“Oh, no!” You know that sick feeling you get in the pit of your gut when the realization hits. You’ve just clicked “send” and you notice a glaring error. There’s no “unsend” button. No do-over. Jiminy Cricket, what to do?
This just happened to an author and myself — and it was me to blame. We’d extracted some text from her book for some magazine articles and the headline of one article says “Perfect” when it should read “Perfection”. Cripes! Should we correct and resend, thus calling attention to our goof? Or let it go, bringing up the correction during the editing/revising process?
I’ve opted for the latter in this instance.
But it begs the question, what should an author do if they notice an error after they’ve sent in a submission? My advice:
1. If the work is a submission for consideration, and the error is relatively minor, note it and let it go. Publishers and editors know that manuscripts and article copy aren’t perfect upon arrival and the errant word or punctuation goof won’t faze us, so long as the entire file isn’t rife with sloppy errors. If, on the other hand, the error is major and impacts meaning, such as a title that reads wrong because of a missing word, you’d better swallow your pride and resend with a brief note of explanation.
2. If the work is already in editing , ask your editor if they’d like to be informed as you spot a correction, or would they prefer you wait and provide them all at the same time. Some authors have driven us nuts, calling and emailing every time they notice a colon should be a semi-colon. We don’t want correx (insider shorthand) as onesie-twosies! All at once, please.
3. For a book in layout , finding a misspelling or a word here or there that needs fixing should be noted and held for proofing stage. But if the needed correx affects several lines or a whole paragraph, speak up right away. A revision like that could shift lines from one page to the next, causing a layout headache and a testy book designer.
4. If the work has reached proofreading , authors better sit up and pay attention. This is the LAST CHANCE to make sure the work is as perfect as possible. Yes, your editor will be proofing as well, and often a number of others at the publishers. The more eyes, the better, but in the end, the author should care the most and work the hardest to insure an error-free book.
You know what the baby bibs say: Stuff Happens . Take it in stride and make sure it gets fixed at the right stage of the process.