people's mind vs people's minds?

Question

Recently I was reading a book entitled "50 Tips to Read People’s Mind". Somewhere in the book, the writer says:

These men do the seemingly impossible when they appear to be reading people's minds, often to a point of exactitude that confuses and even frightens.

I've always had problems with plural possessive nouns! I know this question might seem repetitive, but the answers I've found for similar questions were never satisfactory to me, especially when I came across this particular example. Why did the writer in the example above use both "people's mind" and "people's minds"? How are they different?

I know it's more common to say "reading people's minds" than "reading people's mind", but a search on google news and google books shows that the latter is not uncommon at all.

Answer 1

Since we don't all share one mind, minds is correct.

It's possible that the editor was just sloppy. But it's more likely that the editor succeeded in correcting the text inside but lost the argument with the author about the incorrect title.

(Not that I can read their mind. Uh — minds.)