Doreen McGettigan

Writing Wednesday

Wednesday is the day I share what I have learned on my journey to publication, marketing and publishing again. If you have any questions please feel free to leave them in the comments and I will do my best to answer them.

Production Gone Wrong

A few months ago I started receiving request from book reviewers and also had a few requests from non profits to donate copies of my first book Bristol boyz Stomp. I was excited because until then either myself, or my publicist requested reviews.

My publisher sent me a shipment of books and I sent them out to the reviewers and non profits. I also sent a few copies to social media friends.

Last weekend I was invited to attend an event at an assisted living facility and was also asked to sign copies of my book.

While at the event my 14-year-old granddaughter was proud to show an elderly resident where her picture was in the book. Her picture wasn’t there. Other photos were missing too. We quickly went through the other books and each one of them was defective. I was so embarrassed. So many copies had been given out. Were the defective copies being sold at book stores, Amazon, Walmart? I was so angry.

I worked so hard on that book. I had it professionally edited three times. My publisher had it edited again. How could this have happened? Was it bad karma because I refuse to review badly or unedited books?

Perhaps it was one irresponsible worker at my publisher or one person at the printing facility. Was it my fault for not checking the books before I sent them out? I assumed they would be exactly the same as every other shipment I received.

My marketing rep and my publisher promised to make it right immediately and I was grateful for that but can it ever be made right? I love my publisher and this was the first issue I have had with them in three-years. They are handling it professionally doing their best to make me feel better but oh how I wish they would go back to the old printer and quality assurance.

Lesson learned: Check everything and never assume anything. As writers we work so hard to earn our credibility. It’s bad enough when we make our own mistakes but when someone else is responsible for the error it can be crushing to our confidence. I most certainly will never send another book out without checking it first. I should at least have Louie check it for me, he is the best editor…

If you received one of those copies I am so sorry. Consider it a collector’s item, there are only fifty copies out there (I hope and pray.) If you would like a corrected copy please let me know.

Please help me feel better and tell me, has anything like this ever happened to you? What was your most embarrassing editing or non-editing error?

Keep writing,

Doreen

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