By Eric on 2006-05-12

Giant Robot 42 is at the print shop. It actually amazes how much better we are at making a magazine. I’m going to start a series of tips on publishing a magazine. I’m not sure if you can apply this to other facets of whatever you do, but with an open mind, maybe it will. I’ll try to write one a day if I can, and I’ll give you some examples too. These won’t be in any order, since any tip is a good one as long as you use it.

1. Small mistakes. People feel giddy when they find one in the mag. They see a misspellled word and jump for joy. They show their friends, they read it 10 times aloud, and it becomes a conversation piece, but people forget them quickly, or do they? Wayne Lo, a friend in prison has a lot of time. With each issue comes a letter. He points out the good parts in the mag, maybe some stuff he doesn’t agree with, but always makes a huge stink about a mispelling, a wrong jump page number, or a mislabeled photo. He’ll always say something like, I should get a job there, you need new copy editors, etc.

It’s a compliment that he cares enough to write about every mistake he finds. I look forward to his letters and his $24 a year for his subscription. Just because you killed people doesn’t mean you get the magazine for free, but you do have the right to crack back at us for anything.

We seldom get letters pointing out a small mistake these days except from Wayne. It’s not one of those situations where we blow it off with a laugh, we do try and prevent them from happening, but we do get over it. If you find one, feel free to email me at eric@giantrobot.com

Imagine, GR is 1 magazine. There might be 20 articles / features / sections. There’s probably 40,000-50,000 words in GR. A mistake will get through and those are for Wayne to find.