My book's typo total is . . .

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It was not without some trepidation I greeted my friend. He teaches high school English and was ready to give me my book’s typo total.

It’s probably been to my reputational detriment that I focus on typos in “The Last Baby Boomer,” over raves about its content.

This from one recent 5-star Amazon review: “What a fantastic premise! It’s a satiric, Kurt Vonnegut-ish kind of novel that had me laughing out loud. This satiric-futuristic fun read pokes fun at everything from greed to consumerism to, of course, Baby Boomers. Chris Rodell has a gift for the absurd as well as great turns of phrases. He also shows, through humor, some raw truths about us boomers.”

Such praise. All I can say is . . .

Thanks, Mom!

But we live in a nit-picky society and typos make an easy target. I’ve tried to add some perspective to the discussion by pointing out, c’mon, they’re just typos.

It’s not like I stitched up some surgical sponges next to somebody’s kidney transplant.

I shared that pithy analogy with another friend, a distinguished retired U.S. Navy captain, and he said BFD. “People who gripe about typos have no clue what a real mistake is. I know guys who’ve shot down the wrong airplane. Now, THAT’S a mistake.”

Still, we strive for for perfection so I trembled as my friend gave me his tally.

How many typos did this English teacher who read with a discerning eye toward finding them find?

“Twenty-six.”

That’s it?

“Yep, just 26. There may be more, but I read pretty carefully.”

Amid all all the praise in the widely read Brian O’Neill column about the book, (link below) there’s a four-word mention that colors some perceptions. 

The exact quote: “The first 50 pages are as funny as anything I’ve read in a long time, the middle should be shorter, there are too many typos, but the tale revs up again its final third.”

My buddy read that and said he thought it would be riven with sloppiness. 

“They’re in there, sure, but it’s not bad,” he said. “They don’t distract at all.”

Is 26 is too many? Yes, it is.

But that’s 26 out of 65,981 words, a fail rate of 0.0395 percent. That breaks down to about 1 pesky typo every 10.5 pages.

Let’s say my eagle-eyed friend vastly under-counted. Let’s round up to 100. That bumps the error percentage up to 0.0154 percent.

Can you imagine how much more smoothly everything would run if the world was as near perfect as “The Last Baby Boomer?”

I paid $1,500 to have it published. The “publisher” offers an editing/proofreading service that would have mostly sanitized the whole thing for $1,400. That’s a considerable sum to me. So I said a two-word phrase that rhymes with “bucket.”

Some have wondered why I didn’t ask friends to read it. Over the book’s 15 years, I did just that maybe three or four times.

But I didn’t want to ask anyone — even qualified friends — to do so without engaging them professionally. I know what it’s like to be asked to do something for free or eventual glory. It blows.

And I was sick of the whole discouraging process. After 15 years it was time to open the cage and set the damn thing free.

Plus, the tactic allowed me to put the page one disclaimer boasting about how it’s just me. No agent. No editor. No marketing. It warns of eventual flaws and asks readers to notify me at storyteller@chrisrodell.com of the location of typos so I can correct future versions.

The idea has also led to what is for me a very enjoyable procedure, one that’s starting to charm readers.

Because I’m correcting as I go along.

It’s true. Buy a book from me and it comes with hand-written corrections right on the page (another advantage traditional readers enjoy over e-readers).

John Grisham doesn’t do that.

I use old-fashioned copy editing symbols I learned back in college and correct each of the 10 typos I found on my own and will soon layer in all the ones my buddy’s found.

I think it shows readers it’s okay to acknowledge our imperfections.

We all make mistakes. Forgive yourself.

Make amends when you can and then move on with a gently improved version.

And any day is a very good day when you can make it home safe and sound and without having shot down the wrong airplane.

Related . . .

On being nice & the nice P-G article about me

This book is NOT free: my new book is for sale

Someone stole Buck’s book at Tin Lizzy!

About those typos . . .

My novel frustrations

About those typos ...

(716 words)

One aspect of my new book of which I’m quite proud is one of which most authors are most ashamed.

I’m talking typpos.

Er, typos.

Not the typos, per se. They, of course, make me cringe.

What I’m proud of is the page one absolution I bestow on myself for their pesky existence.

It reads:

“This book is self-published by the author. That means it enjoys none of the traditional benefits provided by deep-pocket publishing houses. It has no marketing budget so if you find it entertaining, please tell others. No crackerjack teams of plot doctors suggested improvements in story progression, character development or point of view. What follows is wholly organic. And while the author has painstakingly labored to eliminate every typo, grammatical error and sloppily constructed sentence, he realizes he has inevitably failed. The following pages contain those literary scourges and for that the author is sorry. He hopes you won’t hold it against him and will, in fact, notify him at storyteller@chrisrodell.com so he can correct future editions. He thanks you in advance for your forbearance and believes you share his understanding that mistakes in life and literature are unavoidable. Like most of you, he believes to err is humon.”

Note the deliberate typo at the very end.

Makes me grin.

I think people sometimes think I exaggerate my financial struggles for comedic purposes.

They think it’s a fabrication. A ruse. A schtick.

Ask my wife. She’ll wearily confirm this is no bull schtick.

I added more debt to publish “The Last Baby Boomer.” I did so because I believe it’ll change my fortunes.

But when you’re making the nerve-wracking decisions about what levels of editorial support you want from your self-publisher, you need to weigh your risks.

I had an option of spending an additional $1,400 on a proof-reading service that would have sanitized a lot of sloppiness.

I said no.

Actually, I said a phrase that sounds like “bucket.”

Prior to its publication, nothing in my entire life has caused me more sleepless apprehensions. I vowed I was going to publish in the most bare-bones manner possible. If the story was good, readers would overlook the errors.

This seems to be the case. The book is getting great reaction.

And I’m having fun with the typos. I’m serious about correcting future versions.

Heck, if you’ve bought from me a copy in the last two weeks you’ll see I’m serious about a correcting present versions.

Yes, prior to sale, I’m by hand going through every copy and penciling in corrections to typos of which I’m aware.

That includes drawing a little “a” below the erroneous “o” in the last word in the disclaimer.

Grisham doesn’t do that.

I do.

I’ve so far found five errors, oddly enough, all on even pages.

I’m really begin to wonder about our collective sanity when it comes to typos. I had a Facebook friend apologize to me because her note had some many errors. She said it must have read like she was drunk.

I told her it was okay. They were just typos and, hey, I encourage people to be more drunk.

Get over it, folks. They’re typos.

It’s not like she’d stitched up someone’s abdominal cavity with a surgical sponge still inside.

All books have typos. Don’t they?

My 15-year-old daughter surprised me when she found a typo in a popular book that should by now be free of them.

Was it “Harry Potter?” “Twilight?” “Hunger Games?”

Nope, nope and nope.

It’s “To Kill a Mockingbird!”

Can you believe it?

Yes, one of the most revered tomes in American history has a mistake. It’s true. At one time the sainted Harper Lee spelled Mayella Ewell as Mayell Ewell, as if the poor kid hadn’t already been through enough.

And the error slipped through the copy editing fingers of squads of the finest literary men in women in the most august Manhattan publishing houses.

I’m comfortable with my flaws and believe most readers are willing to overlook them.

We all need to extend each other some understanding that we’re going to make mistakes and the best we can hope for is we have a chance to eventually correct some of the more glaring ones.

We’re only humon.

Related

The vanishing stigma of typpos

On blogs and typos

Binge reading my blog in a tree stand

Killing the Mockingbird: A publishing industry lament

This book is NOT free: my new novel for sale

To err is humon: blogs and typos

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I contend the gracious maxim, “To err is human,” should always include at least one deliberate typo.

“To err is humon.”

It’d be a handy reminder that even in simple sentences intended to forgive human carelessness mistakes are bound to happen.

My life is full of these handy reminders. Some of them read my blog.

I go to great lengths to ensure my blog is error-free. These prudent safeguards are not enough. Many posts remain rife with sloppy errors.

And I’m always grateful whenever anyone points them out. I invariably thank these people and go straight to the computer to make the fix.

I guess there are writers who become angry when readers point out mistakes in their blogs. They are embarrassed.

I’m not like that at all and have trouble understanding the reaction.

Do they think people expect from them perfection?

That’s hard to believe. I’m pretty sure most people who read blogs do so with the understanding that people like me who blog are in some way defective or else we wouldn’t have enough free time to blog.

So my primary goal is to four or five times a week write something either compelling or funny. People will find that satisfying even during the times when I mistakenly use the same same word twice.

But I aspire to more. I want to give readers a typo-free blog.

So once I’ve done the first draft I usually go for a walk and come back and re-read the damn thing five or six times again with an eye on catching typos, redundancies or flabby wording that takes some of the giddy yap out of the flow.

Then I dash home to post and begin weighing when it’d be a socially acceptable time for me to start boozing.

Ideally, that’s when I’d hear from readers about any errors they detect.

This sometimes happens with Dave, an eagle-eyed reader and avid follower of my blog.

In the interests of descriptive clarity, I should point out this isn’t the Dave who (still for now) owns The Pond, but not a computer. The only time that Dave reads my blog is when I print it out and show it to him, which I’ve done maybe twice in the past year. 

This is the Dave who so enjoys the blog he stops reading it cold turkey every August so he can then for two weeks non-stop binge read it while in his central Illinois tree stand.

I just love that (link below).

More description: This is the eagle-eyed Dave who years ago succumbed to hereditary hair loss and surrendered his thin remainders to a daily shave.

So let’s say he’s bald eagle-eyed Dave.

He said I should have a daily “Find-The-Typo!” contest where the first reader to notify me about a deliberate or careless typo would win a free book.

“It’d be like the cover of Playboy which has tiny Playboy logo hidden somewhere in the picture,” he said.

I find the idea charming for reasons that have nothing to do with cleavage. It’d be like outsourcing tedious editing obligations. But the last thing I need to do is find yet another reason to give my book — the one that on Page 1 says “THIS BOOK IS FREE” — away at no charge.

Plus, Dave would wind up with something like 80 free copies and might just be savvy enough to find a way to make a better profit from them than I ever have.

So, in short, I ask for your friendly understanding.

This is a recreational blog. It’s free. If you see a mistake, I’ll be grateful if you point it out, even more so if you do it without resorting to that sing-song school yard nyah-nyah-nyah taunt that still stings my soul.

To err is endemic to casual blogging.

And if you’re having fun and I’m having fun, really, who gives a puck?

Related . . .

Binge reading my blog in a tree stand

The vanishing stigma of typpos

Reading my sh!t on the crapper

Random thoughts on race, Ferguson & Three Dog Night

Shiny new homepage for “Eight Days ToAmish!”