Book Reviews
IR Staff •
Mar 16, 2011 We have to admit that we’re huge Christian Lander fans. His blog, stuffwhitepeoplelike, is brilliant, as was his first book by the same name.
We loved his second book, Whiter Shades of Pale: The Stuff White People Like, Coast to Coast, from Seattle’s Sweaters to Maine’s Microbrews, published by Random House, as well.
But if there’s one thing white people hate, it’s a typo. This one was found on page 40.
“They have been quick to to step in to provide hand sanitizers, grocery cart handle wipes, and antibacterial everything.”
Purchase
Whiter Shades of Pale: The Stuff White People Like, Coast to Coast, from Seattle's Sweaters to Maine's Microbrews
Musta been a slow day.
I’m about to put out my first novel. I’ve gone over it more times than I can remember now, it’s been to a pro editor and back who did a great job, and I’ve gone over it 2 more times since. I’m still finding the occasional typo lurking in the shadows.
But I’m an independent writer and I have little financial resources. There are amazing editorial programs that would cost next to nothing to a traditional publisher that could help with fine tuning after editing and proofreading. It would take extra man hours for someone to go over each and every possible error the program finds but it would be worth it.
With the kind of resources that the big houses have, there’s no reason they should have as MANY typos as they do. I find them all the time and I often don’t see things right in front of my face. I’ve been told by my wife and others that I’m “Not very observant,” I don’t know how many times.
My point is if independent writers can put out books with next to no errors (and I’ve seen it!) then the big houses should be able to do the same.
Am I missing something here? You found one typo and are complaining about poor editorial quality? I admit that 100% perfection is the goal to strive for, but the difference between humans and computers is that humans are not infallible. No book that I am aware of is 100% error free, whether professionally edited or not. To find a single typo or to find a typo every 40 pages indicates a well-edited book to my mind.
All I’m saying is that people expect indie books to be perfect and often make a big deal of it when they’re not. We just want to point out that, as you say, nothing is perfect. The best we can do is try.
Honestly, “to to” would have been caught by MS Word or even Foxfire?