Tuesday, July 26, 2011

A Kerouac trolling expedition

If you've published a book, you know that there are multiple opportunities to edit it along the path to its final incarnation. My book, The Beat Handbook, came out in September 2008. During the back-and-forth with the publisher, I realized that I had included a statement in the Introduction that is quite disputable (I had sourced it, but not sufficiently). I was going to correct it, and then I decided it would be fun to leave it in and see if anyone called me out on it. Call it a "Kerouac troll" of sorts.

To date - almost three years later - no one has mentioned it. Is it because no one really reads my book (about 150 copies are floating around out there)? Is it because people read my book but not the Introduction? Is it because no one has noticed the mistake? Is it because no one cares?

It remains a mystery. Maybe a reader of The Daily Beat will solve it.

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