More complaints about the publisher
A reviewer, Juliet Boyle, has said some very complimentary things about the book.
Lovely.
However … she also makes a number of points about Bittersweet Tom’s cavalier style of editing.
The book itself - obviously - was given the thumbs-up. Apart from a few very mild complaints about my irksome prose, and my general tendency to write like a hack …
But Idle Tom - he gets it both barrels: "The book deserves to have been more closely proofread." I like that Juliet - "deserves" - as if it’s worth more than the shoddy treatment that was meted out by Idle Tom. Don’t even get me started on his "bittersweet" insertions.
Juliet also spots "strange and unnecessary hyphenated words". Yes! "Bittersweet" being one of them! Idle Tom uses the word about eight times, including on the back cover, and he couldn’t once make up his mind how to spell it.
"Some chapter titles are in upper case while others are in a mixture of upper and lower case …" Yes! Thank you Juliet!
And lastly … "Oh, but the cover! What can I say? The truth, I suppose: I absolutely hated it! I can see what it’s trying to do but …"
Well … Idle Tom swears by the cover, says it has been fully road-tested with "the buyers".
So - jury’s out on that one, Juliet, but given Idle Tom’s previous form, my money’s on you on this one.
November 7th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Hey Bob, or Bill, or whatever your name is - first it’s ‘Julia’, now it’s ‘Boyle’. I’m beginning to see what poor Tom was up against!
November 7th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Juliet - you make a very good point indeed. Most helpful. THANK YOU! I answer to various names: Bob, Bill, William, or even, as Idle Tom occasionally likes to call me, “Maestro”.