Thread by @manylittlewords, So, typos. I self-publish. There are typos in my books. I try [...]

Gemma Amor

manylittlewords

So, typos.

I self-publish. There are typos in my books. I try to be as rigorous as possible, but a few of the wee slippy buggers get through. Always. I usually catch them at some point. So far, it hasn't damaged my readers' experience and that's good enough for me.

On a few occasions, another writer will reach out and ask me, politely, if I want to know about typos.

I usually say yes, and thank them for the thought. I think that's okay.

What isnt okay is the guy who messaged me at midnight to tell me he'd found tons of typos in my book. I didn't know him well and he messaged my personal fbook account, not any of my public social accounts. He asked if he could tell me about them. I didn't reply, because, midnight

Regardless, he went right on pointing out all the mistakes. I woke up to a ton of screenshots, and although I imagine it was halfway meant kindly, it just came across as hugely patronising. Of course, my pride meant I fixed the damn typos (many of which I already knew about)

I guess what I'm saying is, don't presume. Don't push yourself on another writer unless you're sure they are receptive and willing to hear it. Ploughing on with pointing out mistakes without really being given agency to do so is a bit, well, turdy.

Also, I feel as of there should be a difference between a few mistakes and a book that is unreadable because of formatting errors and typos.

But even then, I'm not sure I would presume to take this up with a writer unless I knew them very very well, and not even then.

Maybe I'm being a precious little flower about it. But also, there is the question of social boundaries.

Which might be why I control who can DM me

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