Typos, printing errors and other annoying things in publishing

Yesterday I received one of those dreaded emails.  Someone reported a printing error in one of our books.  The last 8 pages or so were missing.  MISSING!!  At the end of a mystery, that is horrendous.

So how does that happen?

Well, something like this, pages printed upside down, or out of order is generally an error made at the printers.  A signature (a large chunk of pages) is inserted upside down or out of order.  In the picture, that signature was cut improperly and then bound into the book.

When books come into the warehouse, we check them for accuracy.  But we do not check EVERY box that comes in.  If we get 100 cases of a new book, we will spot check, unfortunately, we may miss a few boxes of misprinted books.  When we are made aware of an error, we check our stock and then proceed appropriately.  Generally we have to scrap the inventory and the printer reprints.

But in the case yesterday, the problem fell on us.  Somehow the formatting on a book we were sending to reprint got all messed up.  There were page breaks where we didn't put them and that threw off the flow, therefore cutting off the last eight pages.  We pulled our stock and corrected the file.  New copies will be in the warehouse in less than a month.

Well, what about typos?  yep, mistakes happen.  Doesn't mean we have to accept that and publish an inferior product.  But at the end of the day, remember that humans work on these treasures we call books.  And humans are prone to errors once in a while!  Honest! 

Back in my bookseller days, I would occasionally hear a customer complain about a typo.  Either the author or the publisher was blamed.  The customer would proclaim they wouldn't read books by that author again.  Really?  While a misused word or a typo might bother me, unless the book is riddled with errors, I can forgive that.  Afterall, I have probably made several typos in this blog post!

If the book has a printing error, all publishers will replace that book for you free of charge.  Take it back to store where you purchased it, and the store will replace it or refund your money.  The store then sends the book back to the publisher for full credit.  If it's a Midnight Ink book, you can call our customer service line, 1-800-THE-MOON.  We'll take care of you!

But if it's an editing error, a typo, etc, what do you do?  Do you have an extreme reaction?  Does it completely throw you from the book?  Or like me, are you a forgiving reader?  (well, within reason...)

On Sale Dates, Laydown Dates and ARCs

Today I was asked about on sales dates, and that sort of surprised me.  It's something I've dealt with for so long that I assume everyone knows what they are.

An on sale date is the date in which every retailer should have the books in their store.  So, we'll use a March Midnight Ink release as an example.  November Hunt by Jess Lourey has a March 8th on sale date.  Last weekend a customer purchased November Hunt at a Barnes and Noble here in the Twin Cities.  I understand some indie stores had them sooner.  Today they began shipping from Amazon.  Why did it take Amazon longer?  Probably because of the freight time from Minnesota to the Amazon warehouse along with their internal process for receiving and stocking books.

Now, let's say Jess is a big time author like J.K. Rowling or Janet Evanovich.  Then as a publisher, we would impose a lay down date.  A lay down date is a set in stone date for which a store can start selling a book.  It's why there are midnight release parties.  This levels the playing field for all retailers.  Often Publishers require stores to sign an agreement not to violate a lay down date and if the store violates that policy, they could face serious penalties.

Uncorrected galley proof/Advanced reading copy (ARC) - are bound copies of a manuscript that are sent out to reviewers and booksellers about six months before the book is actually published.  These are unedited copies that are supposed to used for garnering reviews and pre-publication buzz.  There are some folks who sell ARCs.  They can be highly collectible.  The problem with ARCs in the hands of general readers is that they don't understand that the version they are reading has not been edited and may contain many errors.

Are there other publishing terms you would like explained?  Or maybe I wasn't clear on the ones above?  Ask away, I am here to help!


Our March 2012 releases  :)