Ah, the vicissitudes of publishing! Sometimes everyone does their jobs just perfectly…and something still ends up being goofed up.

Last night, I was double-checking something in a finished copy of Goth Girl Rising when I noticed an odd error. I immediately looked back at the original page proofs to confirm that it had been correct there…and it was. Somehow, an error crept in after I’d approved the pages to go to press. And it’s a WEIRD one.

The very last page of the book (page 390) is the second page of the Acknowledgements. At the very top of that page, I’m in the midst of thanking Officer Stacey Gaegler of the Hampstead (MD) police department. (She answered some questions that helped me write the end of the book.) Notice how I just typed “Hampstead (MD)” there. That would be Hampstead, MARYLAND, right?

Here’s how it appeared on the page proofs:

MD = MD

And here’s how it appears in the final book:

MD = Medical Doctor

Yow! Somehow, mischievous elves sneaked into the compositing system and decided that “MD” meant “Medical Doctor.” (You’ll notice someone also expanded “Dept.” to “Department.” Hmm. Elves that hate abbreviations!)

This will be fixed in future editions, of course. In the meantime, I hope Officer Gaegler enjoys her stint as a doctor.