The Garret Tree
Saturday, April 16, 2005
  If there's a typo, blame the author

In his online journal today Neil Gaiman is talking about receiving the first copy of his new book MirrorMask, expected to hit the bookstores soon and chuckles:
My copy of MirrorMask the script-and-storyboards book was waiting in the mail when I got home -- it's huge and heavy and, really rather wonderful. (Gaiman's law of picking up your first copy of a book you wrote held true: if there's one typo, it will be on the page that your new book falls open to the first time you pick it up. It never fails. It used to make me sad or frustrated. Now I half-expect it.)

Permanent Link to Gaiman's post "From the mail pile"

It was a lot worse for me when The Creative Guide to Research came out in September 2000, the typo was on the cover. At the time I was teaching Investigative Journalism (link to archived syllabus) at the Ryerson University School of Journalism but on the cover the book was the notice that I taught at "the Tyerson Polytechnic."

Rowland's Law of Publishing: No matter what the publisher does, the public, the reviews, everyone, always blames the author,
not the cost-cutting publisher,

It's one thing for an understaffed small publisher to make a major mistake (though that is not an excuse --it was easy to check) but it shows the problems lesser known authors face when even the work of a best selling star like Neil Gaiman faces the same problem and says "I half-expect it."

By the way, I have turned the old Creative Guide to Research site into my second blog, so please visit for ongoing research news, information and tips.

And if you want MirrorMask:

Amazon Canada:
Mirrormask: The Illustrated Film Script of the Motion Picture from the Jim Henson Company

Amazon.com US:
MirrorMask : The Illustrated Film Script of the Motion Picture from The Jim Henson Company
 
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I write in a renovated garret in my house in a part of Toronto, Canada, called "The Pocket." The blog is named for a tree can be seen outside the window of my garret.

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Name: Robin Rowland
Location: Toronto, Canada

I'm a Toronto-based writer, photographer, web producer, television producer, journalist and teacher. I'm author of five books, the latest A River Kwai Story: The Sonkrai Tribunal. The Garret tree is my blog on the writing life including my progress on my next book (which will be announced here some time in the coming months) My second blog, the Wampo, Nieke and Sonkrai follows the slow progress of my freelanced model railway based on my research on the Burma Thailand Railway (which is why it isn't updated that often) The Creative Guide to Research, based on my book published in 2000 is basically an archive of news, information and hints for both the online and the shoe-leather" researcher. (Google has taken over everything but there are still good hints there)



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