MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Readers. At which moment would you inform authors that you spotted typos?

SensualPoet · 05-01-2011, 02:49 PM

I am in the camp that says typos = spelling, formatting errors and that these are bad because they are part of the "production"; I don't care about grammar since that's part of the "creation".

Typos are the publisher's responsibility: getting the text and formatting right and putting said text into my hands. Selecting the actual words, and the order they appear in, is the author's responsibility.

So for typos, who ya gonna call? The publisher.

I happen to be reading The First Rumpole Omnibus by John Mortimer and published by Penguin Books (ISBN: 9780141928005, Sep 29, 1983) and currently distributed as an ebook in epub by Kobobooks. It's a delightful read ... but the frequency of plain old fashioned spelling errors, some from OCR, some from formatting (like rogue hyphens in the middle of a given name) is astonishing. I would guess this is approaching one every second screen -- so well more than 20!

But what can I do? Toss Rumpole into the electronic dust bin? Stop reading John Moritmer? Refuse ever to buy another book from Penguin which is the largest trade book publisher in the world?

I would welcome a simple feedback loop (and possible a refund); but I am certainly not going to send a list of specific errors. It's already distracting enough to stumble over the errors (and occasionally have to "figure out" what was in the original print edition) ... if I took the time to "flag" every error as I was reading, all enjoyment would be lost.

05-01-2011, 02:49 PM	#77
SensualPoet Wizard Posts: 2,302 Karma: 2607151 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Toronto Device: Kobo Aura HD, Kindle Paperwhite, Asus ZenPad 3, Kobo Glo	I am in the camp that says typos = spelling, formatting errors and that these are bad because they are part of the "production"; I don't care about grammar since that's part of the "creation". Typos are the publisher's responsibility: getting the text and formatting right and putting said text into my hands. Selecting the actual words, and the order they appear in, is the author's responsibility. So for typos, who ya gonna call? The publisher. I happen to be reading The First Rumpole Omnibus by John Mortimer and published by Penguin Books (ISBN: 9780141928005, Sep 29, 1983) and currently distributed as an ebook in epub by Kobobooks. It's a delightful read ... but the frequency of plain old fashioned spelling errors, some from OCR, some from formatting (like rogue hyphens in the middle of a given name) is astonishing. I would guess this is approaching one every second screen -- so well more than 20! But what can I do? Toss Rumpole into the electronic dust bin? Stop reading John Moritmer? Refuse ever to buy another book from Penguin which is the largest trade book publisher in the world? I would welcome a simple feedback loop (and possible a refund); but I am certainly not going to send a list of specific errors. It's already distracting enough to stumble over the errors (and occasionally have to "figure out" what was in the original print edition) ... if I took the time to "flag" every error as I was reading, all enjoyment would be lost.