ABCH Erratum #1

I have a feeling this type of post may come more frequently than I like.

p. 234, line 29 should read, "Put your ankles together, please," Honey told her.

Wow, does that ever come off as questionable dialogue. Makes you want to read the book just to find out what I'm talking about, doesn't it?

My brother informed me two nights ago that I had probably made an error in that scene, and I had a very harrowing twelve hours beating myself up whilst those around me told me that it wasn't necessarily an error and might be quite funny for the reader to imagine as it was written, if they even caught it. I woke up on Thursday morning with a determination to put the book on hold and correct the mistake.

Then I retraced my steps to figure out what I needed to do.

Step 1) Identify the correct .doc file for the book's innards. There were three candidates, one of which I immediately dismissed because its last save was a month before the other two. The remaining duo, however, had save-dates of 6/16 and 6/17, and the more recently saved had the sequentially lower file name. With my crazy system, the higher number should have been the finished product (like version 2.0 versus 1.3), but the save contradicted that, and the only way to be sure would be to compare the two files side by side to figure out what the difference between them was. 'Cause, y'know, there's nothing more fun than comparing two 273-page documents with almost identically formatted text.

Step 2) Make the needed correction. This was an easy step, as it involved deleting or modifying only six words, and I knew exactly where they were.

Step 3) Convert .doc file to .pdf, per submission guidelines. This one might sound easy as well, but there are a whole slew of settings involved in the conversion. Off the top of my head, I had to select a custom paper size, embed my fonts, specify settings for bleeds and picture resolution (even though there aren't any of either in the book's interior), and who knows what else. There's a whole list of settings to check before clicking that little print button. And, I have no idea what I did with that list.

Step 4) Double-check the .pdf to make certain all the formatting converted correctly. The first test .pdf I did, for some reason unknown to me even to this day, re-sized all my fonts by half a point. (12 -> 11.5, 10 -> 9.5, etc.) Also, it was the wrong paper size, because I hadn't created the template for my custom size in my control-panel printer settings and foolishly thought that the converter would accept the preset margins of my source document. Foolish.

Step 5) Put orders for the book on hold. Easy as clicking a button, and it's not like I'd be putting anyone out. The people who really love me have already bought the book. :P

Step 6) Upload new .pdf for document approval. It took them less than 24 hrs. to approve the last one, so I can't imagine it would take much longer than that for the replacement.

Step 7) Order proof copy. Yes, I'd be out about $10, but that is the price one has to pay for perfectionism. I'm too cheap to use anything but economy shipping though, so it would set my time line back by a week at the least and three at the most, barring some unforeseen error.

Step 8) Review and approve proof copy. Again, click of a button to do that.

And that's all!

Yeah, I decided not to do it. Laziness - 1, Perfectionism - 0.

What a magnificent pain-in-the-butt that would have been. If there had been a multitude of gross errors or egregious typos, I would've. But it's six words. And of all the people who have read the book, my brother was the first to notice it.

(Actually, my mom admitted to having discovered it as well, but that wasn't until the fifth time she'd read the book. She decided not to tell me about it, because she thought I would overreact, which I obviously didn't.)

So, instead of taking that long and inconvenient path towards perfection, I've settled for making the above correction in my blog.

But it wasn't really needed at all. Emily is actually a contortionist.