Unforgivable

The anonymously written but always interesting blog Mysterious Matters recently offered a list of the “Seven Deadly Sins of Books.” All of them resonate with me, but particularly this knock on poorly edited works:

7. UNEDITED. This is another publishing-industry Deadly Sin that we should be ashamed of. I just finished a book published by a much-heralded new imprint of Penguin. The thing was full of typos and grammatical errors--I found at least 25 of these. For shame. Listen, nobody’s perfect, and I think readers can forgive a typo every now and again. Even the best editors and proofreaders are going to miss something. But this level of unprofessional editing and publishing? I’m sorry--this is a Deadly Sin I cannot forgive.

I come across typos and other mistakes all the time in books these days. Publishers would do better to cut the salaries of their chief executives and put more money into hiring copy editors and proofreaders. No matter what those execs might think, readers are not too stupid to notice when corners like this are being cut.