Today’s topic: Controlling the cost of revisions to your book
Self-Publishing Question #25 of 52: Should my book designer make changes for free?
Making changes to a book after typesetting is much more difficult and time consuming than changing a manuscript while it is still a word-processing document. Adding a sentence to your manuscript in a word processor takes a few seconds and costs nothing. Adding that same sentence after your book is laid out may cause all the text after it to reflow, and require time-consuming layout adjustments. All this to say that making changes after you should have stopped can add up to big bucks!
Self-Publishing Question #26 of 52: What’s the difference between a Typeset Error (TE) and an Author’s Alteration (AA)?
You will receive a proof from the typesetter, which you will be expected to review and mark up with any changes. A change, or author’s alteration (AA), is a change that the author requests and for which he or she will be billed by the typesetter. A misspelled name is considered a chargeable AA, because only the author can reasonably be expected to know the information. The number of chargeable AAs can be reduced by proofreading your manuscript before typesetting. A correction, or typesetter error (TE), should always be fixed by the typesetter free of charge. Accidental deletion of text that was in the original manuscript, or typeset in the wrong font is a nonchargeable TE. Marking your proofs with these abbreviations (AA or TE) will give everyone a sense of how the job is going and avoid hard feelings at billing time.
