Typos are inevitalbe

I read a lot of books, both self-published and traditionally published. Almost without exception, every book has mistakes. Typos, or formatting glitches, or grammar issues, or factual errors, or semantic snafus (such as characters given the wrong name), or story problems (plot holes, people doing things they would never do in the real world, people acting for plot reasons not character reasons, people insisting on doing a plot rather than sitting down with a cuppa to have a conversation).

These mistakes and more inhabit the nightmares of most authors. I dread the day an early reader comes back to me with a fundamental problem that derails the whole book.

A handful of minor errors in a book is fine. More than that, and any more serious errors, is a sign of poor quality control. I haven’t yet tossed a book across the room in anger at an egregious mistake, but this may be because I read almost everything on an iPad.

With my own books, I spend a great deal of time reading and re-reading during the revision stage trying to address all these problems. Major changes settle down to minor changes, and finally proofreading, where I’m “not allowed” to change anything unless it’s fixing a typo (I do, though). My goal is to release with no mistakes.

I do a pretty good job, I think. Years of editing others mean I’m a decent editor and proofreader of my own work. I like to say I can spot a typo at thirty paces.

But something always escapes. It’s a fact of life.

Yesterday I found a typo in Unstable Orbits that I probably introduced during revisions in December or January: an occurrence of “though” that should be “through”. Easily missed.

What’s unique about this particular typo is that I discovered it while narrating. Which means I have an audio record of the precise moment of discovery.

Here it is. You can hear my brain processing the typo in real time: