No one is perfect. Not even me.
I say this to emphasize the importance of proper editing/proofreading. Anyone who has picked up an indie published books has likely found errors while reading. Such errors intrupt the flo of the story and genrally make me wence. They ned to be avoided if at al possible.
Each of us thinks we have a great command of the language and can find our own errors, and that's true to some extent. I can read over a first draft and find approximately 95% of my mistakes...but 95% isn't 100%, and that's where the rub lies. Missing mistakes causes us to publish books with errors, and these errors not only interrupt the story's flow, but they hurt our reputation as authors.
To my shame, I've published with errors. Akeldama in particular was beset by a number of errors, one of which was so egregious that I still haven't come to terms with it. I got the permission of a pretty famous restaurant in LA to use their name in my novel, and I misspelled it! Not only that, but I sent them a copy of it before I realized my mistake. They never called me on it, but I also doubt they displayed the book like I'd hoped. I've long since corrected it, but I have yet to work up the courage to send them an updated copy.
This isn't only a newbie problem. One Second After by William Fortschen constantly uses "would of" in place of "would've." I don't know if this is because Fortschen didn't know the difference, or if he figured it out and never fixed it, but it stands out to me whenever I read this otherwise good novel.
So what do we do? There's the obvious first step - don't publish work with errors. Hire someone to proofread/edit your book so these errors don't make it to publication. However, if they slip through, how do we handle them? Do we quietly correct them and issue a new edition? Do we trumpet that new edition? Do we let it go and pretend it never happened in the first place?
Publishing with errors is embarrassing. Overcoming it is a challenge, no matter what direction we go in. What direction do you choose?
I say this to emphasize the importance of proper editing/proofreading. Anyone who has picked up an indie published books has likely found errors while reading. Such errors intrupt the flo of the story and genrally make me wence. They ned to be avoided if at al possible.
Each of us thinks we have a great command of the language and can find our own errors, and that's true to some extent. I can read over a first draft and find approximately 95% of my mistakes...but 95% isn't 100%, and that's where the rub lies. Missing mistakes causes us to publish books with errors, and these errors not only interrupt the story's flow, but they hurt our reputation as authors.
To my shame, I've published with errors. Akeldama in particular was beset by a number of errors, one of which was so egregious that I still haven't come to terms with it. I got the permission of a pretty famous restaurant in LA to use their name in my novel, and I misspelled it! Not only that, but I sent them a copy of it before I realized my mistake. They never called me on it, but I also doubt they displayed the book like I'd hoped. I've long since corrected it, but I have yet to work up the courage to send them an updated copy.
This isn't only a newbie problem. One Second After by William Fortschen constantly uses "would of" in place of "would've." I don't know if this is because Fortschen didn't know the difference, or if he figured it out and never fixed it, but it stands out to me whenever I read this otherwise good novel.
So what do we do? There's the obvious first step - don't publish work with errors. Hire someone to proofread/edit your book so these errors don't make it to publication. However, if they slip through, how do we handle them? Do we quietly correct them and issue a new edition? Do we trumpet that new edition? Do we let it go and pretend it never happened in the first place?
Publishing with errors is embarrassing. Overcoming it is a challenge, no matter what direction we go in. What direction do you choose?
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