What happens when you’ve written a book, sent it to your publisher, who had it edited, printed and distributed, and then find out there’s an error? Your cringe or cry, or both. Anyway that’s what I did.

I was holding the very first copy of the book I had left my dream job to write, and right in front of me was a mistake. I called my mom, because even big girls need their mom, and she said the greatest thing.  She told me that in her opinion the only book ever written without errors was the Bible, and that she’d seen goofs in books from even the most famous of authors. After that I relaxed.

So my question to you is, what do you do when you see a mistake in a book that you’ve reading? Do you feel the need to point it out to the author, or are you able to move past it and not let it ruin your feelings about the storyline and the book overall?

Mistakes happen in publishing just as in any business, and as much as we wish they didn’t, they do. Stuart Woods, who writes the Stone Barrington series, even has a comment at the back of his books telling readers if they find a mistake he doesn’t want to know! And he writes lots of books and I’m sure make a nice income from them.

So, on behalf of authors everywhere I’m going to say this. If you feel the need to point out an error that you’ve found to an author in their book, please do it respectfully and privately. The same mistake that I found in Lottie Loser was pointed out to me by someone at a meeting I was attending, and then she said, “but I loved the book”. 😂 I’m happy that she loved the book, but pointing out the error that way was like a huge elephant in the room!

We are all human, and humans make mistakes, but it’s how we handle them that counts. I’m not afraid to own up to my blunders, and I’m not afraid to say I was wrong. What I am afraid to say is “it won’t happen again”, because it might. And if it does, please be kind if you decide to tell me.

Until we read again,📚

Dana L.