OMG You Need to Calm Down
About the errors in Taylor Swift's so called "Errors Tour Book"
In case you’re not fed as much Taylor Swift content as yours truly, the Swifties are up in arms about the typos they’ve found in The Eras Tour Book.
In a sense, they’re not wrong. At $40, it’s pricey1. Plus, Swift is known for being incredibly meticulous about, well, everything. It’s not good that one song title is listed as “rying” instead of “trying” and ohhh…Infidelity is definitely not spelled Infedelity.
On the other hand, most of the posts that are claiming “grammatical errors” are actually talking about stylistic choices. I agree with this TikToker that word repetition in the same sentences (or nearby sentences) is not great and I’m also not a fan of over-comma-ing, but it’s also not wrong.
In terms of the photo layout, I’ll admit that I’m the least visual person alive. I don’t notice when my boyfriend of six years shaves his beard. I didn’t even notice when I gained 20 pounds in college. (Sometimes my lack of aesthetic ability is awesome.) So when I poured through my copy of The Eras Tour, I didn’t notice less-than-stellar photos or layouts. And once I saw what other fans were pointing out, I saw what they meant.
But let’s talk typos. Is writing “goldrush” over “gold rush” such a big deal that people should be screaming about how TS should have published her book traditionally?
Typos happen all the time, in traditionally published New York Times bestsellers and indie books. In the first edition of the first Harry Potter book, the list of school supplies for Hogwarts lists "1 wand" twice. Even the Bible had a typo—and a big one at that. (The word “not” was omitted from one of the Ten Commandments, so that the commandment read, "Thou shalt commit adultery” and not "Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Does “rying” seem so bad in comparison?)
I once noticed so many typos in a business book that’s written by two people I know and revered by entrepreneurs across the land that I made an obnoxious video about it. I actually thought about sending the authors a list of the typos so that they could correct them for a future edition. But then that seemed rude so I didn’t. (Also I didn’t have the energy to write them all down.)
(I also had Serena on my team make a funny Halloween video about how haunted writers are by typos.)
Point is: none of the entrepreneurs who obsess over that book seemed to notice the typos. Or if they did notice, they didn’t care. I would venture to guess that they were more focused on the book’s content, as well as their respect for the authors. In other words: the big picture rather than the little one.
Typos are less than ideal but when reading through copy, sometimes our eyes fill in words we think are there. What we usually do at Legacy Launch Pad is three edits—developmental, copyedit and proofread—before then having the client record the audiobook or use a program that reads the book aloud since there’s no better way to catch typos or words you just want to change than hearing it.
Okay, so maybe Taylor didn’t do that. She does a whole lot of things better than us so I’ll forgive her that.
Still, humans make mistakes—in life as well as in books. If you work with an indie publisher and catch typos post-publication, you can usually correct them and re-release the book. Often, authors can have the typos fixed before the masses see them; of course, none of us have to worry about over 800,000 people seeing our first run.
(If you work with a traditional publisher, you can usually only fix typos only if your book goes into a second printing. If it doesn’t—and most traditionally published books don’t—you’re stuck with the typos; one of the many reasons to avoid going traditional!)
There’s arguably no segment of the population more obsessive than Swifties. And we love them for it. How else would we know that “20 stitches in a hospital room” must have to do with Harry Styles’ snow mobile accident or that Swift was born on the 13th, turned 13 on Friday the 13th and that “The Lucky One” has a 13-second intro?
But do these typos even matter? Can’t it just be amazingly cool that our favorite artist at long last released a book? (BTW: when I say “our,” it’s probably time I confess where I am on the Swiftie obsessive scale. The screenshot of the notification I got from Apple Music says it all.)
Yes, I listened to her songs 18 times more than I listened to anyone else’s. Also, I probably played her just as much from my Alexa as my Apple music app so that 11K estimate is low.
While I would never argue in favor of typos, can I just say to my fellow Swifties: you need to calm down. Our girl gets enough flak without us jumping on the proverbial bandwagon.
Also, let’s keep in mind that the typos could all be Easter Eggs that we’re just not aware of yet. Never forget: we’re talking about a girl who could count at 10 months old; she may just be smarter than the rest of us?
But is it? Certainly not compared to $15,000 coffee table books. Also, how can you actually put a price on private photos of the most famous person alive, especially when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie sold photos of their babies for a cool 11 mill?