I'm curious about the editing process at the ARC level -- how much do the books change between the time that ARC escapes the publisher, and the final proofs are made for the HC version? As my wife is a bookseller, we've had the opportunity to pick up quite a number of ARCs (a couple of yours, over the years), and I wonder if I'm missing anything.

I know ARCs are always labeled "Quote this at the risk of your life and sanity" but do they really change much? Is it just typos, or is it like the movie biz where whole scenes may be dropped in our left on the editing room floor? It's not like you need a temp-track or pencil-test effects for a pre-release, that all happens in my grey matter at either level.

Also, do you get a chance to edit again before a mass market edition? I've seen on Charles Stross' blog (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/index.html) he asks for people to find the groty misspellings between the HC and PB, but do you ever regret a phrase out of Jack's mouth, or decide to purple-up the prose of a vampire, etc.?

Thanks,
Joel

Very well said Joel.

Stephanie

As I understand it, it's just spelling and punctuation corrections when it goes from ARC to hardback, although those who get the ARC's may possibly suggest technical corrections as well. And the same thing may happen when the book goes from hard back to paper back. Missed or overlooked spelling or punctuation errors which still exist in the hard back may be caught and corrected.

A while back, FPW announced that Gateways was going to be issued in paperback, and asked the board if there were any changes that ought to be made.

http://www.repairmanjack.com/forum/showt...php?t=4470

Same thing with Harbingers.

http://www.repairmanjack.com/forum/showt...php?t=7051

He's a stickler for accuracy -- something which we all appreciate. Not all authors are like that.

Ken V.

I'm curious about the editing process at the ARC level -- how much do the books change between the time that ARC escapes the publisher, and the final proofs are made for the HC version? As my wife is a bookseller, we've had the opportunity to pick up quite a number of ARCs (a couple of yours, over the years), and I wonder if I'm missing anything.

I know ARCs are always labeled "Quote this at the risk of your life and sanity" but do they really change much? Is it just typos, or is it like the movie biz where whole scenes may be dropped in our left on the editing room floor? It's not like you need a temp-track or pencil-test effects for a pre-release, that all happens in my grey matter at either level.

Also, do you get a chance to edit again before a mass market edition? I've seen on Charles Stross' blog (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/index.html) he asks for people to find the groty misspellings between the HC and PB, but do you ever regret a phrase out of Jack's mouth, or decide to purple-up the prose of a vampire, etc.?

Thanks,
Joel

I'm curious about the editing process at the ARC level -- how much do the books change between the time that ARC escapes the publisher, and the final proofs are made for the HC version? As my wife is a bookseller, we've had the opportunity to pick up quite a number of ARCs (a couple of yours, over the years), and I wonder if I'm missing anything.

[SIZE="3"]Depends on which stage the ARC goes to press. Some are reduced-size binding of the manuscript. Most are typeset and copyedited but not necessarily proofed by the author. In my case, no two editions are exactly alike. The Gauntlet editions contain errors corrected in the Forge hardcover, which in turn has errors corrected in the mmpb. In the case of Harbingers, in the mmpb I recently added a line of dialog to a scene because I didn't think a certain point was made clearly enough. I don't know if it made it in because the editoial assistant handling it left the company. I'll find out in September.[/SIZE]