Typos, Typos, Typos
I Hate Typos
I Hate Typos
As books become electronic bits on
portable devices, it seems that typos are becoming more prevalent. It used to
be expected from the smaller publishing houses that cranked out quick cheap
paperbacks and it used to consist mainly of misspellings. However, with the
advent of computers and spell checkers, now the typographical errors are bigger
and it seems more numerous. Not just misspellings, but whole words that don't
belong. They seem to infest not only the small publishers, but the major
publishing houses and top selling authors, as well.
Popular books like Breaking Dawn of the Twilight series, the Harry Potter series and others, even have websites dedicated to listing the typos with comments from their fans like, "It's making me CRAZY." Why are typos so annoying? They disrupt the flow of the experience and often confuse the reader with a sentence that does not make sense or is ambiguous. It can also completely change the meaning of a sentence, like the classic Bible printing error in which the commandment dealing with adultery stated, "Thou shalt commit adultery." Oops, that typo earned the entire printing the nickname of the "Wicked Bible."
Typos are nothing new, they used to be called the "copyist's mistake" or "scribal error" before the printing press. More recently the terms "fat finger syndrome" and "thumbo" have become synonyms of typo as people type on tiny onscreen keyboards. But, they are becoming so common in the form of duplication, omission and substitution, it makes me wonder if there are any "real person" proof readers anymore or do publishers just rely on text editing software. A computer cannot distinguish between the appropriateness of "the whirl pool at Niagara Falls," and "the world pool at Niagara Falls" or between "people evacuating in the middle of the street," and "people ejaculating in the middle of the street." Both were typos found in major news stories. Do writers even read what they write? I recently read a book with a great story and excellent characters, but the typos were so numerous I put it down and never finished it. Needless to say I won't be buying the sequel. That is why I am making the following offer:
If anyone finds a typo in my latest book, 2012 Lunar Contact, and is the first person to email me with details of the typo, I will refund their money and more. I will send them a $5 gift card from Amazon. The book sells for $2.99 online. I don’t claim to be perfect, but I promise my readers that I will always proof my books personally and with the aid of at least two other proof readers. I challenge other authors to match my offer.
Popular books like Breaking Dawn of the Twilight series, the Harry Potter series and others, even have websites dedicated to listing the typos with comments from their fans like, "It's making me CRAZY." Why are typos so annoying? They disrupt the flow of the experience and often confuse the reader with a sentence that does not make sense or is ambiguous. It can also completely change the meaning of a sentence, like the classic Bible printing error in which the commandment dealing with adultery stated, "Thou shalt commit adultery." Oops, that typo earned the entire printing the nickname of the "Wicked Bible."
Typos are nothing new, they used to be called the "copyist's mistake" or "scribal error" before the printing press. More recently the terms "fat finger syndrome" and "thumbo" have become synonyms of typo as people type on tiny onscreen keyboards. But, they are becoming so common in the form of duplication, omission and substitution, it makes me wonder if there are any "real person" proof readers anymore or do publishers just rely on text editing software. A computer cannot distinguish between the appropriateness of "the whirl pool at Niagara Falls," and "the world pool at Niagara Falls" or between "people evacuating in the middle of the street," and "people ejaculating in the middle of the street." Both were typos found in major news stories. Do writers even read what they write? I recently read a book with a great story and excellent characters, but the typos were so numerous I put it down and never finished it. Needless to say I won't be buying the sequel. That is why I am making the following offer:
If anyone finds a typo in my latest book, 2012 Lunar Contact, and is the first person to email me with details of the typo, I will refund their money and more. I will send them a $5 gift card from Amazon. The book sells for $2.99 online. I don’t claim to be perfect, but I promise my readers that I will always proof my books personally and with the aid of at least two other proof readers. I challenge other authors to match my offer.
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