This year will mark my 40th year in this biz. Oh the the typos! My personal fav is the author commentary in a major Bible product regarding the commandment that addresses adultery. Let’s just say he gave it the green light.
What would happen if in case of a typo nightmare a publisher offered discounted copies.. Readers would be happy to pay less and not waste paper. It's a win/win. Books are expensive to buy nowadays and I, for one, would buy more if they were discounted.
Also why not run a contest to see who can find the type and reward those who enter with some gimmick.
I let MS Word read my work to me. (Read aloud feature.) My own mind will read past errors, even aloud. One positive about this particular typo is that I hadn't heard of him before, now I have!
How do you do that, Heidi? I've tried this feature and it hasn't really worked. I've only been able to get Word to read small segments, not longer than maybe a page or two before it stops. And it's in a very robotic voice. Would love your tip!
How to use read aloud in MS Word (I downloaded and installed the 2021 version. I don't have a 365 subscription, so I'm not sure if it's exactly the same.)
-Open a document.
-Under the Review tab select Read Aloud
-A small menu will appear upper right, with icons for reverse, play/pause, fast forward and settings
-A voice will begin reading from the beginning of the document.
-Or, pause it and place your cursor where you want it to start and click play.
-Or, if you want it to read a section, select/highlight the section, click play, and it will stop at the end of the selection.
To change the speed and voice:
-Click on the settings icon (looks like a speaker with a gear on top).
-Move the slider to change the speed.
-Change the voice in the drop down menu under Voice Selection. My menu has three options, David, Zira, and Mark. (Sometimes, it seems to default back to a different voice, idk why.)
This is how I do it. I'm amazed by what I catch by listening to a document I've read silently numerous times. It helps me edit, too. Extraneous parts stick out.
If I'm going to read a piece publicly, I record myself reading it, then listen back. I think I will do this with my entire manuscript, eventually, in pieces. It helps me tighten it up. (If I'm getting bored listening to it, certainly no one else will want to read/hear it!)
Brooke, I'll get back to you in the next day. (I spent a week on webinars and need a break.) Let me figure out what I do. Fallon, I was able to change the voice to female in settings, still computer sounding, but not so harsh (to me). Seems like there were a few options.
I do this, too, though I find the robot voice to be rather off-putting. A colleague and I took a course together for which we had to read a complete manuscript. We ended up meeting twice a week for a couple of months while working through the course, and I read the manuscript aloud for the both of us. It was amazingly helpful. I pick up so much when reading aloud, and my colleague was able to sink into the story because she was listening. Win-win!
I just realize the interesting mistake of the last sentence, "Also, why not run a contest to see who can find the TYPE..." I meant typo, but maybe there's something to this!
For the many Indie and small press authors out there, you just made a great case for print on demand and ebooks. Once the error is found it can be fixed.
I love the quote, "typos are how we know that books are made by humans and not gods." I found two typos in my book after it went to print and when I was reading my audiobook and just had to smile. Of course, I had already read it out loud to myself...twice. I use the typos as an example in my work about hiding, because perfectionism is the challenge here. "I have typos in my book, so I am not perfect." It's simply not true. "I have typos in my book, so I am wholly human." Seen. Doing my best. I've even talked about my typos during book talks when the topic of perfectionism comes up, because I believe we have to give each other grace and it's important to not take everything so seriously. And yes, if my title had read Hiding from My Wife, I might feel a bit differently. Great post as always, Brooke.
Much to my embarrassment, I am a very [pour] speller. I [here] words before I [sea] them. I blame this on the musicality of language, and the joy of it, and my habit of taking a [flyer] on the details. Also on my father, a very smart guy who would leave notes on the breakfast table: "I luv you. I fed the kat." As a magazine editor half a lifetime ago, my handicap gave me plenty of moments of pure terror, like the incorrect spelling of a major business person's name, over and over, in a long profile that began with a cover photo. Yikes. I'm very thankful, Brooke, for a publisher who personally looks at every cover. When people say, "Not sure whether to go traditional, or hybrid." I'm gonna ask, "Which publisher will read your cover?"
Wow. I had so much anxiety reading this post! Ha! I self-published a little novella with a pseudonym and almost printed my name misspelled. Yikes!! Thanks Brooke!
Finding typos has been a fun game for me since middle school. I recall finding typos in Time Magazine, Life magazine, and of course the NYT and always feeling so smug that I caught them. Now as an "actual" writer, I find them constantly in books and publications. I love finding typos! But then again, I'm not a publisher....
My dad was on a first name basis with the editor of Time because of all the letters he sent pointing out grammatical errors. My mother got a sympathy card from them when he died.
My favorite typo was in my first edition of my first book, a how-to on storytelling. Instead of "The Gingerbread Boy" it read "The Gingerbread Body." I always thought someone should write a mystery with that title.
I'm just enough a nerd that this is one of my favorite columns of yours. I'm an obnoxious typo-pointer-outer and it drives me crazy to find them in printed materials--particularly mine! But Jeff Hiller's typo is the worst I've seen. I love the way he took it--what a good sport. I didn't enter his context, but I will order his book! And hopefully, S&S is taking care of it.
(Now I know what motivated your "foreword" email a few months back! ;)
I really love this, Brooke, and I know readers can be hard on typos, but most readers won't DNF a book for a typo or two. Usually, there's a human-error limit of acceptance, though that seems to change from one reader to the next.
I know when I released my POV ebook, I was petrified of publishing with typos - I'm an editor! People will think I'm shit at what I do! - but I am human. I hired an editor (for hopefully obvious reasons), revised, decided to accept my own chaos, and published. I've put out social media posts with typos in them, have released articles and stories here with an errant typo, and will probably send a few hundred other typos in the world before I turn into compost. I'm okay with this.
And while I know there are special considerations for publishers, perhaps, in terms of expectations, I see the odd typo as a sign of the humanity involved in bringing a book to life.
I just received a book whose dedication referred to "veracious" readers. From context, the author didn't mean truthful! I winced so hard for her. But these things happen!
Long ago, my academic advisor told me that Amish quilters deliberately included a mistake in every quilt, to acknowledge that only God is perfect. (I later learned that that story itself was apocryphal.)
I'm sometimes amazed at the mistakes I find in books written by major league authors, though also forgiving, because as a writer and editor, I know how easy it is to miss them due to overexposure to the work. Reading aloud will prevent most of this, but I wonder if it would catch certain other problems that snuck in, such as a mistake in a character's name or other factoid previously established as X but later on presented as Y.
Oh, Brooke, the stories I could tell. A couple quick ones: An intern who was working fir us one summer during her senior year of high school asked what she could do while everyone went to lunch (she'd brought her own). I said, offhand, look for errors in this book, handing her the proofs from the printer for a photo book on tortoises. During lunch she found a typo... in a photo caption!
Another story that always makes me smile. The renowned Baja history author Harry Crosby once was shipped a box of his new books from China directly and found a page missing in every book. He quipped via after hours fax that he was going to go to bed believing that only those 20 books were missing page 26. He ended with, "Of course, I also believe in campaign finance reform and the brotherhood of man!"
Like you, I read my memoir aloud during the final weeks before it went to the printer...and I still found a mistake (and we were able to fix it at the printer!) while I was reading it for the audiobook.
My first book of essays, launch day at an indie bookstore, reading to about three dozen people. I open up to my chosen essay and start reading, only to discover a mistake in the first sentence. As I read it out loud.
This year will mark my 40th year in this biz. Oh the the typos! My personal fav is the author commentary in a major Bible product regarding the commandment that addresses adultery. Let’s just say he gave it the green light.
This year is my 28th in publishing.
Laughing that we both phrased our comments as, "Oh the...!"
What would happen if in case of a typo nightmare a publisher offered discounted copies.. Readers would be happy to pay less and not waste paper. It's a win/win. Books are expensive to buy nowadays and I, for one, would buy more if they were discounted.
Also why not run a contest to see who can find the type and reward those who enter with some gimmick.
Interesting idea. Kind of like Wattpad to catch typos. Business opportunity here! :)
I let MS Word read my work to me. (Read aloud feature.) My own mind will read past errors, even aloud. One positive about this particular typo is that I hadn't heard of him before, now I have!
How do you do that, Heidi? I've tried this feature and it hasn't really worked. I've only been able to get Word to read small segments, not longer than maybe a page or two before it stops. And it's in a very robotic voice. Would love your tip!
How to use read aloud in MS Word (I downloaded and installed the 2021 version. I don't have a 365 subscription, so I'm not sure if it's exactly the same.)
-Open a document.
-Under the Review tab select Read Aloud
-A small menu will appear upper right, with icons for reverse, play/pause, fast forward and settings
-A voice will begin reading from the beginning of the document.
-Or, pause it and place your cursor where you want it to start and click play.
-Or, if you want it to read a section, select/highlight the section, click play, and it will stop at the end of the selection.
To change the speed and voice:
-Click on the settings icon (looks like a speaker with a gear on top).
-Move the slider to change the speed.
-Change the voice in the drop down menu under Voice Selection. My menu has three options, David, Zira, and Mark. (Sometimes, it seems to default back to a different voice, idk why.)
This is how I do it. I'm amazed by what I catch by listening to a document I've read silently numerous times. It helps me edit, too. Extraneous parts stick out.
If I'm going to read a piece publicly, I record myself reading it, then listen back. I think I will do this with my entire manuscript, eventually, in pieces. It helps me tighten it up. (If I'm getting bored listening to it, certainly no one else will want to read/hear it!)
Thank you so much 😊
Brooke, I'll get back to you in the next day. (I spent a week on webinars and need a break.) Let me figure out what I do. Fallon, I was able to change the voice to female in settings, still computer sounding, but not so harsh (to me). Seems like there were a few options.
I do this, too, though I find the robot voice to be rather off-putting. A colleague and I took a course together for which we had to read a complete manuscript. We ended up meeting twice a week for a couple of months while working through the course, and I read the manuscript aloud for the both of us. It was amazingly helpful. I pick up so much when reading aloud, and my colleague was able to sink into the story because she was listening. Win-win!
Hi Brooke,
I just realize the interesting mistake of the last sentence, "Also, why not run a contest to see who can find the TYPE..." I meant typo, but maybe there's something to this!
For the many Indie and small press authors out there, you just made a great case for print on demand and ebooks. Once the error is found it can be fixed.
I love the quote, "typos are how we know that books are made by humans and not gods." I found two typos in my book after it went to print and when I was reading my audiobook and just had to smile. Of course, I had already read it out loud to myself...twice. I use the typos as an example in my work about hiding, because perfectionism is the challenge here. "I have typos in my book, so I am not perfect." It's simply not true. "I have typos in my book, so I am wholly human." Seen. Doing my best. I've even talked about my typos during book talks when the topic of perfectionism comes up, because I believe we have to give each other grace and it's important to not take everything so seriously. And yes, if my title had read Hiding from My Wife, I might feel a bit differently. Great post as always, Brooke.
Much to my embarrassment, I am a very [pour] speller. I [here] words before I [sea] them. I blame this on the musicality of language, and the joy of it, and my habit of taking a [flyer] on the details. Also on my father, a very smart guy who would leave notes on the breakfast table: "I luv you. I fed the kat." As a magazine editor half a lifetime ago, my handicap gave me plenty of moments of pure terror, like the incorrect spelling of a major business person's name, over and over, in a long profile that began with a cover photo. Yikes. I'm very thankful, Brooke, for a publisher who personally looks at every cover. When people say, "Not sure whether to go traditional, or hybrid." I'm gonna ask, "Which publisher will read your cover?"
Wow. I had so much anxiety reading this post! Ha! I self-published a little novella with a pseudonym and almost printed my name misspelled. Yikes!! Thanks Brooke!
Haha! I had anxiety typing my comment! :)
Finding typos has been a fun game for me since middle school. I recall finding typos in Time Magazine, Life magazine, and of course the NYT and always feeling so smug that I caught them. Now as an "actual" writer, I find them constantly in books and publications. I love finding typos! But then again, I'm not a publisher....
My dad was on a first name basis with the editor of Time because of all the letters he sent pointing out grammatical errors. My mother got a sympathy card from them when he died.
My favorite typo was in my first edition of my first book, a how-to on storytelling. Instead of "The Gingerbread Boy" it read "The Gingerbread Body." I always thought someone should write a mystery with that title.
😂 Good to try to find the humor...
I'm just enough a nerd that this is one of my favorite columns of yours. I'm an obnoxious typo-pointer-outer and it drives me crazy to find them in printed materials--particularly mine! But Jeff Hiller's typo is the worst I've seen. I love the way he took it--what a good sport. I didn't enter his context, but I will order his book! And hopefully, S&S is taking care of it.
(Now I know what motivated your "foreword" email a few months back! ;)
Haha. Thanks for that! And yes, foreword!! It's deep-seated. I have a lot of typo-pointer-outers in my life. I'm thankful.
Ack! There's a typo in my comment!! 😆
Par for the course! 😻
I really love this, Brooke, and I know readers can be hard on typos, but most readers won't DNF a book for a typo or two. Usually, there's a human-error limit of acceptance, though that seems to change from one reader to the next.
I know when I released my POV ebook, I was petrified of publishing with typos - I'm an editor! People will think I'm shit at what I do! - but I am human. I hired an editor (for hopefully obvious reasons), revised, decided to accept my own chaos, and published. I've put out social media posts with typos in them, have released articles and stories here with an errant typo, and will probably send a few hundred other typos in the world before I turn into compost. I'm okay with this.
And while I know there are special considerations for publishers, perhaps, in terms of expectations, I see the odd typo as a sign of the humanity involved in bringing a book to life.
I just received a book whose dedication referred to "veracious" readers. From context, the author didn't mean truthful! I winced so hard for her. But these things happen!
Long ago, my academic advisor told me that Amish quilters deliberately included a mistake in every quilt, to acknowledge that only God is perfect. (I later learned that that story itself was apocryphal.)
I'm sometimes amazed at the mistakes I find in books written by major league authors, though also forgiving, because as a writer and editor, I know how easy it is to miss them due to overexposure to the work. Reading aloud will prevent most of this, but I wonder if it would catch certain other problems that snuck in, such as a mistake in a character's name or other factoid previously established as X but later on presented as Y.
Oh, Brooke, the stories I could tell. A couple quick ones: An intern who was working fir us one summer during her senior year of high school asked what she could do while everyone went to lunch (she'd brought her own). I said, offhand, look for errors in this book, handing her the proofs from the printer for a photo book on tortoises. During lunch she found a typo... in a photo caption!
Another story that always makes me smile. The renowned Baja history author Harry Crosby once was shipped a box of his new books from China directly and found a page missing in every book. He quipped via after hours fax that he was going to go to bed believing that only those 20 books were missing page 26. He ended with, "Of course, I also believe in campaign finance reform and the brotherhood of man!"
Hahaha. All us vets have these war stories. Some of them funny, others very tragic.
Like you, I read my memoir aloud during the final weeks before it went to the printer...and I still found a mistake (and we were able to fix it at the printer!) while I was reading it for the audiobook.
My first book of essays, launch day at an indie bookstore, reading to about three dozen people. I open up to my chosen essay and start reading, only to discover a mistake in the first sentence. As I read it out loud.
After having read the galley aloud to myself.
I’m convinced the errorless book doesn’t exist.