If an Editor Makes an Error, Does the Whole World Crumble?
What does it mean when you see mistakes in an editor's online posts?
This week in a Facebook group for writers that I belong to, a moderator had to post a scathing reminder to members that kindness is always the best policy. While not unusual (it is Facebook, after all, where trolls and mean people seem to flourish like mushrooms under a wet rock), the specifics of what this moderator called out struck one of my nerves.
Another freelance editor had made an earlier post in the group advertising their services, and that post contained—I can only suppose, since I didn’t see it—errors. 😱😱😱
The resulting pile-on in the comments apparently got nasty. Enough that a blanket excoriation was necessary.
Why did the moderator’s response strike such a nerve in me?
Because it was even necessary to remind people to be kind. Because the responses to the moderator’s callout were excruciatingly embarrassing and horrifically cruel. Because I could empathize with both the writers who might question that editor’s competence AND the editor who made the mistake.
Because I’ve been there.
Seriously, who in the ever-loving world is 100 percent perfect all of the time, especially on social media?
Yes, even editors. Last I checked, editors are human too. You know what humans do? They make mistakes.
I use social media and blogging to market my editing services, and there’s not a week that goes by that I don’t put something online, publicly visible, that has either typos, spelling errors, missing commas, or other issues that make me look like an amateur.
Why? Usually, I’m in a rush to get the never-ending mountain of marketing content I have to produce to keep visible and attract clients written, designed, edited, scheduled, and out the door in the limited window of time available to me around client work and life obligations. ← which come first
Why? Because I am the only set of eyes on that content. I don’t have my own editor on standby, and I’m not likely to be able to afford the luxury anytime soon.
Why? Sometimes I create posts and captions on my teeny-tiny iPhone (see re: rush, above), and I’m a forty-seven-year-old woman who can’t see well up close. 👵 And, also see the growing evidence that it’s harder to comprehend something read from a screen than from paper. (“Evidence increases for reading on paper instead of screens,” The Hechinger Report, August 12, 2019)
Why? Because, according to the science, I literally can’t see my own typos. My brain fills in what’s supposed to be there when I read it back, and I’m doomed from the second I put the words on paper or screen. (“What's Up With That: Why It's So Hard to Catch Your Own Typos,” Wired, August 12, 2014)
Why? Because. Because I keep going back to the fact that editors are humans. Humans make mistakes. The very nature of social media and on-screen writing makes mistakes even more likely.
Still, though. I get why writers want—nay, need—to hold us editors to a higher standard, in any public-facing forum, casual or not.
We’re asking them to place enormous amounts of trust in our capabilities, capabilities that can’t be objectively verified. There’s no standardized test (at least in the United States) that scientifically proves an editor knows of what they speak.
We’re asking writers to hand over thousands of their hard-earned dollars on the promise that their creative work will come back better than before, and better than what they can do themselves. Money’s tight these days, y’all, and that’s a huge ask at any time. Self-publishing writers, like anyone in an artistic or creative field, are constantly weighing the potential return on any investment in their art.
If they shell out that cash for subpar work, and readers notice, and sales tank?
Disaster.
Still, though.
I find myself thinking about the potential client I wooed last month who declined to hire me. This writer subscribed to my email newsletter during our courtship, and in the first issue they received, they clicked the link to my latest blog post ten times. (Pro tip: email newsletter programs show you who clicks what links and how often. Just so you know.)
It was curious, going back to a random post that often. What had I written that this writer found so interesting? I pulled up the post and read through it.
Horrified, I noticed at least three glaring typos and misspellings that I hadn’t caught before publishing. One example: I typed bone fide when I meant bona fide. Which I know how to spell. I use the damn phrase all. the. time. But my fingers got the best of me, I was in a stupid hurry to get the post out the door because I was under deadline, and there it was.
Did I do a sample edit for this writer on their own writing that was checked and rechecked until it was spotless, that demonstrated effectively how I’d work on their book? Yes. Yes, I did.
Do I know for a fact that this person took one look at those typos on the post they viewed ten times and ran for the hills? No. I have no idea if they even saw them or knew they were mistakes.
Do I kind of feel judged unfairly anyway and wish that writer would have offered me a bit of grace and understanding? Absolutely—right or wrong.
I also wish the writers in the Facebook group would have approached the editor who had errors in their advertising with the same kindness and benefit of the doubt. Instead of publicly shaming and calling him or her out for all to see, maybe a private message would have been gentler, more professional, more effective.
Who could know what the editor was going through when he or she made their post? Perhaps they were learning a new graphics software, or typing on a small screen, or had toddlers dripping from their arms as they posted, and the mistakes crept in?
Who am I to judge someone’s mistakes and why they happened? Who are you to do the same?
So, what’s the right thing to do?
Should an editor be held to a standard of perfection in even the most casual and temporary communication? Should mistakes in social media posts be used to form judgments of their overall abilities? Do those mistakes signal a lack of education, experience, skill?
Or should the assumption be that mistakes might point to other, less-critical outside factors? Is it okay to give editors who make mistakes on social media a bit of grace? To dig deeper? To see how he or she performs when it matters, such as on a sample edit of a writer’s work?
What do you think? I’m honestly interested in knowing your thoughts on the matter, so feel free to join the conversation.