Errors, Editing, and The Bottom Line in Publishing

This past weekend I experienced a bit of an oops moment in one of my latest publications. The TTRPG supplement 100 Gangsters, Gun Molls, and Goons came out from Azukail Games for the Call of Cthulhu RPG, and it details a list of characters to add to the town of Arkham for players who want to explore the use and effect of organized crime in the city during the Roaring 20s when campaigns in the core continuity are set. I wrote it partially because I've always liked the idea of the mob going to war with the mythos, but also because there seemed to be an uptick of players who were trying out this particular game.

However, someone pointed out a rather glaring flaw in my original. You see, a gun moll is a slang term used to describe a woman who was a gangster, typically as the partner of a mob boss or gang leader. But for some reason I was certain that it was spelled "mal" and not "moll"... as such, an edit was necessary to the document.

I expected better of you.

Rather than just try to bury that (admittedly embarrassing) mistake, though, I wanted to try to use it as a teachable moment. Because there are a lot of misconceptions about editing in the publishing industry as a whole, and I think this makes a good jumping off point to talk about them.

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Perfect is The Enemy of Done

There's a meme I've come across several times that explains the best way for an author to find spelling mistakes and editing errors is to go through their manuscript a dozen times, publish it, and then to open to a random page once they have a hard copy in their hands. If you've ever published a book (or even a short story) then you know just how true this is. Sometimes, very rarely, the layers of editing will catch all the mistakes, weed them out, and leave a perfect, pristine product... but that's far from the norm.

And as with a lot of stuff in the publishing industry, it has far more to do with time and money than it does with talent and skill.

As is often the case, sadly.

As a for-instance, when I write a TTRPG supplement, there's typically a 3-step process. First, I write it by hand. Then I type up what I've written, proofreading and editing as I go. Then, once it's been typed, I review it for edits and further changes. Once I've finished that, I send it in to my publisher, who handles layout, art, etc., and puts it up for sale.

Now, Azukail Games is a relatively small publisher, and there isn't an on-staff editor. Nor, for that matter, is an editor contracted to go over every supplement that gets turned in. The reason for that is first, that would add a lot of time to the process (probably a week or more, at least). Secondly, editors aren't free. An average supplement should sell about 50 copies at the low end of things, to 100 copies in the initial release (which won't rack up to much more than $100 or so in initial profits for the publisher), with occasional copies being sold down the line as the catalog grows.

Adding extra time to every release, and spending far more than a given supplement is likely to make in sales to give it a pass by an independent editor doesn't make for a good business strategy. As such, it's a step that usually gets left out of things... however, even companies who can afford editors still have issues with their books and releases.

Gonna name a name here...

Not to call out anyone specifically, or to throw shade on folks who worked hard on their books, but White Wolf had quite a reputation for this during the hey day of the World of Darkness. While the games were very popular, a lot of players often criticized them for errors in the glossary, spelling mistakes, or rules that didn't quite seem to match up in examples in different sections. And the constant refrain was always, "Would it have killed them to give it one more editorial pass?"

And the answer is, actually, yes. It probably would have.

We tend to think that bigger publishing companies (Wizards of The Coast, Paizo, White Wolf/Onyx Path, etc.) have gads of spare funds just lying around, but that really isn't the case. They're already paying for artists, designers, layout, printing, shipping, and initial editing, along with many more costs on tight deadlines, so they probably can't afford an extra round of edits just to be sure that products are perfect. Because that extra round of edits might eat deeply enough into the spare time and profit margin for the release that it won't make enough money to justify the next release, and sustain the company.

Or, at the very least, it will increase the amount of books that the project needs to sell in order to break even, and justify the release of future content.

Would the extra edits catch some spelling mistakes, and align the numbers in the guide? Sure, it could, but when you look at the raw numbers (both the extra costs of additional editing passes, and how many typos and errors slip through the process on average even with those extra passes) it just isn't worth it to your bottom line.

Digital Tools Help (But Sometimes It Still Isn't Worth It)

Let's back up a moment and look at the mistake I made in my latest TTRPG supplement. If it had been released back in the 90s as a hard copy, and that spelling error had survived through editing to be released as a product sold in game stores, the publisher would not have recalled the supplements and released a corrected version. If it was released with a mistake, it would be left in the wild to sink or swim on its own... if it did well enough to justify a second print run, then the mistake would be fixed, but more likely it would just go down as a flawed product, a victim of a single (albeit major) error. Or perhaps a collector's edition, if it did well enough to justify more being printed.

But in the digital age, and the age of print-on-demand, we have the ability to fix errors as we see them, or as they get reported to us. In fact it was less than a day between the mistake in that title being reported, and the text and cover being fixed by the publisher. If someone points out a mistake in a blog or article like this, I can just go in and fix it with minimal sweat. Even if someone finds errors in a book of mine like my short story collection The Rejects, I can update the text of the manuscript, re-submit it to Amazon for approval, and the new version will appear in 24 hours or so, no muss, no fuss.

Even with all these options and tools on-hand, though, there is still a single, deciding factor when it comes to fixing errors in your work... how much that effort is likely to improve your bottom line.

Consider the video for my short audio drama Whispered Words Sharpen Knives, which is taken from my supplement 100 Rumors to Hear at The Freehold for Changeling: The Lost. While the title appears to the right of the display image in this video, it's extremely dark due to something going wrong with the applied filter. The text was supposed was be white on a black background... but by the time I caught that mistake, it was already published on the Azukail Games YouTube channel (which, if you haven't subscribed yet, please consider doing so).

So while it is certainly within my power to fix the video, resubmit it to the publisher, and then have them reupload it to fix one error, it doesn't really feel worth the effort to to do... especially because the title of the video appears directly below it any time it's displayed on YouTube or linked on social media, so folks can still see what it is, and determine if they want to click it.

If there was an outcry from regular viewers to fix the video, it could certainly be done. However, with only 79 views at time of writing, it isn't exactly something being seen by a huge number of fresh eyes. There aren't a string of comments requesting the edit to be made, nor is it something that a lot of folks are being turned off by. Even though the channel isn't monetized (though we're hoping to change that in the near future), that kind of outcry from the viewers would warrant the edit being made... but if no one is noticing, the effort it would take to fix the mistake could better be spent making new content.

And those are really the three lessons I want people to take away from this. First, that no matter how hard you try, or how many times you look, it's always possible for mistakes to slip through your editing net. Secondly, that there is always some form of editorial, but even putting your manuscript in the hands of a professional is no guarantee that they're going to catch everything. And, thirdly, mistakes are not the end of the world in the digital age of publishing... you can usually fix them quickly, and efficiently, if the mistake is serious enough to warrant doing so.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects! You can also check out my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary for free audio dramas!

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Your Book Is Probably Never Going To Be Perfect (And That's Okay)

Most authors out there are under the impression that a book must be flawless if it is going to be for sale. From plot holes, to spelling errors, to aberrant commas, everything needs to be ship-shape and squared away before the readers lay eyes on the work. Because if they spot so much as a single semicolon where it isn't supposed to be, then that's it for you. You had your chance, and now you've been condemned to the bin, written off as a hack for all eternity.

Ah, but then the twist!

Have you heard of Raymond Chandler? You know, the guy who wrote The Big Sleep, which gave us private detective Phil Marlowe and has been adapted into half a dozen films, and homaged in god only knows how many different works by now? Well, do you know what he said when he was questioned about who killed the chauffeur in that famous novel? The character who was intricate to one of the early plot arcs, and whose actions set several aspects of the case in motion?

He didn't know. He didn't know, because it had completely slipped his mind.

This isn't an isolated event, either. The more books you read (even books considered classics by today's standards, and titans within their genres), the more you realize that even the greats can screw it up. Sometimes it means that plot threads get left to dangle, other times they misspell things, and every now and again an artifact that was meant to be deleted during the editing process remains, sticking out of the rest of the prose like the top of a pyramid jutting out of a sand dune.

These aren't one-man-shows or fly-by-night operations; these are serious creators with a lot of mojo. And even they still miss the mark from time to time. Those mistakes usually get fixed in later printings and editions, but the earlier ones still show that errors were made.

They made mistakes. You will, too. Nobody is perfect.

Had Some Mistakes, But Not Enough To Lower The Rating

This is an actual review someone left on my novel Crier's Knife. They front-loaded it with praise, but added toward the end that though they noticed a few spelling mistakes, it wasn't enough to lessen their experience reading the book. So even though it got me a 5-star seal of approval, it also meant I had to track down those errors and repair them ASAP.

Which sent me into something of a blind panic trying to find and correct them all.

Now, this book was put out through Amazon, and I was working on a shoestring budget for it. Still, these errors made it past several review sweeps from me, and past all of my beta readers as well as the folks who helped with more substantive editing. In case you're wondering, there were 6 mistakes that were found and corrected.

This isn't unique to self-publishing, though. Take my other book, the steampunk noir collection New Avalon: Love and Loss in The City of Steam. I did three separate editing passes on this manuscript before I sent it in. It was then accepted by one publisher, whose editors did a sweep, and gave me corrections. My contract got cancelled, and it was then picked up by another publisher, who reviewed it prior to publication.

And there were still a few niggling errors in the text when all was said and done. Hell, in one story a character has a completely different last name by the end... give it a read, see if you can figure out which tale it was.

Stop Sweating: The Little Things Aren't Make or Break

Are there readers out there who won't tolerate a single misused apostrophe, or who indignantly close a book when they find their third grammar mistake? I'm sure there are... but I can also assure you they are a tiny portion of your overall audience.

If you have a good story, compelling characters, and a narrative that will not let go of the reader, they won't notice the occasional bump in the road. As long as those bumps are only occasional, it's even possible that some of your readers won't notice them at all! What's even better is that, in the modern age of publishing tools, you can fix mistakes like this relatively quickly once they're pointed out.

Don't skimp on your editing. By all means, try to make your story the best you possibly can before you submit it to a publisher, or throw it out onto the market. But don't drive yourself mad trying to figure out if you should or shouldn't put a comma before that conjunction; most people aren't here for that. Put the bulk of your effort into the story, the cast, and the experience, and you'll be able to survive a few little missteps.

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing installment. For folks who'd like to see more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by My Amazon Author Page where you can get any (or all) of my books!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. And if you'd like to help support me, consider either Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a patron! Every little bit helps, trust me on that.