The Grammopticon has started posting typos she finds in print books on Twitter, using the tag #typo, and encourages you to do the same. This is not to shame any publisher, by any means: publishing houses are full of people (not in top management, necessarily, but that's another post) who care very much about perfection and want to know about missed errors so they can try to fix them in future editions and future printings. I recommend you include the book's title, ISBN (to distinguish between editions), publisher, and the specific error and location (e.g., page 22, third paragraph). That's the information I want for the books published by my employer.
Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone misses mistakes, especially when working fast and seeing the same set of pages for a title repeatedly. That's not an excuse, however, for shabby, error-ridden books. As a reader, if I see that the publisher doesn't care enough to correct numerous typos, I have to wonder whether that publisher cares enough to deliver good quality in any other respect. Or are they just hoping that an appealing title and an attractive cover will be enough to catch my eye, and they can just grab my money and run before I discover that what's inside is shoddy and careless?
If the publishing industry thinks in the latter terms, it deserves exactly what it gets.
Most books are made by careful publishing professionals who are just pressed for resources and maybe seeing what they expect to see on the page rather than what's there. Let's help those people out by serving as their backup proofreaders. And if the information helps them point out to their corporate masters that readers do notice when time and resources don't permit doing a thorough job, well, so much the better.
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