Maybe you’ve made a typo. A very embarrassing and expensive typo.
Maybe you sent out query letters seeking representation for your “fiction novel.” (Novel.com, you are not helping.)
Maybe you got caught up in a publishing scam.
The good news is that you’re a third of the way to earning the “learning from your mistakes” merit badge!
Step 1: Make a mistake.
Step 2: Recognize your mistake.
Step 3: Don’t do that again. You may, however, re-earn this badge every time you find a new way to make a mistake. (See Step 1.)
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An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.
Niels Bohr
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This is part of the merit badges for writers series, and may be posted on your site or blog. Have you earned this badge? Will you never earn it? Tell us why in the comments.
3 Comments
Wow, Novel.com sure is not helping. I saw the url before I clicked, and I still did a double-take when I got there. Fiction novel! Good thing I’m writing a non-fiction novel!*
Hopefully our beginner mistakes are not so dramatic as fork-in-toaster. Perspective is good!
* I am doing no such thing. For the obvious reason.
“Novel.com carries all of today’s leading novel books for the avid reader.” (emphasis mine)
Oh, good! I’ve been looking for a new place to order fiction novel books.
I claim this badge by proxy. Six weeks into my first publishing job, I joined the senior department members gleefully scanning the first-off-the-press copies of a new high school science text. I found the first typo.
The publisher’s home city (withheld to protect the innocent) was misspelled.
On.The.Copyright.Page.