What do you do when you see a typo in a book?
What do you do when you see a typo in a book?
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Cringe !
Chuckle ?
Not gonna lie, annoyed cause that’s what editor(s) are for right?
I am a little disappointed but usually just go on.
Me too ?
It’s like a flaw in a handwoven rug, I acknowledge the handiwork and move on
The teacher in me corrects it in pencil even though I’d like to use red pen!!
A couple times, I’ve emailed the publishing company to tell them to hire me as their new editor!
Cringe…& then think I should’ve become an editor or proofreader. ?
Same!
I reread it like 20 times convinced I’m making a mistake!
I was an editor for our small town newspaper and I find all the errors, especially on billboards. I need to get over it……
Giggle and feel smart that I caught it. It happens so rarely that it’s not worth getting annoyed
I cringe! It seems to me there are more typos in books than they’re used to be. :'(
Good one. I see what you did there. LOL!
I agree
It drives my OCD crazy, but I really try not to let it bother me.
Missed my calling as proofreader
I get annoyed!
Me, too! It distracts from the story.
My eyes automatically circle it. If it’s on kindle I mark it. I can’t help myself.
It makes me smile everybody makes mistakes.
It annoys me.
I look to see who the publisher is that would let this go through.
I correct it, of course.
Annoying…I should have been a proofreader!
I once read a massive sentence that was a paragraph long, but I kept rereading it because it didn’t quite make sense. I finally realized it was still an incomplete sentence!
Keep reading. Mistakes happen.
Can’t let it stress me out, would love to correct it but alas and alack impossible
In The Immortalists, which I had gotten from the library, someone had very carefully drawn a line and written the correct word in pencil. I even took a picture of it because it was so carefully done. Kind of funny.
Eh…..what ever. It happens
Correct it in my mind and move on. I chuckle thinking, “You tricky little devil.” Like somehow the typo is a living, breathing con artist.
This is what publishers need when you find a typo: email customer service the title, format (ebook, paperback, hard cover, mass market), ISBN (found on the copyright page), if not an ebook then the printing # also on copyright page, the error, and page number. You can take a photo of the copyright page if that is easy for you. Many humans make books and someone’s things so through. Publishers are making reprint corrections so do send them in.
They would have to pay me
draw a circle around it. I actually did it to a book tonight.
Surely you jest
I circle as well. I teach college writing and I can’t help myself.
@Barbara I change it in my mind and pass on by
Correct and keep reading
Wish I was a proofreader and keep going.
Ask myself whether I’ve ever let a mistake slip through, accept that the answer is (sadly) yes, and send a kind thought to the author and the publisher.
Believe that I should have had a career as a proofreader as I wouldn’t have missed anything. ?
Laugh my ass off!
Fume!?
I was crazy recently reading “Fire and Fury” So many mistakes!
@Beth that must be the “fury” part of the book
I wonder why?
I was a proofreader for several years and it’s easy to miss things. Guess that’s why I still pick up on them now.
Pencil in a correction. One time, I was wrong.
If the book already is terrible I have a grudge against it until my dying day.
Hahaha. I read a self-published book I got on kindle. I told the author about the typos. She wanted me to correct them all and let her know where they were.
@Carolyn Maybe you and I read the same book because I also had a kindle author ask me that.
Sometimes I correct it.
I find at least one error (spelling, grammatical or incorrect word) in nearly every book I read. My English teachers would be proud but….
I find this to be true as well.
I cringe, and go on.
I lightly pencil in a correction…
Keep on reading. Errors happen. Can’t let the insignificant get in the way of my sucking the lead off from a book I am head over heels into at the moment. Hope no one criticizes my post typo mistakes.
Right on, sister!
Or to and too ! Drives me nuts ?
Suffer a moment of despair and then move on.
Panic for a little while then take a picture of it and mock it with other literary friends ?
If it’s one or two, I don’t really care. If it’s most of the book I’ll say review it as unreadable because of typos.
Cringe! Lol- and Keep on reading.
Cringe
I just can’t believe it ! I’m so shocked
????????=about my general reaction
Wonder who did the proofreading on the book.
Write to the publisher.
I read Agatha Christie’s autobiography many, many years ago. In it there was a story about Christie’s argument with a new copy editor about the spelling of “cocoa.” The copy editor prevailed, the book was printed, and you could still feel Christie’s anger over the number of letters she got from fans calling her out for misspelling “cocoa” in her book!
Enjoy the humanity if only one error. Puzzlement if 2 or 3. Irritation and contempt if more!
That’s pretty much my scale as well.
I’ve been enjoying a cozy mystery series (Kindle) but the most recent one was so full of typos and missing words (4 on 1 page!!) that I felt compelled to leave a review at amazon that said I was done with the series … if the books weren’t worth editing then they weren’t worth reading.
Scream!!! And wish I had that job
If it’s my book, I sometimes correct it. If I know the author, I might mention it. I asked one about a ten year discrepancy in her chapter in a book compared with the next story in the anthology. She told me the book had gone to the publisher before they saw the error and decided to leave it because of deadlines.
Pause and think that if they had just let me proofread this book, this horrible thing would not have happened. It is particularly annoying if it is so bad that I have to stop and think about it, like when they get the name of a character wrong or half a sentence is missing.
I usually mark it, even in a library book. (I know; I’m awful.)
Say…??Shame shame
Misuse of homonyms can be very distracting. In six different books I’ve seen the same error of using broach instead of brooch. The writer was clearly talking about a
piece of jewelry.
Aaaaugh! That drives me nuts.
Whale and wail misuse is my pet peeve. I see it often!
Ignore it!
They set my teeth on edge. As a writer myself, it’s hard not to contact the author and advise them to NEVER be your own proofreader.
I usually get my books from the library so I take my little pencil and make a neat correction. Public service since the typo disturbed me I want to save other readers distress.
Why is it your right to deface a library book?
I use a pencil and I regard it as a public service, part of a collaborative reading experience.
I usually sigh loudly and think that I should have been a proofreader! That carries over to newspaper reading also.
Just shake my head and… keep reading ❤️
Cringe.
I have been reading so many books where other readers have used pen and pencil to proof every book error. That’s horrible ruining a book to satisfy your own perfectionism.
I so agree. I would never mark in someone else’s book – whether it belonged to a friend, the library, whoever. When I see a typo, I ignore it; it generally does not annoy me.
Piepie Baltz Also it is a form of hubris to assume another reader cannot recognize a spelling, grammatical, or continuity error just as you have. There is no reason to mark up a library copy when you’re not the only one reading that book. I report every such instance when I return a book because I do not want a librarian thinking I was defacing books.
Recently I had a brand new novel in my hand and someone took to it with INK to add an apostrophe “s.” I was livid. That’s rude and disrespectful. I know how to read. I know what a possessive pronoun is. I don’t require anyone’s assistance in proofing and editing a published book.
Wince
I say, “Curse you, Spellcheck! You’ve made us lazy!”
“my lines, my lines, where are the editors? where are the proof readers?”
get mad 🙁
In a perfect world there will be no typos, but…
I don’t know why I laughed. My mum was in amateur theater and my bros and I caught an eyeful of mom’s fellow theo’s practicing their lines. We use to practice this one.
After 4 I get really irritated
Oh my gosh I enjoyed these posts, laughed so much and shook my head in that’s a ‘yep’!
If it’s s paperback, I underline it with the intentions of writing the publisher which I never do due to lack of time. If it’s a hardback, I don’t want to deface it so I just let the mistake eat at me which, believe me, it does !
Mild irritation.
I usually guess what word should be there and keep reading. Doesn’t really bother me ??
I stopped reading one book that had so many errors, including one that referenced the wrong character, creating confusion. I actually contacted the publisher!
Cringe… I was a copy editor for 15 years
Who carevs… keep reading and enjoy.???
They Paid an editor?!
Lil twitch lol
Write a correction next to it.
Correct it – unless it’s a library book and then I am just irritated.
Keep reading…..blame spellcheck…
A typo, I can forgive. A consistent usage, punctuation, capitalization, etc. error makes me wonder what is going on. This is especially true when the author acknowledges all the wonderful readers s/he had before the book was published. Wouldn’t one of them have said, “You know Bible is capitalized. Don’t you?”
Hopefully the story is good enough that I just roll my eyes and keep reading.
Correct it and move on!!
Laugh to myself and wonder how they missed it. I don’t find them very often unless I’m reading an ARC.
Think the editor isn’t very good.
Cringe!!! And it puts the brakes on the story I’m reading with an audible squeal!
Squirm a little.
Cringe a bit!
Get pissed! Cannot believe it. As a wanna be writer, and hoping to attract a publishing house, I can’t believe that these things happen, well, I guess I can with today’s technology, which is a shame!
I may be serious and sensitive to this, but we can better people!!! It’s called proofreading…and paying attention. Ok i am an old fashioned girl, but it works for me….
I have to make a penciled-in correction. (40 years of teaching — what can I say?)
I love when people do that!! Yes!
Cringe! ?
Keep reading and move on with my life because I accept that the world is full of imperfections.
A double-take, lol. I’m not used to seeing typos in books. But I can commiserate. Even when you have multiple editors and sets of eyes on written work, things get missed. Happens to me all the time and the most unforgiving person is the author on herself. Be gentle, readers. 🙂
I cluck my tongue and shake my head. 🙂
Cringe. Copy-editing is not what it once was.
I think oh a typo. Then I finish reading the book and go on with my life it doesn’t really matter does it
Remember the days when the publisher would have been embarrassed.
Cringe and badmouth the editor. ?
Tough crowd here. Gonna kick myself twice the next time I make a mistake– once for me, once for all of you, lol.
Laugh.
One or two is okay because it can happen but multiple causes disappointment! Ebooks are particularly bad.
I confess to carrying a sharpie, and occasionally using it to correct signs.
If you haven’t read “The Great Typo Hunt” by Deck and Herson, you should check it out. The men got into major trouble correcting a type on a National Monument.
@Charles I will check it out. But I acknowledge I would never deface a monument or anything of that nature. Just commercial signs.
@Charles, will check that out.
Cringe ?
If it’s only one, forgive it.
I cringe and wonder who does the proofreading.
Oops someone missed that
I don’t see many typos, but I have read some contemporary fiction that has been poorly edited. In particular, a very popular series of books by Sherrilyn Kenyon-full of punctuation and/or grammar mistakes. Stories were fun; I blame the editors. It is bad enough that it interrupts my reading. So for typos or mistakes, The sloppiness screws with my concentration. If it’s bad enough, I stop reading and switch to something else.
Cringe
Get out a red pen?
I would love to have a job typing ebooks, but that’s not how it’s done. Apparently they are scanned, so I don’t understand there being so many typos!
If it’s my book, I try to figure out if I can fix it. 😀
Slightly cringe and try not to judge! It’s so hard to edit all mistakes bc our brain sees what it thinks it should see!
Editor?!
Cringe!!! ?
Think ruh roh!
Wince.
What do you do when you see several in the same book?!
Wonder why they paid the proofreader!
Mark it.
for the first one, I chalk it up to somebody missed something. When i start to see multiple typos, I silently curse the editor. Or I blame whatever program they used to transfer the print edition to the Kindle version I’m reading. Very few books I’ve read in the last 5 yrs have NOT had some sort of typo/consistent misspelling/dropped letters/words run-together.
Cry silently
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn – more about censorship but also how the mind fills in. As letters disappear on the island they are gone from the book’s text yet the story is never hampered.
I really liked that little book.
A silent scream ….
it happens 🙁
correct it! I can’t help myself
I feel smart 🙂
Say “oh well…”
I laugh because the proof reader didn’t catch it.
Think of every time I didn’t catch a typo at work and someone would call me on it. Millions of books that have typos and slip threw. Lol
I notice it and think that whoever edited this missed a mistake or it was a typo.
Grit my teeth
Get completely distracted from what I’m reading.
I don’t really pay it much attention, although I might wonder to myself how they failed to catch it, particularly if it’s a scholarly publication or the umpteenth reprinting. The last book I caught a typo in that made me wonder was Samuel Eliot Morison’s “The Oxford History of the American People, Vol. 2: 1789 through Reconstruction”. Despite being published for the popular market, it was intended (and succeeds) as a serious history and it was from an edition printed almost a decade after it was first released. And yet, while typos didn’t abound, there were enough of them to give me pause for thought.
Sigh and move on. ?
Find a pen to correct it.
Cringe
I circle the typo with pen, if there are too many I keep circling them and when I have finished the book, I send it back to the publisher. I have done this only once and many months later received the book back with a letter and a gift card to Barns and Noble book store.
BARNES
I can’t believe it made it through proofreading!
If it is my book I correct it ?
It is annoying to find errors! I guess we could say it is unacceptable, but even in the best of circumstances with proofreading there are errors and people are human. I once asked an author – who does your proofreading. She told me she did her own. I didn’t say anything. As a writer, I knew that was professional suicide. It is my opinion that there should be more than one set of eyes before a book goes to press.
Is it even proofreading if you do your own? Our brains know what we meant to say!
@Debbie , right? We looked at it 50 times before we sent it. We can’t see any errors or typos at that point.
Move on.
I stifle my urge to correct it (in pencil, of course).
wish they would have let me proof read it.
Flinch. And appreciate that humans are fallible, even proofreaders and publishers.
Teeth clench and eye roll.
no big deal to me….
Notice. Then move on
Sigh.
Cringe then read on.
Cringe. Curse the editor. Think that I should become an editor. Then move on. 🙂
Be thankful I’m an editor and then wish I wasn’t an editor, And then I sigh and keep going!
Sigh. I was a professional editor for many years. I’m no longer a “professional” editor. However, it’s in my blood, so to speak. ?
Go crazy and don’t understand. Where are their proofreaders?
Cry inside or groan.
It reminds me that the publishers are still human. Before long everything will be automatic.
Believe you me, it’s nearly automatic! Most of “us” have been kicked to the curb. Life goes on!
Grit my teeth and move on; however, it is rare.
Wince. But with the books I read, it’s more likely a word I don’t know…so I just grab my phone and look it up!
Die a little inside….
Wonder who got in trouble for it.
Shudder
I correct it. My copy of One Second After has multiple corrections. Patricia Cornwell’s Jack the Ripper solution book has many, many edits I made for her.
Read. Re-read. Shake my fist.
The only mistakes that really annoy me are the ones where a word is completely wrong or a word is missing and that skews the meaning of the sentence or makes it hard to understand. I remember years ago I read a SiFi book called The Black Hole that had a sentence near the end of the book that made no sense whatsoever. Years later I ran across another copy of the book and it still had the same error in it. That’s annoying, when a book is reprinted with the same glaring error in it. I don’t write in my books, no matter how awful the error is, I don’t write in books.
I don’t mind if people choose to correct books they own. I hate it when they do it to library books. Makes the error doubly distracting.
@Merilee No one should write in a book they don’t own, that’s rude and it’s defacing someone else’s property.
Absolutely. I once had to return a library book – unread – because someone had decided they needed to “annotate” all perceived errors in theme, continuity, spelling, you name it, in the margins. I wanted to beat that person to death with a dictionary!
@Merilee are you out on parole yet? I will be happy to visit if not for your dedication to the bookloving world!
LOL! I’d probably still be in just for the severity of the beating if I’d found “whodunnit.”
@Merilee yep..teehee
Cry on the inside.
Wish I could show it to someone who cared as much as me!
I think where was the proofreader?
So do I.
Start a book once that had the name of a movie wrong and I could not finish it!
It bothers me tremendously!
Like a speed bump.
Cry.
Cringe
Cringe.
Now that’s character.. Everyone has typos even Stephen King
Jesus wept.
Try not to correct it!
Oooh, I obsessively keep checking back to see if it is really there.
Has it ever disappeared?
@Judith sadly, no.
Sometimes I take a pencil and very lightly make an edit…
Completely distracts me. Takes a few chapters to trust the story and the editor again. Lol.
Relief ? we all make mistakes !
Chuckle
Depends on the typo…
Cringe. Im seeing more and more authors use sentences starting with but or and. That just makes me want to email them with an English lesson
I am an English teacher and this does not bother me at all. Good writing is about content and style only in my book.
Groan and read on.
Correct it….
Isn’t that what red pens are made for?
Complain about it in my review on Goodreads.
I USUALLY JUST MUMBLE PROFANELY !
Myself, then move on, can’t let that stop my reading unless it’s so bad that it makes it hard to understand. But usually always a minor error that I too mumble profanely about and read on, smh
I want to fix it immediately
Red pen, 😉
I read and reread hoping its my mistake
Hoping it’s a mistake…that’s me. Groan….
Get irritated. 🙂
Wonder why editor didn’t catch it and read on!!
Ignore it.
Become irritated and stay that way for at least the next 10 pages.
becoming more common, despite or because of automatic editing.
It’s almost a feeling like stumbling. Like, I’m reading along at a good clip & the mistake kinda jumps out at me and I stutter to a halt like “Wait, what? What was that?” Definitely disturbs the mojo. ?
It do
Yell “typo! typo!!”
Take out a hit
I cringe. Someone didn’t do a thorough job.
Continue reading.
I just remembered this…. a blog I used to read didn’t allow you to edit your comments. So any time someone realized they had posted with an error, they called it an offering to the goddess Tpyos. ?
I make frequent offerings to Typos.
@Wendy Me too. Sometimes I think I must be the high priestess. ?
Move on.
I just found one on page 446 (about halfway through) in “Pillars of the Earth.”
I stopped reading, photographed it, and retrieved this post so you could see.
It should read, “He had imagined….”
Oh my…hope was no prob. for you
@Shelley not a big deal. I just had to show it since we were all just talking about it.
@Ryan right, I figured that was the case.
I have no prob. Just pass on by but it can be distracting if there are more than a couple, like I said elsewhere I just have a wee profane moment and go on with my reading.
I ‘ve seen this type of error before and it makes me wonder if they use a kind of auto check now to proof read that doesn’t catch a word if it is a real word and not a misspelling.
@Judith I wonder too
Agree that looks like a scanner error. There are books published within the last 10 years that have so many errors that it is clear there was no editor.