Now I’m not one of those indie authors who are always slamming traditional publishers. After all, I bought and continue to buy many of the books they publish. However, sometimes it’s just not possible to suppress the snark.
I’m currently rearranging my library and came across this 2006 mass market paperback edition of Dead End Dating, a paranormal chick lit novel by Kimberly Raye. While preparing to reshelve it (I’ve rearranged all the urban fantasy and paranormal romance according to creatures featured), I chance to glance at the spine and see this:
Check the imprint name on the spine.
Yes, Ballantine Books, an imprint of the mighty Random House Penguin concern, is unable to spell their own name on the spines of one of their books. Ouch!
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Just sayin’…
“1 star – I found this book to be riddled with typos. Now that might not bother some people, but I jut happen t be an editor and this drives me crazy. I’m sure if Ballantine took the time to contact me I might be able to help them.”
It’s not just the cover then.
I don’t actually remember this book being particularly bad in the error department, at least not as bad as such stand-out examples as several characters changing names halfway through the book, an error no one seems to have caught in eleven reprints since the mid nineties. But then, it’s been a couple of years since I read it and it wasn’t particularly memorable, so I may simply have forgotten.
The death of editing now reaches even to the book cover. How depressing.
Even worse, the death of editing already reached the book cover back in 2006, so no one can blame Amazon or e-books for this phenomenon.