Let me preface this by saying that I understand people make mistakes.  I make them all the time.  I expect mistakes in technical books.  This is NOT a rant about the quality of any particular book or technical books in general.

Today I was reading a particularly interesting section in a technical book and ran into a figure that was clearly incorrect.  After making sure it wasn't simply a case of the figure reference being off by a number or two, I decided to take a browse over to the Wrox site for the book and check out the Errata page.  This is where my journey becomes very frustrating.

Problem #1 - When I search for a book using the exact title, I expect it to be the FIRST hit, not the fourth.

Ok, so I find the title, bring up the book's page, and click on the Errata link.  So far so good.  I'm a little troubled by the fact that the book has only a few items listed - I know I've run into more errors than this and I'm only in Chapter 2.  Either I'm the only person reading the book or something is broken with the errata process.  I click on the "errata form" link.  I expected to get to a page that clearly indicated that I was submitting an errata for a particular book.  Instead I'm at a generic "ask a question" page.  I thought this was strange enough that I went back and searched for a completely different book to see if the link itself was broken.  Nope - all the books take you to this generic page.

At this point I'm starting to see the issues with the Errata submission process.  I'm imagining some English major doing an internship getting an email and yelling at her screen something like "I'm glad that you noticed that 'obtuse' was misspelled on page 578, but IN WHICH F**ING BOOK?".  So, I try to help the intern out and provide the book's title and printing number along with my errata submission in the "ask your question" box.

I move on to the next *required* section which requests that I enter a category.  I eventually find an option for "figure error" which seems to fit the bill.  Selecting this enables a text box where I can put in the book's title and ISBN number.  The text boxes are empty.

Problem #2 - Don't make me enter data which you have no excuse for not knowing.  I clicked on a link on your website that contained all the information you are requesting.  Don't make me do your work for you.

Problem #3 - x1000 when we're dealing with a web development book.  Perhaps you should read some of your own books from time to time - you may learn how to make a website that doesn't suck.

Deep Breath.

Now, I click the submit button.  Feeling rather pleased with myself that I took the time to report the errata in spite of all the challenges.  Oh, what is this - they want me to create an account?  This is optional right?  Nope.  They want my address and phone number to submit a freaking errata?  Fail.

Problem #4 - When someone is trying to help you out, you should be thankful and appreciative.  This should not be viewed as an opportunity to pad your marketing database.

Against my better judgment, I filled out the silly little account creation form.  I didn't give any real information except for my email address.  Submit.  We're finally done, right?  Wrong.

I get redirected to yet another page that gives me some troubleshooting steps that I can perform myself before submitting my question.  The first on the list - Have you checked the Errata page for this book?  Congratulations - you just bought yourself a blog post.  Epic Fail.

I did get an email saying that I'll hear from someone in "support" within 24 hours.  I'll update if/when my submission ever makes it to the errata page.

Updated here.