The biggest typo of all

A typo is a typesetting error, and Typo is a book about the biggest typesetting error of all time. The Full title is Typo: The last American Typesetter or how I lost 4 million dollars. And actually, on the cover the subtitle is typeset as “...or how I made 4 million dollars” but made is crossed through with the common handwritten correction mark for delete and above it is the insert mark and the word “LOST” is written in. That has led to the book being listed on Amazon as Typo: The Last American Typesetter or how I made & Lost 4 million dollars. It is appropriate that such an error creeps in. This is a true story in as much as it is author David Silverman’s account as one of the two people who borrowed to buy the Clarinda typesetting company at a time when the industry was going bad. He and mentor Dan Coyne were sure they could save not only Clarinda but by taking over the rest of the industry in the US and combining work in the US with outsourcing to Manilla they could stave off the disappearance of US typesetting to India. It almost worked, and might have if they had not had to deal with publishers and their own staff. This is not just a book for people in the printing and publishing industries -- it has lessons for anyone who runs a business and especially anyone who has ever moved in to an existing enterprise as “the new boss”. I can sympathise as David deals with situations such as the internal financial controller who just refuses to introduce new systems and makes sure that anything new does not work. As the new manager of a newspaper I had an office manager who almost every night, as I found out later, was phoning the owner to ask “has Gordon the right to do that” and similarly making sure new methods always  seemed to fail. David faced the same reluctance to sack anyone, let alone people he suspected were refusing to co-operate in any efficiencies. And there were inefficiencies galore. A woman was employed to check every laser printout of an online file with the original printout from the publisher because years ago laser printers would sometimes substitute Courier for some typefaces. Then the printout pages were numbered with one of those old fashioned numeric stampers because a printout could be dropped on the floor and they’d have to recollate, despite that having happened once in several years (and would take maybe an hour or two to put right). Even worse, should that woman be away, a senior typesetter would take over her job leaving them one down in the only department which might have been making money. The IT technician certainly installed the new 100MB network cables, but connected only four wires at each device, so that the system continued to run at 10MB (a new tech was amazed that it had worked at all). A fireproof storage room contained Syquest disks from the 1970s while current backup tapes lay on the floor outside. A fireproof filing cabinet was empty save for a key which did not fit anything they could find. The litany of these things covers three pages which every company tech and director should read even if they ignore the rest of the book. (Do a search on “rubber bands” in the look-inside section on the book’s Amazon page). Such items from David’s experiences make for a laugh but I’ve seen such things and I’m sure they are true for many, many businesses today. Then there were the publishers who refused to send work if it might be outsourced to Manilla despite being almost sure that other typesetters they did use are subcontracting to India. There’s also a slowly dawning realization for David that although their Manilla office seems to be the only section making a profit, it is still a high cost operation compared to India. You’ll know so many of these people: the salesman who persuades a client to phone threatening to take away their work if the salesman is sacked who David has to tell has not given them any orders for two years. The meals booked as expenses which turn out to be meals for one. The manager who keeps a van driving daily between offices long after all urgent work has gone electronically. But all these problems surfaced only when it was too late. In the early stages the new owners were intent on the big picture, increasing sales -- unable to get from an ancient accounting system the facts such as that for every extra book put through the typesetting system at even the most efficient of their US offices was losing money. The only profit source seems to have been corrections because of high fees and a hit-or-miss system which meant that invoices bore little relationship to the actual work. Typo: The last American Typesetter or how I lost 4 million dollars, by David Silverman, published in the US by Soft Skull Press, 2007 and in Australia by Scribe Publications, 2008. For more info and extracts including videos see http://agman.com/

Comments

[David Silverman]

Gordon, Many many thanks for the wonderful review. Of course, as the author, I tend to think of any review as wonderful. But I think you really got what I was hoping to convey with Typo. Again, thank you.