On Typos, Typography, and Literary Types
I was shocked — shocked, I tell you! — when leafing through my first book of poetry (Pieces of the Moon), published some nine years ago and found a quite glaring typo in the title of one of the pieces. How could I and everyone else (unless they were too polite to mention it) miss this for so long?
Admittedly, it is the sort of thing one would not notice because the word in question was correctly spelled. It was simply the wrong word: shown where it should have been shone. In the poem itself, the correct word was used but somewhere along the line the wrong usage found its way into the title. Revised edition, anyone?
Eventually. I have too many old copies on hand to worry about that right now. Maybe I should go through them all and ink in the correct word. Instant collectors’ edition. right?
Why am I ending each of my paragraphs with a question?
I am decidedly picky about such things, very much a perfectionist. Yet they will happen, no matter how careful one is, no matter how times one proofreads.
Being picky (or obsessive/compulsive, if one prefers psych terms to the Queen’s English – does Elizabeth say ‘picky,’ I wonder.), I do put a lot of attention to detail not only into my writing but also into the design of my books. Art is my background, after all. That includes being rather selective about the typography.
That’s one of the reasons I rather dislike e-books, even while offering my work as such. There is a loss of design. The fonts may not be those we chose. I do offer each in PDF format for those to whom such things matter, even if it is less readable on a small screen.
But there is nothing quite like holding a well-designed (and, we would hope, well-written) book in ones hands. I suppose that does not matter to many readers. At least, not consciously; a good design can subtly make a good impression.
Some of us are bibliophiles. That’s all there is to it. We love the object as well as the words. I know this is not true of all literary types, but to me it is all one.
So be it. Now I must go get those stacks of books off the floor and place them on the new shelves I just bought.
Admittedly, it is the sort of thing one would not notice because the word in question was correctly spelled. It was simply the wrong word: shown where it should have been shone. In the poem itself, the correct word was used but somewhere along the line the wrong usage found its way into the title. Revised edition, anyone?
Eventually. I have too many old copies on hand to worry about that right now. Maybe I should go through them all and ink in the correct word. Instant collectors’ edition. right?
Why am I ending each of my paragraphs with a question?
I am decidedly picky about such things, very much a perfectionist. Yet they will happen, no matter how careful one is, no matter how times one proofreads.
Being picky (or obsessive/compulsive, if one prefers psych terms to the Queen’s English – does Elizabeth say ‘picky,’ I wonder.), I do put a lot of attention to detail not only into my writing but also into the design of my books. Art is my background, after all. That includes being rather selective about the typography.
That’s one of the reasons I rather dislike e-books, even while offering my work as such. There is a loss of design. The fonts may not be those we chose. I do offer each in PDF format for those to whom such things matter, even if it is less readable on a small screen.
But there is nothing quite like holding a well-designed (and, we would hope, well-written) book in ones hands. I suppose that does not matter to many readers. At least, not consciously; a good design can subtly make a good impression.
Some of us are bibliophiles. That’s all there is to it. We love the object as well as the words. I know this is not true of all literary types, but to me it is all one.
So be it. Now I must go get those stacks of books off the floor and place them on the new shelves I just bought.
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