Okay, so, I’m not perfect. I miss things. I drop the ball. I have blind spots.
But in publishing design, it often feels like the buck stops with me. I’m the last one before the world sees it, the one expected to catch every typo, every formatting hiccup, every detail that’s slightly off.
And I want to! I like getting it right. It matters to me. But mistakes still happen. And when they do, they drive me a little crazy. (Or a lot)
Here’s what I’ve learned: perfection doesn’t live in one person’s brain. Especially not in publishing.
Making a book, just like building a brand or releasing a product, is a team effort. Author, editor, designer, proofreader. Everyone plays a part. One set of eyes is never enough.
And to prove my point? Let’s take a moment for some very real, very public, very human mistakes:
Typos in the wild are one thing. But even major books aren’t immune:
- Pride and Prejudice debuted with Jane Austen’s heroine listed as “Elizabth.”
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone had several first-edition slip-ups that now make those copies highly collectible.
- In the 1631 “Wicked Bible,” the word “not” was accidentally left out of the Seventh Commandment, turning “Thou shalt not commit adultery” into, well… something else entirely.
- And in one edition of the Penguin Dictionary of American English Usage and Style, the word “misspelled” was… misspelled. (Ouch.)
There’s even more in this entertaining BookBub roundup of famous book typos, if you’re in the mood to cringe and laugh at the same time.
So, what’s the takeaway? Perfection isn’t something one person can pull off alone. It never was. And that’s not a flaw, it’s just the nature of creative work. We need each other. We need collaboration, fresh eyes, second opinions, and the kind of honest feedback that catches what we can’t always see ourselves. As long as we’re clear on that from the start, and we all do our part, we’ll end up, well… on the same page.
Want to keep laughing about hilarious misspellings? Check out this collection from Bored Panda.
(Featured image by Brett Jordan @Pexels.com)