The Impossibility of Editing

I have noticed that casebooks, particularly securities casebooks, have a tendency to be poorly edited. All of the following material comes from pages 121-122 of Broker-Dealer Regulation: Cases and Materials, by Thomas Lee Hazen and David L. Ratner:

"As noted above, the SEC does not require registration of intervals who are employed by broker-dealers. In contrast, the NASD (and the states require registration of both firms and most of their individual employees)."

"For example, An owner of a broker-dealer firm or a branch office, must qualify for registration as a principal."

"As of January, 2002, the chief compliance officer of a registered broker-dealer must be registered with the NASD as a principal. NASD."

None of this really keeps me from getting the point, I hope, but it makes already dense material that much harder to read. Mistakes are inevitable, but it's clear that no one read this book to find errors before publishing it. Even a mediocre editor could recognize the errors in the excerpts above.

Why not? My guess, which is perhaps uncharitable, is that it was simply too expensive to hire an editor. When I say "too expensive," I don't mean that you couldn't profitably publish a well-edited securities textbook. I mean that the incentive to publish a well-edited book is insubstantial. After all, the students don't choose which book to read. The professors who do choose the textbooks either don't read them or don't read every new edition. Every dollar spent on editing, then, is a dollar less for everyone else. The annoyance of students just doesn't enter into the equation.