Red pen? Blue pen? Green pen?

September 5th, 2008

I received the ‘proofread’ first typeset pages of my book today, which I have to check thoroughly and make any corrections with a red pen. Not a blue or green pen, mind you, only a red pen. According to Allen & Unwin protocol: ‘Our style for making corrections is: blue pen for typesetter’s errors (i.e. mistranscribed copy), red for author changes, green for publisher’s changes, and pencil for queries from the proofreader to you.’ Thankfully, there aren’t many blue, green or pencil marks on the proofread pages, so it will be off the printers by the end of the month. It’s actually quite a hefty little book this time round. My longest previous book was ‘Where’s wallis?’ at 298 pages. ‘Sleeping around’ weighs in at 392 pages. That’s 17.86 pages per couch!

2 Responses to “Red pen? Blue pen? Green pen?”

  • On September 5th, 2008 Lisa Scott Hall said:

    Hi there~

    Congrats on getting your books to the red pen stage; I slog through the work week as a professional proofreader for a recruitment agency, posse for possess, sing-on bonus for sign-on and today’s Department of Transformation for Norfolk Southern RR was an instant classic. We all use purple pens ~~ our prima donna AEs would d.i.e. to be corrected in red. Glad you are getting published!

    Lisa

  • On September 5th, 2008 brianthacker said:

    Oh, I like the purple pen!

    Maybe the cleaner at Allen & Unwin could have a go at the proof with a purple pen.

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