Do You Enjoy Reading While Standing On Your Head?

If so, have I got a deal for you! We keep some of our inventory of books at home so that when somebody orders a personally inscribed novel from my Web site I can take care of it and ship their copy immediately. Today I unsealed a new box of The Race, opened the first book, and automatically flipped to the title page so that I could sign... only it wasn't the title page. It was an upside down version of page 36. The first 48 pages of the book had somehow been inverted in manufacturing and inserted backwards. I went through the box and discovered 26 more inside-out copies among the 21 correctly printed copies. I have no idea how many more messed up books are hiding within my inventory or the inventory of my distributors. What a hassle.

I used to take it for granted when I grabbed a book off the shelf and started reading, but I've learned that there are millions of ways for an error to sneak into the process, and that it can be a full time job trying to drive them back out.