My collaboration with Stephen King

[pbray]

Last week I was contacted by a reader who loved DEVLIN'S HONOR... right up until page 376 which was curiously followed by pages from Stephen King's FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT. Not only did he miss the ending of DEVLIN'S HONOR, but instead of a preview for DEVLIN'S JUSTICE he got to see a preview of King's NEEDFUL THINGS.

This isn't the first time I've heard of this, but I've never seen a bad copy, nor have friends who helpfully checked out copies they've seen in stores. So I offered to swap him an autographed copy of DH for the bad copy and included a SASE with the autographed book. Today I received the bad copy in the mail, and yup, he's right, the last 16 pages of this book aren't mine, they're Stephen King's.

According to the title page this is the 5th printing, which I believe is the most recent printing. It's obvious that only some of the print run is bad since I've heard only scattered reports of problems, but whether it's a handful of copies or a significant percentage, I don't really have a good way to tell.

Strangely enough the last reader who e-mailed me said the the first 30 pages of his copy of DEVLIN'S HONOR were from a Stephen King book, and this book it's the end section that's misbound. The earlier reader also said it was a 5th edition, but he returned it to the bookstore for a new copy rather than mailing it to me, so I hadn't been able to confirm any problems until now.

Comments

[libwitch.livejournal.com]

I think its sort of a honor, actually. In an odd way, but still.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

An honor would be 16 pages of my book appearing in one of Stephen King's. If only a fraction of his readers liked the free sample, that would still be a whole lot of new fans for me.

[romsfuulynn.livejournal.com]

This isn't uncommon. I've probably run into a dozen or so examples (I own about 15,000 books). It's normally caught pretty quickly in the manufacturing process.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the reassurance. I've seen it myself in books I own, but it's always different when it's your own.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Having worked in the same building with a printing plant for almost a dozen years, I can tell you that this kind of thing happens more often than you might think. All it takes is for one stack of signature #6 from a job called, say, BRAY_DEV_HON to get mixed up with, or exchanged for, an equivalent stack from a job called KING_FOUR, and poof! Especially if, as is common to MMPBs from the same publisher, the signatures are of the same trim size, printed on the same stock, and have a similar or identical page design. Quality-control procedures will catch most instances before they leave the bindery, but no plant checks every single copy of any job.

The funniest one I've ever seen was a copy of A Season of Opera by Father Owen Lee that had about 64 pages of The Science of War (can't remember author) in the middle. I gave it to a friend of mine who is into both opera and military history, just for laughs :)

It's very nice of you to replace the guy's book, by the way!

[pbray.livejournal.com]

And at least the guy liked it enough to want to find out how it ended.

Oddly enough the paper is slightly different-- my paper is brighter" while King's pages are grainier, and the font sizes are different, but both are standard mass market paperback size.

Different publishers too, but obviously they must have been using the same printer.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Of course he wanted to know how it ended!

Printers have been eating each other like giant amoebas for the past decade or so. And a lot of printing is now done overseas, not necessarily in places where everyone speaks English -- that may be a factor too, who knows? But all it really takes is for the label to fall off a skid on the way from the folding machine to the PANDA line, or for someone to be on their smoke break at the wrong time or otherwise distracted, or for someone to mix up a set of bar-code labels or docket numbers ...

[pbray.livejournal.com]

But all it really takes is...

and whee, it's a whole new ballgame.

Honestly I suppose it's surprising that this doesn't happen more often than it does.

[clarkesworld.livejournal.com]

And now there will be a mad rush of crazy King collectors running out to by that special remixed edition.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

It's not a misprint--it's a genuine rarity, a true collectible!

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

I say you put King's name on the cover as co-writer and sell a million books.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Ooh, you may be on to something there.

[mmarques.livejournal.com]

Maybe all those King fans who get a "sample" of your book will rush to go out and buy the full copy? 8-)

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Be nice if it worked that way, but I don't know if there was any reverse contamination.

Of course now all I can think of it those Reese's commercials. "You've got Stephen King in my Patricia Bray!" "You've got Patricia Bray in my Stephen King!"

[allaboutm-e.livejournal.com]

Wh00ps. We hear of this happening occasionally, but IIRC this is the first time I've heard of it happening across publishing companies... usually it's a work also from the same publisher...

[elizabeth-welsh.livejournal.com]

Consider me flabbergasted!

Wow, so will you be keeping this in a box frame, museum style, complete with the placard, "Proof that outsourcing was a bad idea," or some such?

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

More proof that the Truth is stranger than Fiction?
Or, as Mulder would say, Out There?

Totally odd. I'm happy to say that My copy of Devlin's Honor was completely intact. But it was also from the first printing.