So a second edition, then…

It would have been almost too dull if there had been no dramas with Clays the printers in the final run-up to production last week, but I must admit I wasn’t expecting basic technical questions to erupt concerning the jacket flaps, the anniversary bellyband, the ribbon marker and the head and tail bands (those funny things at the top and bottom of the spine). I thought I had settled all that long ago.

What precipitated the commotion, I believe, was a reminder from me about receiving PDF proofs from them by a certain date. I suspect they had forgotten that I had ordered such proofs, and paid for them; they had forgotten because hardly anyone asks for them. I am very glad, however, that I did order them, even if we were given less than two days in which to read the text file and delivery date was pushed back by three days as a result. It was extremely reassuring when a member of Team Clays emailed me: ‘I will do everything in my power to ensure you get perfect books on time.’

Before Sam2 and I sat down to tackle the text file, I inquired whether the pre-press checks had identified any problems with our typeset text which we should look out for. The answer came back: ‘Your text file is all correct and ready to print.’ Admittedly we had had the printers’ typographical instructions engraved on our brains, but we were still pretty staggered, and even disbelieving, that we had got everything right, as the text is long, complicated, and we had never typeset a book before!

Flicking through the PDF file the printers set us, we got the impression that they had indeed not changed anything, even our margins. However, to make sure, we decided to check page number, initial and closing phrases for every page, as well as 40 test characters and layout features. I have had the impression from some recent books that it is the specialist fonts/characters (e.g. Greek and letters with diacritics) that get garbled at the press stage and present nonsense in the book. But no, all those were as we had had them.

The unfortunate, but highly useful result of our proofreading was that we discovered five tiny, previously unspotted typographical errors of our own making, and two typos proper (I never have been able to spell ‘baggage’ with two g’s in the middle).

This put us in a quandary. The printers charge £10 per page of correction or ‘dependent on the status [what that?] of the title, supplying a new text file is free of charge’. Whether we paid for the seven pages on which mainly minor corrections should be made, or simply submitted a new complete text file with the corrections installed by ourselves, we ought ideally to see a complete PDF proof back from the printer after that. Could I afford yet another ‘small extra’? Did I want a further delay in production? How long might this go on for if we spotted yet further minor typographical errors in the latest PDF proof?

We had to cut our losses. It seemed to me that Murphy’s Law would guarantee that worse errors would invade the text file if we went through another round of submitting a corrected text, then ordering another PDF from Clays and setting about proofing that. It might put another week onto the delivery date and the expense could get worse and worse, too. Five (noticed) typographical flaws and two typos didn’t seem that serious in a 544-page book that had now gone through five sets of proofs. The beauty of a ‘limited edition’ with a short initial print run is that if there is the demand we can easily produce a second edition with these corrections made…

I suppose my decision could be summarised as ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t mend it’, or ‘go whilst the going is good’. But Sam2 characterised it with a more modern expression, which I had not heard before and which I hope proves right: ‘Don’t spook the thoroughbred.’