“There is no book without mistakes.” (Ernst Probst)

But how do the mistakes get into the books? Which are there and what are they called? Based on practice-related texts and entertaining illustrations, 55 typical mistakes are presented and ways to avoid them are shown: eye powder, lead desert, idiot apostrophe, showing through, false quotation marks, fly shooting, ghost effect, whore children, moiré, broken back, shoemaker's boy, stair effect, passport inaccuracy...

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Interview with Monika Wintjes about the book”Buchblemikel”.

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How did the idea for the book come about? Can you give us a brief insight into the development process?

A book is a very complex product, and many mistakes can always occur during production. I have always found the frequently historical terminology of these mistakes exciting and, above all, memorable, and so I have created a list of terms over the course of my working life.

And since there are nice terms for some mistakes, I set myself the goal of explaining the creation of a book based on mistakes.

I am an “old-school manufacturer”, I have trained a publishing clerk and studied publishing manufacturing; both training courses no longer exist in this form. Professions are changing and yet I find it important that fundamental knowledge should not be lost in all this fast-paced life.

The terms were quickly established. The difficulty was to write short and understandable texts about the terms. I also wanted to visualize the errors. So I looked for an illustrator. Working with illustrator Lu Säuberlich was the best part of the process of creating the book. The illustrator read the texts and based on her inquiries, I knew exactly where it was still too complicated to express it. And the biggest surprise was to see their graphical implementation of the individual flaws. Pure excitement. And the book also works as I had imagined:

Text and illustration complement each other, together they make understandable, which is otherwise explained in very cumbersome technical books. I would have liked a book like this myself when I was studying.

My publishing house avedition from Stuttgart gave me largely free rein in the implementation of the book, for which I am very grateful.

Who should read your book?

The book is for everyone who is interested in producing books and texts, either professionally or as a hobby. For example, I've also thought of the growing number of self-publishers and, of course, of all students, especially from the fields of media publishing or book and media industries. Since my book focuses on the area of “sentence”, I think it can be helpful for anyone who works with texts. And of course for all book lovers who like to take a look behind the scenes.

“Buchmakel” is intended as a reference book, but not only for people in the field with appropriate previous knowledge, but also for those who want to become one.

What are the most common mistakes that are made?

The mistakes that I notice most often are errors in the area of “sentence”. “Spelling mistakes” and “weddings” are very common and are noticed by readers and can even lead to complaints or letters of complaint. “Litho” errors have become rare, but “printing” and “binding errors” are also more common. “Filing” is probably one of the most common mistakes, but I also had a “mold arc” recently.

In particular, “idiot apostrophes”, which can be found at every second snack bar, are omnipresent. Written flaws therefore do not only take place in books.

Do you have any tips on how to best avoid the most common mistakes?

The easiest way to avoid mistakes is to know when and how they happen. Here, it is important to pay particular attention to the step in the manufacturing process. My book is intended as an aid to sensitize readers to these parts of the process. I think everyone involved in the production of a book always does their best and yet mistakes can occur again and again. In my experience, most unnecessary mistakes happen at the last second when making corrections. You should still take the time and look at everything in peace and quiet, even according to the 4-eye principle. Because the production of many parallel titles can make us blind to operations, it always helps to have a colleague look at them again.

Some jokingly say that it's best not to look into the finished book after printing it, because despite all the thoroughness, you'll probably still find mistakes — can you remember a mistake that you found particularly annoying yourself?

I've already had a few mistakes that annoyed me and cost me sleepless nights. But these were mostly mistakes that no one noticed in the end. Once I pixelated an image, which was unpleasant because such mistakes cost money when a sheet has to be reprinted or the authors are rightly annoyed.

It's true that we manufacturers always check freshly printed books with a bit of reverence. But experience shows that no one's head is torn off when there is a mistake in a book. After all, we all know that books don't exist without mistakes.

Would you like to tell readers anything else?

Authors sometimes work on their manuscripts for years and therefore everyone involved in the production process of a book should always work with great respect and care. Book making is teamwork where mistakes happen again and again. We should then look closely at these mistakes to learn from them.

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