# Do typos throw you?



## David McAfee (Apr 15, 2010)

If I'm reading a book, and I come across a handful of typos, it usually doesn't bother me. But if I'm reading a book with more typos than I can count on my fingers, they start to jar me after a while. Being a writer, I can be pretty forgiving when it comes to them, though. My friend Dan gets frustrated if he sees even one typo in a book. (Needless to say, he gets frustrated with books a lot.)

I was wondering, what is your threshhold for typos, misspellings, etc? Can you forgive a few or does even one make you want to throw the book at the dean of whatever college the editor graduated from?


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I suppose it depends on the typo (or if I even notice it), but it definitely has some negative effect on how I feel about a book if there are too many (for some undefined value of "too many"). It probably also depends on how good the book is otherwise as to how forgiving I'll be. I love reading Terry Pratchett so much that I forgive his use of "their" with singular subjects and his sometimes -- to me, anyway -- spurious comma usage (which is ironic in that he likes to make fun of how some of his characters punctuate letters and such).

So in short: as in most things in life, it depends.


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## drenee (Nov 11, 2008)

Yes, I can forgive a few.  But after a while they are very distracting.
deb


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

I think it also helps if the typo is something you can understand someone missing. I had one I missed, meaning to use the word angle and ended up with angel. Middle of a long sentence, missed it in a million run-throughs. If that's one of say, 3 I found in an entire book, I wouldn't care less. But if I'm finding words misspelled, stuff like "teh" or "an dthen" I'd most likely put the book down.

David Dalglish


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

It depends on frequency. . . .and I don't know that I have a bright line test. . . .suffice it to say that if I start noticing them, it's a distraction. . . like the professor we all had who said "um" every third word and it became a contest to count them during lectures. I have read books where I'm sure there were typos, but the story was good enough that I just kept going.

Overall screwy or inconsistent formatting (in a Kindle book) is more distracting, as is blatant timeline/historical inconsistency.  I think I've mentioned that I gave up at chapter 4 on a book about a fisherman's son in 16th century England being told that the stories he'd read in his books were not real.


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## RiddleMeThis (Sep 15, 2009)

I rarely ever even notice misspellings or anything of that nature unless its horribly bad.


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

Well, As you know via the pms I sent ya David, typos tend to catch my eye. Your two were small enough that they did not bother me, but I did "highlight" them so that I would remember to let you know about them. Which to me is one of the GREAT things about Indie authors, try sending a note like that to one of the "big pubs" about one of their books, and you'll likely get ignored.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

David McAfee said:


> does even one make you want to throw the book at the dean of whatever college the editor graduated from?


I'm afraid I fall into this category.

Mike


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## farrellclaire (Mar 5, 2010)

Typos don't bother me unless they are on every page.  Actually, it depends on the word.  For example, when people constantly spell angel as angle or Brian as brain, I want to hit something.  I'm not sure why some words bother me more than others.  It's like when people pronounce goal as gold, something inside me dies.   

It probably annoys me more to see other things, like an italicised word in every sentence or an awkward sentence I have to reread four times to understand (ooh, like this one).  Things like that jerk me out of the story.  I'm not usually a nitpicker and as I've said before, the most talented writer I know doesn't even use punctuation so it also depends on how strong the story/writing style is.


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## AlexJouJou (May 16, 2010)

Typos do not bother me unless I get completely thrown out of the book - so as long as my eyes notice but make the adjustment and move on it's good. Not a big deal at all.

But I've read a few (not all that many) where there were so many and it was obviously just bad grammar -- because the sentence structure was off and awkward and so on. Those are the ones I don't continue with.

I'm pretty forgiving


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

Ann in Arlington said:


> It depends on frequency. . . .and I don't know that I have a bright line test. . . .suffice it to say that if I start noticing them, it's a distraction. . . like the professor we all had who said "um" every third word and it became a contest to count them during lectures.


OMG, I had this one biology professor, he used the word "basically" in every single sentence.

"Basically, this means that the cells walls are basically splitting, so, basically, when the contents inside start to move..." etc.

I counted once, just out of sheer boredom and horror. He hit 127. No lie. I was horrified.

He called me out once, thinking I wasn't taking the class seriously because I refused to take notes. I told him I'd do it by paying attention. So he quizzes me right in front of the class.

"So what's the strongest chemical bond?"

My response: "Basically, *long pause just to make sure he realizes it* covalent."

Death glares. Was awesome.

David Dalglish


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## mlewis78 (Apr 19, 2009)

Recently, I re-read Anne Frank's Diary, a more recent "Definitive" edition.  I got the PDF online and converted on Calibre for my kindle.  It had an enormous number of misspellings, but I think it had something to do with the conversion and not the editors of the book.  I noticed every one of them, but I cannot blame the editor or translator.  If I want to see it perfectly, I'd have to buy the paper book (it wasn't sold as an ebook), and I'm not going to do it in this case.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

As others have said, I'm pretty forgiving, but there is a point. Can't tell you the number, but I have quit on a book when they got to the annoying point. I read for pleasure, not to be annoyed.


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## David McAfee (Apr 15, 2010)

BTackitt said:


> Well, As you know via the pms I sent ya David, typos tend to catch my eye. Your two were small enough that they did not bother me, but I did "highlight" them so that I would remember to let you know about them. Which to me is one of the GREAT things about Indie authors, try sending a note like that to one of the "big pubs" about one of their books, and you'll likely get ignored.


I know, and believe me, I am glad you told me about them. Both of them.  I was just wondering how badly they throw other people.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

I notice typos usually, and grammar issues.  They don't bother me so much, but I do like to tell the author.  (Unless it's a big pub... then I ignore them.)  So if you get an email from me pointing out your typos, don't feel bad.  I do it to everyone.  lol!

Vicki


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## Madeline (Jun 5, 2010)

Unfortunately, I learned from some of the most anal English teachers on the planet.  One comma missing or in the wrong place in a 20 to 50 page document and the paper would go down a full letter grade...PER ERROR.  Being graded by rules like that rubbed off on me a bit.  

So, uh, typos drive me absolutely nuts.  In my emotional mind, I don't really care and realize that no one is perfect, not even highly educated editors.  But when I do come across an error, the intellectual side of me pops out.  Those typos yank me right out of the story and scream "HERE IS A MISTAKE!! A MISTAKE!! A MISTAKE!"

I am able to to shake it off and get back into the story, but it is just really super annoying for me.  

I'm fairly new at this indie reading stuff, but I do plan on highlighting them and letting the authors know about them.  

The thing that cracks me up the most is that I write and I am also dyslexic.  I make typos out the wazoo.  When I post on boards, I often have spelling mistakes, odd punctuation, and typos.  So I guess I can do it, but everyone else has to be perfect


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## Vyrl (Jun 7, 2010)

David McAfee said:


> I was wondering, what is your threshhold for typos, misspellings, etc? Can you forgive a few or does even one make you want to throw the book at the dean of whatever college the editor graduated from?


A few here and there don't bother me. If it's consistent and ongoing, it can be pretty troublesome.


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## Susan in VA (Apr 3, 2009)

Madeline said:


> So, uh, typos drive me absolutely nuts. In my emotional mind, I don't really care and realize that no one is perfect, not even highly educated editors. But when I do come across an error, the intellectual side of me pops out. Those typos yank me right out of the story and scream "HERE IS A MISTAKE!! A MISTAKE!! A MISTAKE!".


LOL! I can _so_ relate to that... and I wish I could just relax and enjoy the story, but it's like having cold water thrown at me every time.

Oddly, that doesn't happen so much when it's clearly an e-book formatting issue or something that is misspelled because the original was scanned and the OCR didn't work right. Then I get annoyed that nobody took the time to doublecheck it, but that's a very general, broad annoyance, and I can keep reading. It's the ones that_ can't _be partly blamed on technology that really bug me. Or the mis-used words. Just this evening I came across a sentence going on about the "major_ tenants_ that all religions have in common". Aaargh!! There's absolutely nothing wrong with not knowing a lot of 25-cent words, but I wish people wouldn't _pretend_ to, and use words they don't really know! And don't get me started on authors who use foreign language phrases in their books and get them from online translation tools or from their 25-year-old memory of what they heard in the two weeks they spent in country X. 

Oh, sorry. You asked about typos. Don't mind my ranting, this is just my pet peeve.  And yes, typos are annoying.


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## horse_girl (Apr 9, 2010)

Vyrl said:


> A few here and there don't bother me. If it's consistent and ongoing, it can be pretty troublesome.


Same here. I've read books by big publishers with a lot of errors and wondered how so much got through. If it's one or two little things, I can understand that, but if I notice them, it takes me out of the story for that moment. Too many and it gets overly annoying.


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## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

David McAfee said:


> If I'm reading a book, and I come across a handful of typos, it usually doesn't bother me. But if I'm reading a book with more typos than I can count on my fingers, they start to jar me after a while. Being a writer, I can be pretty forgiving when it comes to them, though. My friend Dan gets frustrated if he sees even one typo in a book. (Needless to say, he gets frustrated with books a lot.)
> 
> I was wondering, what is your threshhold for typos, misspellings, etc? Can you forgive a few or does even one make you want to throw the book at the dean of whatever college the editor graduated from?


I write too and I hate typos. They repulse me like cockroaches. I keep a hair shirt in my bottom drawer that I wear whenever I come across a typo in any of my own published works.


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## bluefrog (Apr 6, 2010)

I notice typos, but I usually just blip right over them. Consistent misspellings bother me. (I want to scream at people on WoW who think their character is a "rouge") I can forgive a lot if I'm enjoying the story.


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## Tulagi_Hotel_HH (Apr 26, 2010)

I will skip five typos but after that I do get itchy and tempted to think the rest of the book is sloppy as well.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

It's a known fact that if the first and last letter of a word are correct and the rest of the letters are in there in some order or other, your brain will recognise the word. That's why you can miss typos no matter how many times you check. Because of this, I think it depends on how engrossed in the book you are as to whether misspellings will be annoying or not. The more there are of course, the more it's likely to irritate, no matter how good the book is otherwise.

I find I'm more irritated by wrong word usage - and here I do blame the editors - and incorrect facts, particularly historical ones - for that I blame the author, either for shoddy research or for simply not caring if it's correct or not.


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## Andra (Nov 19, 2008)

Typos (except for my own) tend to jump off the page at me so I get jolted out of the story.
My pet peeves are using the wrong version of "its" and "your" because I mentally substitute the full words when I see contractions. I also throw a fit when people do not spell "y'all" correctly - I think it's the contraction thing again...
Do I totally give up on the book? Only if there are several consistent errors in the first chapter or so - Terry Brooks' _Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold!_ made me quit reading because it was obvious that the printed version had been scanned and gone through OCR and no one bothered to proof it - and I got it before it was offered free. I got a refund and pulled out my paperback instead.


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## L.J. Sellers novelist (Feb 28, 2010)

I'm an editor so typos drive me crazy, but if I love the story I keep reading.
L.J.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

I make the strangest errors. The worst is when I'll think of two ways to say the same thing in the sentence, settle on one..but already have half of the other written by the time I do. It can lead to words in there completely at random. Other times I'll think of one word but write another, again leading to some of the funniest sentences. Thankfully these are pretty dang obvious on an edit...

Examples are:

"She would climb tree to tree without a car..."
"One word think she'd figure it out..."

David Dalglish


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

Susan in VA said:


> Just this evening I came across a sentence going on about the "major_ tenants_ that all religions have in common". Aaargh!! There's absolutely nothing wrong with not knowing a lot of 25-cent words, but I wish people wouldn't _pretend_ to, and use words they don't really know! And don't get me started on authors who use foreign language phrases in their books and get them from online translation tools or from their 25-year-old memory of what they heard in the two weeks they spent in country X.


I agree, the most jolting thing for me while reading is when the word is simply wrong, including homophones. I know they sound the same, but their, there, and they're mean completely different things. I'm much more of a visual learner than an auditory one, so it completely breaks the flow of my reading when I hit the wrong word.


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## Geemont (Nov 18, 2008)

Most professionally published books will have a few typos and they don't usually bother me unless there are numerous, careless mistakes. The real showstopper in ebooks, for me at least, is poor or nonstandard formatting. Books with paragrahs formed Internet style with a blank line and no indent aren't going to be read by me no matter how interesting they may be. Also, public domain texts with _italics_ stripped out aren't acceptable: See the first sentence of the Gutenberg version of "The Heart of Darkness" for a perfect example; sure, in many cases like that I'm smart enough to read through the error, but if all readers were blase about mistakes, then the wrong way could become the de facto right way.


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## 13500 (Apr 22, 2010)

They really bug me, especially in traditionally published books, which have professional editors. There should be no errors. Period. Those galleys are checked by multiple people, including the authors. I was a magazine editor for many years. We had three stages of editing, so I assume publishing companies would have the same. One error, maybe two, I could deal with, but that's it.

I am more lenient with self-published books, but that is still no excuse for a piece of work riddled with grammar problems. Part of being a good writer is caring enough about words to use them correctly.


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## drenfrow (Jan 27, 2010)

I hate typos as I definitely find they pull me out of the story. I have some tolerance for indy authors where I am getting a book for free or a very cheap price. I have no sympathy for a mainstream book though. And the thought that a full price book was converted to an ebook format and no one bothered to check it enrages me. That said, I have never read a book that had so many typos that I would quit reading it.



Geemont said:


> Books with paragraphs formed Internet style with a blank line and no indent aren't going to be read by me no matter how interesting they may be.


That's interesting, Geemont. I have read a couple of books like that and I hate it. When you get to dialogue in a book like that it becomes ridiculous. I had never really connected it with a formatting _style_, I just put it down to something weird that I didn't like. I will read a book with paragraphs like that but it is a strike against the book.


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## bvlarson (May 16, 2010)

They drive me crazy, in my work and the work of others!
But I suppose flawless books are rare (even in the grammar and spelling dept.)


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## Shayne Parkinson (Mar 19, 2010)

Yes, they do throw me. I have to make an effort at the best of times to turn off my "inner editor" when reading for pleasure, and typos don't make that easy.

Two or three small errors in a book is common enough, even in ones that have presumably been professionally edited. But if I was finding errors on every other page, I'd be too distracted to go on reading.

Recently I was looking at the FAQ page for a small publisher (someone who'd signed with this publisher had posted the link on a message board I visit). I was taken aback when _two_ typos in adjacent paragraphs leapt off the page at me - all the more so since they were directly above a section proudly proclaiming that this publisher employs skilled editors and proof-readers! Perhaps some should be set to work on the website


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## Magenta (Jun 6, 2009)

If there are that many typos that are noticeable, I'd start to wonder why I paid for the book in the first place.  If the story is good, I would keep reading.  If not, into the proverbial trash it would go.  I also would not buy another book from that author unless he or she got a new editor.


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## Addie (Jun 10, 2009)

Madeline said:


> So, uh, typos drive me absolutely nuts. In my emotional mind, I don't really care and realize that no one is perfect, not even highly educated editors. But when I do come across an error, the intellectual side of me pops out. Those typos yank me right out of the story and scream "HERE IS A MISTAKE!! A MISTAKE!! A MISTAKE!"
> 
> I am able to to shake it off and get back into the story, but it is just really super annoying for me.


Same here. Typos and grammatical mistakes throw me out of a story.


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## Antiquary100 (Jun 12, 2010)

It depends on the book. Typos in a book that I got for free, or a low price, wouldn't bother me very much, unless the formatting was really bad. Now on the other hand, bad editing in an expensive book would bother me a lot. If it costs that much, it should have been proof-read. I haven't had much trouble with formatting, except in a few public domain books from Internet Archive and such.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

Magenta said:


> If there are that many typos that are noticeable, I'd start to wonder why I paid for the book in the first place. If the story is good, I would keep reading. If not, into the proverbial trash it would go. I also would not buy another book from that author unless he or she got a new editor.


If the story is bad, I throw it into the proverbial trash anyway. I don't see why typos would matter one way or the other in that regard.

David Dalglish


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## Labrynth (Dec 31, 2009)

If it's something that makes me go back and re-read the sentence, then yeah, I find it jarring.  If it's something that's easy to gloss over I don't mind too much.  However even a lot of the smaller typos will turn me off of a book at some point.


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## blackbelt (May 4, 2010)

If a typo throws me, the book is already failing to do its job.  When I am immersed in a great novel, I am whizzing along mentally, so typos are like potholes when you're driving at 100 mph: you can barely feel them because you're moving so fast.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

blackbelt said:


> If a typo throws me, the book is already failing to do its job. When I am immersed in a great novel, I am whizzing along mentally, so typos are like potholes when you're driving at 100 mph: you can barely feel them because you're moving so fast.


Unless one is so big it sends you careening off the road into a giant fiery ball of death.

That'd have to be one awesome typo, though.

David Dalglish


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## Madeline (Jun 5, 2010)

Half-Orc said:


> Unless one is so big it sends you careening off the road into a giant fiery ball of death.


David...lol...you are so cheerful today!!


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## Guest (Jun 13, 2010)

David McAfee said:


> I was wondering, what is your threshhold for typos, misspellings, etc? Can you forgive a few or does even one make you want to throw the book at the dean of whatever college the editor graduated from?


My threshhold is when I notice them. If I am actually noticing them, it means one of two things. One, the author didn't even bother to run a spellcheck and put out a sloppy book. Two, the writing was already bad to begin with, which is why I am noticing the typos because frankly my mind is bored by the story.

If the writer has done his or her job, I shouldn't even notice a handful of typos. The human mind is an amazing thing, and we often automatically 'correct' what we see when we are engaged or attached to what we are reading (ergo, why writers can't edit their own work!). But if I am correcting typos as I read, that means I'm not really interesting in the plot or what is going on in the story.


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## chipotle (Jan 1, 2010)

It doesn't bother me enough to stop reading a book. I tend to find silly typos - one Susan Elizabeth Phillips book talked about the female spy "Mata Harry" and in one book the dog's name was spelled three different ways throughout the book.


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## Kristen Tsetsi (Sep 1, 2009)

Half-Orc said:


> I think it also helps if the typo is something you can understand someone missing. I had one I missed, meaning to use the word angle and ended up with angel.


 I was just editing a book last week about angels, and I can't tell you how many times my eyes passed right over "angle" when it should have been "angel." I noticed it once, and then I had to do a search to find the rest. I just didn't see them!

As for typos in general (to answer the OP's question), if I'm reading a professionally published book, I don't mind a few. I do, admittedly, think, "Ha! You missed one!" though.

If there are too many, I can't help but wonder how much care and attention was put into the book by the editor. If the book is an indie - I know how hard it is to catch all of your own errors (and that not all indie authors can pay for an editor or proofreader) - the typos would just have to appear in such a number that I could trust the author tried her/his best to catch them all. If it got *too* sloppy, I would be disappointed in the author.


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## Indy (Jun 7, 2010)

bluefrog said:


> I notice typos, but I usually just blip right over them. Consistent misspellings bother me. (I want to scream at people on WoW who think their character is a "rouge") I can forgive a lot if I'm enjoying the story.


Ahh, my WoW habit has about gone bybye since purchasing the kindle, and I darn sure am not missing "rouges" at all.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

Indy said:


> Ahh, my WoW habit has about gone bybye since purchasing the kindle, and I darn sure am not missing "rouges" at all.


I've cancelled/reactivated my WoW account soooo many times...sometimes fun, sometimes horrifying frustrating, but there is one thing I'm certain of: it's the death of writing time.

David Dalglish


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## Guest (Jun 13, 2010)

Half-Orc said:


> I've cancelled/reactivated my WoW account soooo many times...sometimes fun, sometimes horrifying frustrating, but there is one thing I'm certain of: it's the death of writing time.
> 
> David Dalglish


I'm just waiting for Cataclysm...goblin FTW!


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## DLs Niece (Apr 12, 2010)

The odd Typo here and there doesn't bother me at all.  Excessive amounts really turn me off. Once I lose interest, it is hard for me to pick the book back up again. 

What throws me more are extremely hard to pronounce proper names. I know that to create realism in the story, ethnic proper names are a necessity, but some are so hard to pronounce (being not fluent in the language) that I find myself sort of stuttering over them.  I usually assign an alternate name to the character to keep the story fluid.


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## David McAfee (Apr 15, 2010)

Wow. Lots of great feedback here. Thanks, everyone!


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

bardsandsages said:


> I'm just waiting for Cataclysm...goblin FTW!


Pfft. I can't wait to smack 'em around with my Ret Paladin. They'll be like gnomes, except I'll be allowed to actually hit them.

David Dalglish


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Madeline said:


> Unfortunately, I learned from some of the most anal English teachers on the planet. One comma missing or in the wrong place in a 20 to 50 page document and the paper would go down a full letter grade...PER ERROR. Being graded by rules like that rubbed off on me a bit.
> 
> So, uh, typos drive me absolutely nuts. In my emotional mind, I don't really care and realize that no one is perfect, not even highly educated editors. But when I do come across an error, the intellectual side of me pops out. Those typos yank me right out of the story and scream "HERE IS A MISTAKE!! A MISTAKE!! A MISTAKE!"
> 
> ...


That made me lol because I'm like that when I'm around someone crunching on food. Yes, I know when I eat potato chips or something like that, I make crunching noises, but I hate when others do it--but mostly because they keep their mouth open while taking the bite, thus amplifying the crunching noise. 

With my book, I tried very hard to keep typos to a minimum, and I had a great beta reader, but my problem is I'd fix whatever error I saw, but in the process, create another error somewhere else in the sentence. Not always, but often enough that it drives me crazy.


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## J.L. Penn (Mar 17, 2010)

I hate typos and grammar mistakes.  I hate them more when the book is out of a major publishing house.  I find those inexcusable.  Does it make me put down the book or give it a bad review?  No, but it does annoy me.  I have the urge to mark through them and send it back to the publisher (but I don't).  Don't get me wrong; I'm not perfect.  I'd cringe if someone found a typo or grammar error in one of my books though.  I once had someone on another site tell me that I had a mistake in one of my opening paragraphs.  I was mortified and immediately went to check it.  Turned out she was wrong, thank goodness!

-Jenn


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

dONcha tink dat typos keep you on your feat, and malliproppolisms maek life moor intereting. 

Edward C. Patterson

"Don't the days seem lank and long,
When all goes right and nothing goes wrong.
Isn't your life extremely flat,
When there's nothing whatever to grumble at."

- King Gama Rex, _Princess Ida_
W.S. Gilbert


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## David Derrico (Nov 18, 2009)

Seeing more than a small handful of typos does bother me. I do understand how it can be essentially impossible to catch EVERY single tiny niggling mistake in 70,000+ words, and I think every book I've ever written has one or two. But if I see several each chapter or worse, it would definitely pull me out of the writing.

The "different words" typos bother me the least: "angel" instead of "angle," like Dalglish pointed out, or I had a bridge "spawning" instead of "spanning" that I thankfully caught on my last read-through of my book that just came out. In those cases, I KNOW the author knows the difference between those 2 unrelated words, and it's not like they failed to run spell check (which wouldn't catch it), just one of those things you could read over 100 times and still not catch because you know what you expect it to say and that's what your eye sees.

On the other hand, "teh" (lack of basic spell check), "your" instead of "you're," random apostrophes on plural (non-possessive) words, or other grammatical mistakes do bug me, and decrease my enjoyment of the book.


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## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

I have an issue with more than one or two -- and that's a big improvement over how picky I used to be.


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## Patricia (Dec 30, 2008)

I always think that my junior high English teacher would be mortified!!


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## R. M. Reed (Nov 11, 2009)

I just saw a "past" that should have been "passed." It's harder to find them when they are real words, just not the correct words.


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## Archer (Apr 25, 2009)

I don't have a problem with true 'typos'_ in small numbers_. Everyone has them. Spell check will only catch some of them.

What I dislike is poor grammar. I can't take my proofreader's brain away from the task long enough to enjoy the tale if mechanics are bad. I usually don't get beyond description and sample in that case, fortunately.

Inept use of language and a typo are not the same thing. A typo is a typographical error, and (IMO) the term should be reserved accordingly.


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## David Derrico (Nov 18, 2009)

archer said:


> I don't have a problem with true 'typos'_ in small numbers_. Everyone has them. Spell check will only catch some of them.
> 
> What I dislike is poor grammar. I can't take my proofreader's brain away from the task long enough to enjoy the tale if mechanics are bad. I usually don't get beyond description and sample in that case, fortunately.
> 
> Inept use of language and a typo are not the same thing. A typo is a typographical error, and (IMO) the term should be reserved accordingly.


Definitely agreed. You said what I was trying to say, but you said it better. A "typo," accidentally hitting the wrong key, or hitting the keys in the wrong order (like "angel" instead of "angle"), is one thing. Having poor grammar or putting in random apostrophes or whatever aren't really "typos" -- they're just grammatical errors. I can forgive the former much more easily than the latter. I'm like you -- the part of my brain hard-wired to proofread and edit can't get past very many grammatical errors in a book.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

I have already instructed my family to have etched upon my stone as an epitaph that he "_*past away (date here)*_" - my final and eternal effrontery. 

Miss Chatty Chatsworth


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## PhillipA82 (Dec 20, 2009)

If what I read its good, there is no reason to care about typos.


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## Archer (Apr 25, 2009)

Ed: (snicker!)

We live in a small midwestern town. Good people (for the most part). One of our great embarrassments was the town's war memorial, which had the names of the fallen and missing engraved on it beneath the legend: 'Less we Forget'. 

(Ye gods)


A couple of years ago, the town took up a collection to have it repaired. Did I contribute? You betcha!


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## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

The angel/angle type of errors bother me because to my eyes it seems to signify that the author did not have a second pair of eyes look at their text.


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## lorezskyline (Apr 19, 2010)

Depends on how bad and how often one or two I can forgive.  But just had the worst typos in a DTB I was reading where a character was refered to by another characters name for a whole page!  It really threw me until I realised they were typos as the character was in completly the wrong location.


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## Tracey (Mar 18, 2010)

I recently read an indy book and in, I think about 200ish pages, I had 165 notes worth of grammar, spelling and poor language skills as well as bad formatting (blank pages).  I was determined to get through it and finish off what I had started.  It really ruined what could have been a good story.

Needless to say I sent a PM to the author.

If it is just a typo here and there, then I can put up with that.  I am a fast typist (100 wpm) and know that it is easy to transpose letters sometimes when typing, so I can let that go, but when it comes to bad grammar or bad sentence structure where it becomes too hard to read then that annoys me.


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## David McAfee (Apr 15, 2010)

Tracey said:


> I recently read an indy book and in, I think about 200ish pages, I had 165 notes worth of grammar, spelling and poor language skills as well as bad formatting (blank pages). I was determined to get through it and finish off what I had started. It really ruined what could have been a good story.
> 
> Needless to say I sent a PM to the author.
> 
> If it is just a typo here and there, then I can put up with that. I am a fast typist (100 wpm) and know that it is easy to transpose letters sometimes when typing, so I can let that go, but when it comes to bad grammar or bad sentence structure where it becomes too hard to read then that annoys me.


I pulled a sample from another indie and I totally get what you are saying. Awful. (And no, I won't name them.)

Not all of them are bad, though. David H. Burton's THE SECOND COMING is beautfully written and I still haven't found a typo 75% in. I also haven't found one in THIN BLOOD, By Vicki Tyley, although I'm not as far along in that one. David Dalglish's book THE WEIGHT OF BLOOD is also pretty clean, so far.


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## Tracey (Mar 18, 2010)

> I pulled a sample from another indie and I totally get what you are saying. Awful. (And no, I won't name them.)
> 
> Not all of them are bad, though. David H. Burton's THE SECOND COMING is beautfully written and I still haven't found a typo 75% in. I also haven't found one in THIN BLOOD, By Vicki Tyley, although I'm not as far along in that one. David Dalglish's book THE WEIGHT OF BLOOD is also pretty clean, so far.


Thanks for noting those titles, because the experience that I had with the book I d/l really put me off indy writers. Wonder if the sample you pulled down was from the same book.

To be honest, I only read the book because every post from this person prefaced everything with "Being an author..." and that really annoys me!


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## David McAfee (Apr 15, 2010)

Tracey said:


> Thanks for noting those titles, because the experience that I had with the book I d/l really put me off indy writers. Wonder if the sample you pulled down was from the same book.
> 
> To be honest, I only read the book because every post from this person prefaced everything with "Being an author..." and that really annoys me!


Yeah, some of the indies can be pretty rough. I never buy outright. I always download the sample first.


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## Tracey (Mar 18, 2010)

> I never buy outright. I always download the sample first.


To be honest, I think I bought it outright because this author sounds a bit precocious every time he uses his "As an author...." line and I really wanted to prove him wrong in using that line EVERY single time he posts. I get like that when I want to prove a point lol.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

Being an author, I understand the difficulties in finding every...

Okay sorry, couldn't help it. Yeah, some indies have wonky editing, spelling errors, etc. Of course, I'm not going to complain, point fingers, or shake my fist angrily at them. That just invites an email from some random guy telling me I misspelled a word on page 115. Samples are far and away your best friend.

David Dalglish


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## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

Half-Orc said:


> Being an author, I understand the difficulties in finding every...
> 
> Okay sorry, couldn't help it. Yeah, some indies have wonky editing, spelling errors, etc. Of course, I'm not going to complain, point fingers, or shake my fist angrily at them. That just invites an email from some random guy telling me I misspelled a word on page 115. Samples are far and away your best friend.
> 
> David Dalglish


Actually David, your misspelling is at location 2197. Kindle books don't have pages....

And I try to allow for wonky formatting errors, but angle/angel, your/you're typos bother me.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

Sheesh, I mention my angle/angel typo and now everyone uses it as an example. Thank goodness it's at the very end and in the middle of a climactic fight. Maybe people won't notice it there...

I did fix it, by the way. But I can't teleport those changes to everyone who has already bought it.

Oh, and please, please, please never start a sentence to me with "Actually David, your misspelling is at...". I was ready to go grab my Kindle and check.  

David Dalglish


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## Tracey (Mar 18, 2010)

David - lol, too funny.  I totally understand.  I however am not an author, so no one can pick through a book I have written and send me one of those emails telling me what is wrong with it, thankfully.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

David:

I'm gonna search your books on the Kindle to find it now - sort of like a shrine to Indie boos boos. Then I'll send you mine. (I'll show you mine, if you show me yours). Then we can enter the confessional together and say our Hail Websters and put a _kern _ (I'm from Brooklyn) in the _kern _ box - I suggest $ .99. (Oh, that's another thread or threads or forums). 

Typocanoe and Taylor (Tailor - Tyler - one of dem der guyz) two (too) = tutu or Capitalized if it's the Reverand. 

Edward C. Patterson


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> (I'll show you mine, if you show me yours).


I'm just not ever sure I'll be able to tell you "yes" to any post of yours where this line is included in it, Ed. 

David Dalglish


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

The happiest grammatical thumb-nose I have is the title to one of my books,


Spoiler



Look Away Silence


 - which any grammarian knows should be


Spoiler



Look Away, Silence


. However, any person who has read the book knows that there's a reason for the omitted comma, and I would hope they would wrestle the Grammarwhizzos to the ground and beat them with a box of commas.  My editor still can't say that title without breaking into tears. She was the first one to insert the comma with a big circle. She was the second one to delete it. I was the first.

Ed Patterson


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## MinaVE (Apr 20, 2010)

Yes they throw me, but I'm quite forgiving. I've only given up on a story once because of the horrible editing. (It was a submission to a short story contest.)


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## David McAfee (Apr 15, 2010)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> David:
> I'm gonna search your books on the Kindle to find it now - sort of like a shrine to Indie boos boos.


Ah, crud. Ed has my books, too...


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

That's okay, David. There is forgiveness here.  

Edward C. Patterson


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## David McAfee (Apr 15, 2010)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> That's okay, David. There is forgiveness here.
> 
> Edward C. Patterson


It's just that I'm not sure which versions you bought. The initial version of Saying Goodbye to the Sun had quite a few typos. I fixed them, but some folks may ghave to cross their eyes a bit...


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

David McAfee said:


> It's just that I'm not sure which versions you bought. The initial version of Saying Goodbye to the Sun had quite a few typos. I fixed them, but some folks may ghave to cross their eyes a bit...


You will never find me pointing out another author's typos or decrying their work in public. Not only is is bad form, it's downright inhumane. So have no fear from me. My remarks in this thread are pure snark. Remember my motto:

If I write a dog and you write a swan, your swan barks and my dog flies. 

Edward C. Patterson


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## MamaProfCrash (Dec 16, 2008)

I seldom know if typos are typos or my dyslexia kicking in. Learning Disabilities make one very forgiving of typos and errors.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

Dyslexic people are demi-gods. Didn't you read Percy Jackson?

Ed Patterson


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

Since I am not a writer, and have no worry about you tearing apart my works, I will ask this:
Do you want to know if there are typos/bad editing/formatting etc., or would you rather be blissfully unaware?
I am currently reading a book by someone on the boards, and am curious as to how you all feel.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

I have a one on one relationship with my readers and encourage them to email me with things they've found as I release periodic maintenance releases. (I get a steady flow of fanmail and many *helpful* comments. My first five novels incorporated such changes and were relaunched in 2010). I can't speak for other authors, but I'm not fond of a review that castigates typos at the expense of the story. Fortunately with 185 reviews, only a handful have been 3 stars or less, and yes, some typos and other issues have been mentioned (the famous passed/past) which still stands in places as the 200,000 worders take more than that to push out a maintenance release. However, with reader feedback, my editing has improved, and I have an editor, who get more livid about it than I do. But she works for free, so it is what it is. I think the discussions by readers about these issues are healthy, but when authors lead these discussions, I blink and go . . . what the . . . But hey, we all have our brand.

I don't take the issue lightly, but by the same token, I don't take myself that seriously. My work, yes. Myself, no. So I don't really expect anyone else to rise to the altar and pardon my sins. God is good, and that's Her job.



Ed Patterson
Who has a running list (usually the same things for each book), but welcomes an email with more. After publishing almost 4,400 pages, there's always more, and I love Oliver Twist.


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## Shayne Parkinson (Mar 19, 2010)

BTackitt said:


> Since I am not a writer, and have no worry about you tearing apart my works, I will ask this:
> Do you want to know if there are typos/bad editing/formatting etc., or would you rather be blissfully unaware?
> I am currently reading a book by someone on the boards, and am curious as to how you all feel.


I'd really appreciate a reader's taking the trouble to let me know if he/she found typos, errors, or formatting issues, especially if it was via a discreet message  In a review it could be a distraction, especially if the comment remained after the error had been fixed - or if reader and author disagreed over whether or not it was an error  A real-life example: I once had someone tell me I was "wrong" to be using British-style spellings.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

It's a good thing you didn't use Britsh-style punctuation. "You know, like this" . (The space is the correct way, especially on the continent.

Ed Patterson


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## Shayne Parkinson (Mar 19, 2010)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> It's a good thing you didn't use Britsh-style punctuation. "You know, like this" . (The space is the correct way, especially on the continent.
> 
> Ed Patterson


 

Now I'm confused. More than usual, I mean.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

The British put periods and commas outside the quote marks and, on the continent, a space before the period. It's like the unenlightened in this country that persist on putting 2 spaces between sentences, a holdover from the old upright typrwrtier and courier typeface. They also stick the punctuation inside the parenthesis.

Ed Patterson


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## Shayne Parkinson (Mar 19, 2010)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> The British put periods and commas outside the quote marks and, on the continent, a space before the period. It's like the unenlightened in this country that persist on putting 2 spaces between sentences, a holdover from the old upright typrwrtier and courier typeface. They also stick the punctuation inside the parenthesis.
> 
> Ed Patterson


Ah, thanks for helping me catch up! I was distracted by "Britsh" and by the missing parenthesis, and didn't notice the stray space. 

British/NZ punctuation would not put a space before a period, though some people do cling to two spaces after one - as you say, a holdover from the days of typewriters. And our rules for putting punctuation within/outside parentheses or quote marks are well-defined but somewhat finicky. They can be summed up as sometimes in, sometimes out.  But dialogue, for instance, does correctly have periods and commas within the quote marks in our punctuation as in yours.


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

At least at the HS my kids attend, and for their dual-credit college English class, they are still requiring the double space after a period.


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## DickStanley (Jun 7, 2010)

Typos are especially annoying when they come one after another, page after page. I've quit some Indie books over that. But I must say I have found several so-called professionally-published books that are full of typos, misspelled words, articles left out and so forth. The new John Scalzi book on the Kindle "Android's Dream," for instance, is full of mistakes. I wonder if that's just a problem of transferring to ebook or was the paperback like that, too? In any case, it's enough to make an honest proofreader weep.


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## vidhya.t (Apr 16, 2010)

I agree. A few typos are fine and I mostly ignore them. But if it occurs repeatedly, I don't finish the book. Actually I can't finish it. 

Vidhya


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

Some 'professional' ebooks will be riddled with errors because the publisher scanned the physical version, and the conversion program made a mistake here or there (nothing to be shocked about really). The fact that the errors were not spotted and corrected shows how little effort was made in ensuring an acceptable product.

David Dalglish


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## MachineTrooper (Jun 22, 2010)

I can forgive a few here and there, but when they're consistent I get snobby. I do see them in traditionally published books, but they're an epidemic in ebooks. I've heard that the format conversion process creates some. I noticed in mine that it did muck up the original formatting for some reason--several places, for no apparent reason, the left margin moves in to where the indent normally is.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

MachineTrooper said:


> I can forgive a few here and there, but when they're consistent I get snobby. I do see them in traditionally published books, but they're an epidemic in ebooks. I've heard that the format conversion process creates some. I noticed in mine that it did muck up the original formatting for some reason--several places, for no apparent reason, the left margin moves in to where the indent normally is.


There is something to be said about consistency. 

Ed Patterson


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## Vyrl (Jun 7, 2010)

There are some great ebook conversion services for those who may need it. I used Kindle Wizard and the copy came out very clean.


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## 16205 (Jun 8, 2010)

I'm forgiving for smaller mistakes. What makes me put a book down is excessive redundancy. I've seen it time and again in traditionally published works.


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## SandyLu562 (May 8, 2010)

YES!
typeos r bad
indiscriminate use of an online thesaurus is crazy-making!
just use the right word, not the one that's kind of going to fit
makes me wish books were still edited and proofread


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## SandyLu562 (May 8, 2010)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> ...(I get a steady flow of fanmail and many helful comments.


<giggles and runs away>


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

SandyLu562 said:


> <giggles and runs away>


I'd run away too, but being blind in one eye, I'd probably trip and fall.

Ed Patterson


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## ErichSysak (Jun 23, 2010)

A typo ruptures the moment for me. In other words, the typo calls attention to the text on the page and shatters the vivid little dream that was playing in my thoughts...But in the end it's not a big deal unless the manuscript is just riddled with errors. I hope the copy editor catches most of them (and there are plenty). Erich


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## MinaVE (Apr 20, 2010)

BTackitt said:


> Since I am not a writer, and have no worry about you tearing apart my works, I will ask this:
> Do you want to know if there are typos/bad editing/formatting etc., or would you rather be blissfully unaware?
> I am currently reading a book by someone on the boards, and am curious as to how you all feel.


Would like to be told, preferably with details, so either I can change it, or I can have the publisher do something about it.

For my first novel, published traditionally, I caught one typo myself (sigh). It happens. I don't know if they'll do a reprint just to correct it, so it's still there. I also received a comment about something wrong with printing and pagination, but my publisher was great about replacing defective copies.


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## lib2b (Apr 6, 2010)

BTackitt said:


> At least at the HS my kids attend, and for their dual-credit college English class, they are still requiring the double space after a period.


I'm in graduate school for library studies, and we are required to use APA style for all of our papers. As of 2009 when they changed to the 6th edition of APA style, the "correct" APA style is two spaces after a period, so that's what I do, and that's what looks correct to me. Apparently when they moved from the 5th to the 6th edition of APA style, there was a very heated discussion about whether there should be one space or two.

As for the original question, typos and certain types of grammar issues jump out at me in _other people's_ writing, but I can read a paper I wrote 50 times and miss tons of my own typos and mistakes. It's very annoying.

Something that always kicks me out of a story is when the serial comma is not used. I think it's because I read a "pause" when I see a comma, and when there's no serial comma, the sentence doesn't "sound" right in my head. I know it's not technically incorrect, but it kicks me out of the story every time. (Also, APA style requires its use, so I'm used to using it and seeing it.)


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## EllenR (Mar 31, 2009)

A single typo won't bother me but repeated ones will. I notice ALL typos and grammar errors because I edit words for a living. Tons of mistakes ruin a book for me.


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## infiniteTBR (Jan 3, 2010)

I can overlook the random typo, but once in a while I read a book that is so full of them I can't continue. It disrupts the flow of the story too much when I am having to constantly backtrack in my head to re-read what I have just read. Also oddly typed names. I am reading a story (well I am trying to) where the person's name is something like A. Jackson Thomas. Throughout the story, the author refers to him as A. Jackson. EVERY TIME. Call him AJ, call him Jackson... but A. Jackson makes me STOP everytime I see it. Very frustrating.


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