentially a rush job. Since they've somehow found time to re-do stuff, you might mention as tactfully as you can that it might have been better to allow a little more time up front. Try to take it cheerfully, as a learning experience rather than a blow to the ego -- I know that's tough. I have been asked in interviews how I react to learning that I've made errors, and have found that the best response is that everyone *does* make errors, and if they didn't, I wouldn't have a job, so I have to accept that I have an error rate and need checking up on too, just like anyone else. |
| robbo | Posted – 2/27/2008 7:02:20 PM | show profile Thanks, editordebit! |
