Just before I went to print a friend of mine referred me to Strong Nations Publishing out of Nanaimo, BC.. Later on I found out that the publishers, Terri and Ken Mack are the ‘go to’ folks for Aboriginal books – particularly in the field of education. This is the quite amazing story of what happened that day.
Minutes after my friend sent me an email about Strong Nations Publishing I called them up and as they were in Richmond at a trade show event I asked if i could stop by and show them my book.
They said sure and so I hopped in my car and drove out to meet them. Well, they had a great display of all kinds of Aboriginal material and I was really pleased to have made the contact. I showed them a draft of ‘A is for Aboriginal’ and – here’s the amazing part of the story:
Terri read through the book and then after she had finished she asked me what I meant where under ‘R is for Reservation’ it read: ‘Reservation schools hurt the people’
Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather – it was supposed to read ‘Residential schools hurt the people’ – that’s what I originally wrote. I about had a heart attack – the book was already approved for the final print run and binding. OMG. How did that happen?
Terri and Ken tried to reassure me that this happens and even showed me an example from their own publishing where they had to ‘make a correction.’ I was in shock and I felt that I just couldn’t release the book with such a glaring error – but I had just given the final go ahead the day before.
As it turned out the book had been completely printed but it had not been bound. If it had of been bound there’s no way to unbind and rebind – it would have been either a throwaway or I would have to find some way to ‘correct the error’ and there was no easy or professional way to do it and maintain the quality and integrity of the work. So, i was very fortunate that it had not been bound.
I had the printer redo that series of plates (they are 8 up) and reprinted those pages and so it is with a sense of great good luck and a special thanks to Terri and Ken for ‘saving me’ from a real ‘super blunder.’
Thanks Terri and Ken
The Creator was definitely looking out for this project that day.