What to do if a book is printed wrong?

I did not know this until I discovered that my copy of A Feast for Crows has a copy of pages 275 and 276 where the pages for 265 and 266 should be. While sitting outside smoking and reading it dawned on me that the publisher might replace books if there are issues with copies. Sent an email to Random House and got a reply in about 3 days.

Table of Contents Show

The reviewer is responsible
Your liability
Are book misprints worth anything?
Can you report mistakes in books?
What do you call a book with errors?
How do you fix a published book?

Edit: The book I have does not have the content that is on pages 265 and 266. It has pages 275 and 276 printed twice. The publisher is, hopefully, sending me a new book that has all of the content that is supposed to be in the book. Hope that clears up any ambiguity.

This depends on your contract with said client. It also somewhat depends on the situation and size of error. But in general: NO, if you provided a proof and gave a review and client says send to print then the client has signed the document off. They have approved, and that person takes responsibility.

There is a extremely high chance of error in any moderately sized document. Even professional copy editors can not guarantee error free results. Let alone spot errors incurred when the document was transcribed, it incurs doubling of chances for error.

The reviewer is responsible

The purpose of giving out a document for review is for the reviewer to check for errors. Therefore the reviewer is responsible for their failure to review. If theres no binding consequences for reviewing then there is a chance that the reviewer lest a n error slide only to ask for a rebate later. Even in the case where its clear that its not in clients interests to cheat its still the responsibility of the reviewer.

Your contract should state this as a fact. It is sad but most people do not take this kind of responsibility seriously. Once its sent for manufacturing its done with, no editing. Bills have to be paid for etc. Be sure to remind your clients of this.

Your liability

You are responsible to a part but you should be shielded because it would make it impossible for you to operate under the assumption of perfect. However there are situations that might make you liable.

You are at fault when:

Client notified you of the problem you failed to address the problem.
For some reason versions got mixed up so that the error popped back to existence.

In other cases you should exercise your judgement.

In future

Hire a external editor to handle the checking. Personally i would never ever transcribe the text myself, i would send it out to somebody else or have the client transcribe it themselves.

Update your base contract template now if you do not have a stipulation in your contract already.

Also take the advice of @go-me: Never type stuff. People get so upset about typos and they are nearly impossible to wean out. Only very few persons can actually spot all errors, beforehand. And it is very expensive to have error free stuff.

I have found an error in a book/paper. What do I do?

It might happen that an answer to your question has revealed a mistake in the book or paper you are studying. It is generally good practice to notify the author about such a mistake. Many authors maintain a list of errata (errors), and the error can be corrected if a new edition of the book is published. In this way you can help other people studying the same book. If it is a serious mistake in a paper, the author might even publish an erratum.

Search first: You should always try to find, whether the author or publisher has provided a list of errata online. It is possible that the same mistake was already pointed out and maybe even corrected in a newer edition.

Be polite: It is impossible to completely avoid mistakes in long texts. Authors of books try their best to prepare good books and eliminate mistakes and misprints. Please be respectful towards them.

Use your best judgement: For books, it makes sense to notify the author even if it turns out that the mistake is in fact just a typo. For papers already published in scholarly journals, the author should be probably contacted only if there is a serious flaw in the paper.

For further reference, you may consult also this discussion at MathOverflow.

Writer’s Relief

Jul 28, 2020

3 min read

In a perfect world, the hours and hours of time you’ve spent writing, proofreading, and meticulously preparing your book for self-publishing will guarantee that once you hit the “Publish” button, your book will be error-free and flawless. But unfortunately, mistakes have a way of sneaking into even the most thoroughly checked manuscripts. Errors are a big reason why a self-published book…

Are book misprints worth anything?

One of the most common misconceptions about books is that misprints make them rare or valuable. Unfortunately, while certain types of errors can contribute to a book's collectability, these alone will not increase the value of an otherwise inexpensive book.

Can you report mistakes in books?

For a text or monograph with a smaller audience, you will probably do better to contact the author directly; look for contact info on their professional web page. It's a good service to the community to report errors in books so they can eventually be fixed, so thanks for doing this.

What do you call a book with errors?

Misprints are an embarrassment for the publisher, since they're evidence of a hasty printing job or a lack of careful proofreading. Spelling and grammatical errors (using then instead of than, for example) in books, magazines, or newspapers are common kinds of misprints.