Ooh That Mistake Is Going To Cost You

How many of us have made a mistake? Um…all of us.

How many of us have made a mistake in our business that we thought would ruin us? Probably a shit ton.

As an author, our business incorporates a lot of moving parts. Especially if you self publish. When we make a mistake, it is often very public. Sometimes so public that we have mini strokes as we try to fix the mishap.

I am not immune to making blundering mistakes.

My latest one was not only super public, but lasted 9 months before I figured it out. In October of last year, I uploaded a new cover for one of my books. The title was supposed to be FATAL DOMINION. Well, I decided I should put an extra N in it, making it FATAL DOMININON. Wow…how dumb is that? Here is the cover in all its glory.

Never saw it. Ordered books and kept it moving. Until yesterday. It was by accident, too. Because not one person has told me, hey you dork, you misspelled your title. I didn’t panic. I didn’t freak out and think the world was going to cancel me. I laughed. Then I shared it with everyone. Oh, and this book is currently in a promo on Barnes and Noble. They have yet to correct it. It's just too funny to not laugh at.

Mistakes are going to happen. This is life. Some are terrible. Some may get you into a lot of legal trouble. There are some that can ruin your career. But making cover mistakes, story mistakes, spelling errors, or disastrous writing faux pas will not crush your writing career. They may cause some great jokes at your expense. But they won’t kill you.

I will never be perfect. I have made some colossal blunders in my writing career. One I made several years ago was when I uploaded a manuscript for a book I was about to have a huge promo on, and 3 months later found out, I uploaded the unedited MS. You know how I found that out? A reader asked me why I couldn’t spell my MC’s name correctly. HA…boy that was a fun email to read and respond to.

I had to call the Zon and explain. I had already uploaded the corrected version. She put me on hold and reviewed the two versions because I had asked them to send out an update. She got back on the phone and said this was a really terrible mistake and she has pushed through the update to the hundreds of downloads. That was a stressful week.

But guess what, no one left me horrible reviews. No one made fun of me.

Another mistake, I uploaded the wrong book into another book. I should have uploaded FATAL DOMINION…instead I uploaded WEB OF MALICE under the Fatal Dominion cover. Found out about that from one of my big fans…she is now a beta reader. LOL!

Shit is going to happen. You got to fix, laugh, and move on.

Wait my last big blunder…this one was so incredibly stupid. I spelled Purdue…Perdue. HAHAHA…I found this out from a reader who posted a 4 star review. He made fun of the spelling, but loved the book.

I wished I could’ve responded to him. I would have told him 1. It was AutoCorrect's fault. And 2. It might have been intentional because I am a Big 12 fan. LOL!!

Don’t let your mistakes crush you. Whatever line of work you are in. Learn from them. Poke fun at them. And with everything else going on in this life…just laugh at them.

Oh, I have a few of these copies I’m going to give away as gifts and specials to my readers. If you have a copy, and you want to send it to me, I will sign it and send it back with other goodies. Just email me at victoria@victoriampatton.com One day, these will be worth a bunch of money…you know when I’m dead and all.

Don't forget I have a huge Christmas in July sale. All ebooks are discounted. Find more information here.