Launching mistakes on an unsuspecting public

Today I was reflecting on being published -- not the proud joy of seeing your name in print, but embarrassment when you realise your name is on an article or a book that contains mistakes, or a mistake. It doesn't have to be a huge factual error; even a spelling mistake, typo, or misplaced apostrophe can inspire that feeling of dread.
It is one of the risks of getting your writing published. Your mistakes can't be buried or forgotten; they are just there in print for everyone to see, deride and tut tut over. Certainly, sometimes these mistakes aren’t even your errors, but appear thanks to the editor or a publishing process; but they become yours when the piece comes out with your moniker.
It happens more often, of course, in magazines and newspapers with quick recurring deadlines, rather than in books where several people have read over the text during a long editing process. Although, many would recall Lonely Planet publishing a version of their Western Europe travel guide emblazoned on the spine with the misspelt title WESTEN Europe.
My introduction to that feeling of dread was at my first job fresh out of university, at a newspaper. It's not that my writing wasn't edited by the senior journalist; it's just he had happened to miss the fact that I had written "open to the pubic" instead of "open to the public".
It certainly taught me to read over my own work more carefully and be more responsible for what I have written. But the most important lesson to learn is that everyone makes mistakes and it's not the end of the world to find that you've missed the 'l' out of public (and perhaps made a few older people gasp at the rudeness). It certainly shouldn't stop you from going public (see!) with your writing in the future.
Perhaps one approach is to make light of it. Lonely Planet managed to turn their mistake into a humourous anecdote, including a funny self-deprecating bookmark with the book (click on pic to read) rather than bin their entire 40,000 copy print run, and as a result I know a couple of people who have held on to their erroneous copy of WESTEN Europe as a collector's item.

Anyway it's not the only thing that can go wrong. Later I’ll tell about what happened with the newspaper’s designer whipped up a cartoon about the circus to accompany a police report I had turned into a front page article (not recommended).

Suzanne Male is the publisher at Smink Works Books. She is contributing to The Writers' Resource Centre's book The Writer's Therapist, due out this September.

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Chomp chomp Grammar Bytes

Some of the grammar sites on the Internet can be quite dry and difficult to read, but Grammar Bytes is a refreshing change. It is self-professed "grammar instruction with attitude".
The site features interactive exercises as well as explanations of grammar terms. It is well laid-out, easy to navigate and the text is clear and easy to read. It's useful for once-off grammar checking, polishing up your rusty grammar, or becoming that apostrophe-obsessed grammar grandma you've always wanted to be ;)

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Why do You Want to Write?

By Author, Anthony Santoro

Tell me – what sort of writer do you want to be? A good writer? A great writer? A rich writer or a famous one? Indeed, why are you writing? Do you write simply because you like to write? Is whether you’re good, bad, rich or famous just peripheral to the fact that you like to write and enjoy the craft?

Working out why you write and what makes you want to write is not a bad place to start. Truthfully, it’s better to just get on with writing; but if you ever get off track from that and get caught up in the perils of wondering “will anyone publish my book? Am I a good writer?" etc, you can fall back on this, get it sorted out and get back to writing, quick-smart.

Some writers start their book by imagining their manuscript as a film or TV series. There’s nothing at all wrong with focussing on the end product. It’s only a problem when this idea of the end product gets in the way of your own creative writing.

There are many writers (and I, myself, was once included in this bracket) who sit on their manuscript for years, too scared to send it off to a publisher. Yet, if you asked them they would tell you they were desperate to get published. This equation, unfortunately is problematic: you can’t get your manuscript published without sending it off to a publisher! Unless you’re planning some sort of “miracle-publishing” where a publisher calls you up and says, “Hey, I just had this amazing sixth sense that you have written a manuscript that is absolutely awesome and which I believe I would like to publish!” or you’ve chosen to self-publish, there’s simply no other way around it.

You have a manuscript. You want to get published. You have to send it off!

Now I know that you can quote me all the statistics on the likelihood of being published, such as “but only one in one-billion manuscripts given to publishers actually make it to print!” (I know those stats aren’t right but I’m parodying the point here!) The important thing to realise is that a writer simply needs to steer clear of such emphatic nonsense. Really such things are even less important than what colour socks you’re going to wear today. The odds, to say the least, are overwhelming in favour of you not giving up your day job. For that exact reason they don’t matter and, as a writer, are not your concern.

The main point is: don’t worry about getting published. For a writer, getting a book into print is the least of their problems. Getting published can appear – but is not by a long, long, loooooong country mile – the end in itself. On the other side of getting published, there’s a whole new world called ‘marketing’ and, a writer busy putting their imagination down onto paper should be even less worried about that when they’re writing their book. I know, I’ve been through it all!

Look at it like this: a publisher will publish your book if they think it’s marketable and you’re marketable. Essentially, they want something that people will go into a bookstore and buy, preferably, a lot of times. It is a business decision and not necessarily a reflection of the writer’s skill. They’re not heartless; but, to have a business at all publishers need to make marketable decisions, otherwise they will not be able to print anyone’s works at all and there will be no books in bookstores, whatsoever.

So essentially, all a publisher is saying when they say, “We are interested in publishing your book”, is, a) they think you’re a great writer and, b) they are willing to invest money in it to see if the general public agree. Truthfully, publishers would love to publish more writers’ works but, are bound by market pressures not to.

If you’re not getting my point, I’ll say it: Don’t worry about getting published, not getting published etc, etc. Concern yourself with being happy with what you have written. That’s the most important thing; it has to be. Why? Because, if you’re not happy with your story you certainly won’t be giving it to anyone else to read and asking for their opinion on it. No, no, no, no…

Then, there’s rejection. Don’t worry, again. Rejection doesn’t kill you. And, truthfully, if you’re happy with your own writing, confident of it, a rejection will have minimal, if any, effect. You will be writing away, sending off manuscripts, but, really, not giving a damn either way if they are rejected, praised, published, etc.

If you think about why you’re writing and what you’re trying to achieve, I doubt it’s fame, friends, praise, fortune or a book on a shelf in a bookstore. More likely, it’s that you’re trying to tell a story – yes? So, tell it. Someone may want to read it. Good.

Well, then, time’s ticking away – stop wasting time worrying about getting published and start writing!


Anthony Santoro is an author of fiction and businessperson. His first novel was published last year and his second is to be published later this year.

The above article was extracted from Issue 1, Writers' World, the official ezine of the Writers' Resource Centre - http://www.writersworld.com.au/ . It will featured in the upcoming book, The Writer's Therapist, due out in late 2008.

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Welcome

Welcome to the new Writers' Resource Centre Blog

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