Into the Fire

I just began reading another new novel. On page 19 I found the first typo mistake. The word “like” was printed instead of the word “liked”. The second mistake was found on page 113 where the word “be” was left out. This was no second rate publisher. Not only was it no second rate publisher, it was not alone in the error department. There were a few in Randy Alcorn’s book Deception, and there were numerous errors in Dee Henderson’s book Before I Wake. I’ll delay mentioning the publisher of this latest novel pending their reply to my e-mail.

I find it interesting, as well as disconcerting, that on all the sites—be it for agent representation, editor insights/education/instruction, or author sites which give all of the aforementioned assists—unpublished writers are told to avoid every kind of possible error. Of course this makes sense. Why would a writer want to turn in a sloppy query, proposal, or a partial/whole manuscript with obvious typos, unintentional misspelling or grammatical mistakes? Why would a hopeful writer submit something which showed he hadn’t done his proofreading and truly made an effort to polish the submission?

Yet in all of the books I’ve read in the last year which number in the high double figures, I have found more than one error in each book. Typos, left out words, wrong punctuation, and even an unintentionally misspelled word. Good thing readers are forgiving. I certainly won’t threaten to stop reading books from certain publishing houses because of their lack of precision proofing, the number of mistakes I find, or these things that point to an unprofessional finished product.

My first novel has a word left out on page 93—that page is burned into my brain. I believe I counted 7 or 9 total errors that I missed in the book after the long and difficult process of getting self-published. Just so you know, that’s in 744 pages of very little white on the page borders. You might think I’m bragging here, but I’m not. I regret every single one of those errors. There were extenuating and very difficult circumstances, but I won’t bore you with the details. I missed the mistakes in my many, many re-reads—until I read the assembled novel in book form. I felt let down because I’d failed to find them during the very long process. It was disappointing to see the flaws.

If this sounds like a disgruntled “un”published writer, I apologize. That’s not my point. My point is this: Practice what you preach. I’m tired of seeing these mistakes in final copies of books produced by professionals. If you can’t produce what you demand from those who submit manuscripts to you, what’s the problem? Whose fault is it anyway? As a consumer, I pay for a book expecting it to be error-free. Why shouldn’t I? If there was only an occasional mistake in books, I wouldn’t even be blogging about it. I guess it just finally got to me. I have not read ONE book without an error in it that I can remember published by the best houses in Christian publishing.

It makes all the instruction, the stiff requirements—all of it—seem hollow. In real life it’s called a double standard.

Father, we profess to serve you with excellence. It is our intention and our effort to do so. Let us not settle for adequate in any aspect of anything we seek to do to bless you. Please, Lord, help me to persevere to get to the best effort. Thank you for giving your best to me. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.