Proofing For Errors

I've had the chance to look over the book proof and found a few errors. I contacted Create Space and inquired as to the process for making changes. I was told that they would attach a change form to my account which would allow me to make up to 80 text changes without incurring an additional expense, unless the error was their fault. I'm uncertain if they count each letter or text as in a word. If it is based on each figure, then 80 isn't a realistic number.

From my account I downloaded the change form and began the process of finding and recording the mistakes. One issue was spacing between the period at the end of one sentence and the letter at the beginning of the next sentence. It varied throughout the book without rhyme or reason. Since this was a book-wide problem I called Create Space to find out how to handle it. Their service representative requested that I give her an example. Of course it took me a little time to locate an example. She pulled up my submitted manuscript to determine if the error was their fault or mine; It was their error.

She thought that it could be handled by their design department but wasn't sure so she would get back to me.  The next morning I received an email from the design staff stating that I would have to record each instance on the change form. Knowing that there were more than 80 cases and statistically my chance of missing one or more would be probable, I called the support line.

This time the representative said that she would have a member of the design team call me so that we could explore possible solutions. It took a couple of hours before I received the call, but it was good news because the designer discovered that the problem was in the type of word font that was used. They had experienced a similar issue and by changing the font would correct the problem. THANK YOU LORD!

On one page I found that apostrophes in a conjunction, such as "can't" were replaced with right pointing arrows, such as "can>t. I wasn>t sure this was another font issue or something else so I recorded it on the change form just in case.

In order to meet my August deadline I completed the change form today and downloaded it to my account. The design representative told me that she would make the font change at the same time they make my requested changes. The whole process would take less than a week and they would mail me another proof for me to approve.  Once I approve the proof the book should be available for print within a week, which is within my deadline for ordering books for the book launch on August 24th.

I'll sleep a little better tonight knowing that the book will be in print on time.