Quote:
Originally Posted by Pajamaman
I will say I don't read a lot of self-pubbed stuff, but I see criticisms for all types of books, and I see the texts myself. I think it's just a snob thing. People love to give themselves airs. They probably just buy the book and put it on the shelf, then say "Oh, I couldn't read it. The typos!" 
Anyway, maybe you feel differently. |
I do feel differently because typos can have significance. For example, in a book I recently read from Oxford University press, I couldn't figure out what the author was trying to equate because of a typo. Ultimately, I did figure it out, but it caused me to stop and focus on a lesser point.
Having a lot of typos in a book can be a signal of a poorly researched book. From my perspective, if neither the author nor the publisher care enough about the book to minimize the typos, then the book is likely not worth reading. In addition, it causes me to wonder about the author's subject matter credibility.
Years ago I edited a book that was focused on a narrow economic point and was touted as presenting a new and novel theory that would revolutionize economic thinking. The author had a good reputation among his fellow economists, so the book was highly anticipated.
I was hired as an editor not a fact checker and the contract specifically stated that the author was solely responsible for verification of the correct spelling of names and identification of economic theories. I did query some names and theories with which I had some familiarity, but I did not fact check.
The process was this: author wrote the manuscript and sent it to me for editing. I edited the manuscript and returned the manuscript to the author so he could address my queries and could review and accept or reject any editorial changes I had made. By contract, the author was solely responsible for the final manuscript as submitted for publication because the author had final approval/disapproval of all proposed changes.
When the highly anticipated book was published, it received scathing reviews from the author's colleagues. Why? Because the author misspelled colleague names, assigned economic theory names to the wrong theories, and misattributed historical economic events. As it turned out, many of these errors were "typos" in the sense that the author dropped a letter or added a letter or simply otherwise misspelled something -- but these were all errors that the author could have and should have caught and corrected; they were subject matter specific and beyond what would be expected from any editor who also wasn't a subject matter expert.
Typos can be annoying and misleading and be the bane of an author.