Rock Springs Park Book Sent for Second Printing

Two bits of good news this week. I was told by my publisher that Images of America: Rock Springs Park is being sent for reprinting and a typo in the first print run would now be corrected.

Arcadia prints 1,200 copies in the first print run of its Images of America books, hoping to sell them all in a calendar year. Rock Springs Park sold out in just three months and is going into a second printing. By “sold out,” I mean the company has no more books in stock, but books are still available in stores and online. It is also possible that books could be returned, if not sold. But still, I am very excited about this news. I knew there was a fan base for the park out there, I had no idea how many people would be interested in it. This news exceeds my wildest expectations.

If you read my article “Heartsick About a Typo,” then you will understand how happy I was to hear that the typo I discovered after the book came out, will now be corrected in the second printing. It was a small thing that was a big deal to me. I wonder if owning a first run edition, with the typo, will make it more valuable to collectors one day. I reread my author guidelines, about the proofreading process, and it recommended not making major changes to the text during the final proofread. That’s where I goofed up. I made a substantial amount of additions and last minute corrections and that is what led to the typo. I was heartsick when I saw it, but now I am relieved that it will be corrected.

Speaking of fans: Rock Springs’ Facebook page, started by Kassy Hand, is now approaching the 1,000 friends mark. Many visitors to and former employees of the park have left stories, comments, and pictures. You have to join Facebook to see it, but it is well worth it if you love the park. Check it out.

Heartsick About a Typo

This early view of Marks Run displays the natural beauty of Rock Springs Park prior to commercial development.

Authoring a book is often a lonely task. I spent many, many hours poring over news articles, emailing those who knew the park firsthand, analyzing images and documents, and researching in libraries, and often my “little” victories had to be celebrated alone and in silence.

For example, I was given one week to review the final page proofs of the book and then was contacted one last time by a proofreader for any changes before the book was sent to the printer. I read and reread the book text over and over again, looking for any corrections that I needed to make. I found a couple of possible grammatical errors and changed a couple of overused “This picture clearly illustrates.” With my proofreader’s help, I thought I had fixed everything that needed to be fixed. The book text and images were then sent to the printer in Charleston, South Carolina, just before Easter recess.

Then, stupidly, I decided to look at everything again over the holiday weekend, just in case, and of course I found one more error. My second editor, had changed all the “World’s Greatest” and “World’s Largest” to the lowercase “world.”I’m not sure why he did this, but thought I had caught them all. I was kicking myself wondering why I didn't think to search the text for all the “worlds” using Microsoft Word’s “Find” feature. None-the-less on page 23 my text read, “Today, the Smith House overlooks The world’s Largest Teapot.” My heart sank. I knew I had to find some way to correct this or my perfectionist tendencies would focus on this one tiny spelling error and drive me slowly insane until the book came out and, most especially, after it was in print. So in a last ditch effort I sent off an email to my proofreader:

Me: I imagine it is too late to make text changes to Images of America: Rock Springs Park, but I thought I'd give it a try anyway. I was looking over the text and noticed that I missed one capitalization error on page 23. If there is any way to change it; the "world's Largest Teapot" on page 23 should read "World's Largest Teapot."

Proofreader: Joe, it would be too late to make the change, but fortunately I caught the lowercase “world” and fixed it.

Me: I know it is only a small thing, but you finding and correcting my capitalization error means the "world" to me! Seriously, I put so much time into this project, and unfortunately am such a perfectionist, that a little thing like that would have bugged me no end. Now, I know why editors are often referred to as an author's "other eyes." You're the best!

So, dear readers, if you see any typos in my book, please don’t tell me. I need to keep my sanity for my children’s sake.

Update: Okay, I must admit there is a typo on page 10. “dislays” instead of “displays.” Doh! This happened after the proofreading process was completely out of my hands, and yes, I am heartsick about it.

(Photo Courtesy of Dick Bowker)