The Never Ending Typo Hunt Comes to an End

Although I would like to believe that I have finally killed all of the typographic errors in Cobra Flight, I have a lurking trepidation that they scurry still through the manuscript.

Today, I caught what I believe was the last of them and then started uploading the corrected files to the various book distributors. And of course, nothing in this benighted universe ever seems to work quite right.

After uploading to the likes of Amazon, Kobo, Apple and the many others wouldn’t you know it that I found one last little bastard just as the last of the files were sent.

It took another hour to correct the damn thing and then re-upload everything.

I take solace from what happened when a new edition of the Bible was printed in 1631. It is said to be the most infamous typographic error in history. I don’t need to explain, just have a look at how the Ten Commandments turned out.

For printing this version of the Bible in 1631 the publishers got hit with a gigantic monetary fine. There are 10 copies extant and they are worth a vast sum of money.

These days in journalism there is much complaining about how publishers are firing editors and proofreaders in order to increase profits. And with those complaints come the inevitable moans about how things were much better in the Olde Days.

Well that’s not a new thing. It turns out that after the disaster of the Wicked Bible the Archbishop of Canterbury had this little rant . . .

“I knew the time when great care was had about printing, the Bibles especially, good compositors and the best correctors were gotten being grave and learned men, the paper and the letter rare, and faire every way of the best, but now the paper is nought, the composers boys, and the correctors unlearned.”

Final Note. Sod’s Law dictates that despite my care in writing and the use of a spell checker, there will be a typo in this post.

 

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