Single word slip in book costs Penguin $20K

WELLINGTON - Misprinting of a single word has cost Australia’s Penguin group thousands of dollars.

The publishing company was had to pulp and reprint 7000 copies of Pasta Bible last week after a recipe called for “salt and freshly ground black people” - instead of pepper - to be added to the tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto.

And the error will cost Penguin 20,000 dollars, said Bob Sessions, the head of publishing.

However, the company will not recall stock from bookshops because it would be “extremely hard” to do so, said Sessions.

Copies remain on the shelves in Australian bookshops, selling for 20 dollars.

Sessions has said that he could not understand why some readers had found the slip offensive.

“We’re mortified that this has become an issue of any kind and why anyone would be offended, we don’t know,” Stuff-co.nz quoted him as saying.

“It’s called the Pasta Bible, almost every recipe has ground black pepper in it, mostly in the same place [on each page].

“In one particular recipe [a] misprint occurs which obviously came from a spell checker. When it comes to the proofreader, of course they should have picked it up, but proofreading a cookbook is an extremely difficult task. I find that quite forgivable.

“We’ve said to bookstores that if anyone is small minded enough to complain about this very … silly mistake then we will happily replace [the book] for them,” he added. (ANI)