Been MIA for a while – now I’m back!
I have finally climbed out of a sea of paperwork and finished editing a 100 page catalogue. It was a fun job, a bit different to the regular work I do and was a good challenge that really got the creative juices flowing.
The catalogue is produced by an overseas publisher and promotes their range of childrens books. The text I edited had been translated from French into English by a native French speaker. Hence some of the words had been translated literally and lost a degree of meaning in the process.
So it all had to be knocked into shape to create a catalogue that not only accurately summarised the content of each book using eye catching sales messages, but also got treated to all the usual editing tasks such as checking punctuation, spelling, grammar, etc.
It was quite a challenge searching for alternative English words for some of the book titles. One of the books is called “La Tetine” which had literally been translated as “The Teat” (as in udder). The picture on the front cover is of a robber riding a horse and if you look closely, you can see a dummy in his mouth. The book is aimed at very young children and encourages them to be a big kid and throw away their dummy. So I changed the English title to “The Dummy Thief”.
The books are beautifully illustrated and charming to read, if you can read French! If you’re interested, check out the publisher’s website: http://www.casterman.com
Catalogue editing is just one of the many services we provide. If you have text that needs “knocking into shape”, just send me an email via the Contact Us page.