Where did summer go?
Yesterday I returned to California from our Idaho home. This Saturday we take Amberly to college. Wow. The last child--gone. What a change around here. I'm still pouting over having to do my own errands. Amberly's done the grocery shopping, gone to the cleaners, the drug store, the post office ... you name it. Guess I'd better learn where everything is in the food market aisles again.
Writing-wise, much is happening. Last Friday I finished Always Watching, first book in Amberly's and my YA Rayne series. This week Amberly is doing her edits. Then it's off to the publisher via cyberspace on Friday. This week I'm plotting the book I must start writing next week--my next adult novel. This will be the first (stand-alone) novel after the Kanner Lake series. This Friday I'll received the copyedits for Amber Morn, last in the Kanner Lake series. Yikes. They'd better get done over the weekend.
I arrived in California to find a copy of Crimson Eve in the mail. Yay! It looks beautiful, inside and out. Very nice design on the cover. Crimson Eve releases end of next week--which means it starts shipping from the warehouse at that time. It'll start showing up in stores a week or so after that. I'm excited for the release of this book. I like the story. It's quite different from Coral Moon, second in the series. (We'll have a behind-the-scenes look at Crimson Eve later.)My excitement to see the book released is tempered by the fact that there are some glaring errors in the printing. How these got through, I don't know. The errors were caught at the proofing stage, but somehow these particular pages didn't get changed in the final typesetting. Zondervan is on it and will make the changes in subsequent printings. But for now--egad.
These errors are logistical ones, dealing with a major plot point. Kudos to Peg Phifer for telling me about them as she read her unproofed review copy. "You probably already know this," she wrote, "but ..." Well, I didn't. Last I "knew," those changes had been made. So I'm grateful to find out early.
You writers, have you ever had some really bad errors get through? Not just typos or grammatical mistakes, as if they're not bad enough. Not errors that you can simply keep quiet about and hope readers won't notice. I'm talking about errors that everyone will notice. If this has happened to you, what did you do?
I'm thinking of turning the situation into a marketing opportunity. Perhaps something like--the first 15 readers to e-mail me with the mistakes will receive a free copy of the next book in the series. Whadya think? Anybody out there got a better idea? This is a negative just clamoring to be turned into a positive.
10 comments:
Sounds like a great idea to me. I think Angela Hunt recently did something similar on her blog. Must be a pain though to find mistakes when its too late to fix them.
I'm very sorry this has happened to your book, and it is a little more than puzzling with a big house like Z. How did this slip by when it was correct in the first place?
Here's my story. One might say, "It figures" because my novel was self-published, but really it's a good looking monster of a book in its finished product.
However, my husband, son, and I celebrated with tears and a bit of awe at the books' arrival. The following morning as I "happened" to flip open to a particular page, I discovered that text from another part of the earlier story appeared mid-sentence in this dramatic part of the book. Talk about from mountain top to death valley plunge. The critical errors were over 150 pages apart. How it happened, no one seems to know.
A couple more thousand dollars later, and everyone took a serious hit on reproducing this 744 page saga, we have corrected copies. And just this week I received two wonderfully touching responses to the story which made me cry in gratitude.
All I know is that God can make beauty from ashes, can somehow work all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, and His ways are ohsomuch higher than mine. Thank you, Jesus.
I like the "free book" spin on that error thing and turning a negative into a positive. I was so hoping the errors had been caught before the final printing.
Crimson Eve is a great book, and as B said, different from Coral Moon, differnt from Violet Dawn. And pure Brandilyn. Can't wait to read Amber Morn!
I can tell that you are as busy as ever. All my children grew up and left, but they show back up from time to time. LOL
Blessings
Leave it to Brandilyn, the consumate marketing guru to turn a negative into a positive...LOL...you go girl!
And congrads on the empty nest syndrome!
B: You writers, have you ever had some really bad errors get through?
K: Room At the Inn (contains my novella "Orange Blossom Christmas") is set in a defunct historic Florida B&B. n old country preacher calls, begging to book a room for his overworked church secretary. The proprietor's late wife ran it, and he's closed it. But the preacher keeps begging.
"And so, we're a-wantin' to book a room. Please say there's room at the inn." He let out a belly laugh. "Get it? Room at the inn? Like in Jerusalem two thousand years ago when Joseph and Mary came a-knockin' on the door of an inn. Please say ya got an empty room at yer B and B...."
Get it? Joseph and Mary came a-knockin' in BETHELEM, not JERUSALEM!!! Great day in the morning! How could I have written that? Me, with all my Bible training! Me, a pastor's wife!
Oh, well, nobody else caught it, that I know of. Got lots of reader letters telling me how much they enjoyed the story. But not one mentioned...JERUSALEM. Shhhh.
If anyone ever spots the error, I have an answer: it's the old country preacher's fault. He had a brain fog and got his Bible knowledge mixed up! After all, he's the one who said it!
Haha.
Good grief. I can't even spell Bethlehem right! With all these mistakes, dare I return to my WIP? :)
Brandilyn, I think that sounds like a great idea. And I have to tell you I read the unproofed ARC last night in one setting! It was wonderful!!! I couldn't put it down even when I knew hwere you were taking the plot. Fun twists and turns, and I LOVE the tight timeframe. Kept the plot hopping!
PS I didn't notice the errors because I was so pulled into the plot. And usually I spot those a mile away.
I think it's a great idea. When I find a mistake, it usually pulls me out of the story and I have to go back and check and make sure I didn't miss something. But if I know ahead of time, I won't be so surprised by it and I can let it slide and just continue on with the story.
Well, I have no "how'd THAT make it to the printer" snafus to report. That I know of. :) There's always the, "Gee, I'd write that differently now."
I sure wish a certain 17yo in our home would get his license. I hate running errands. I have too much to do. I'm sure it's exciting yet bittersweet that Amberly is in college. I'm looking forward to her/your book. :)
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