Even editors need an editor by Jason Black

I’ve seen several blogs lately that have talked about the importance to indie authors of finding good editorial help. Chances are, most #Amwriting readers have seen them too. So, rather than cover that same ground here, I thought I’d underscore that message with a personal story.

I have a book coming out this summer (yay!). Naturally, this makes me furiously happy. It also means I have recently gone through the experience of shepherding a manuscript through the production process. It has been a humbling experience.

Act one: Dodging a Bullet

Before turning in the manuscript, I gave it one last line editing pass. As expected, I found a lot of places to tighten up the wording and make things flow better. I had let the manuscript sit for a couple of months, and came back to it with fresh eyes. I saw lots of rough spots in the writing that were invisible to me before.

I found and fixed all manner of typos, grammatical errors, and “editing splinches.” You Harry Potter fans will intuit what those are: the Frankensentence result of trying to smooth out a sentence but leaving the job only partway done.

I turned the manuscript in on time and—as far as I could tell—flawless.

Yes, I know. I’ll wait while you stop laughing.

The publisher proceeded to find no less than 14 other errors in the manuscript. Every day, while they were making the thing all pretty, I’d get two or three e-mails confirming various fixes for typos, missing words, editing splinches, boo-boos in foreign-language dialogue, you name it. While that was going on, one of my beta readers got back to me with some late feedback, identifying three more.

Good grief. So what I thought was flawless still had seventeen mistakes in it—including some embarrassingly bad ones. But at last, the e-mails stopped.

One of the things those recent blogs have pointed out is that readers are getting savvy about—and less forgiving of—errors in the books they buy. As well they should. Readers have every right to expect quality work. Now, we all know nobody’s perfect, and rare is the book that makes it into print with zero flaws sneaking through. That’s ok. We’ll forgive one or two. But I sure as heck wouldn’t call a novel with seventeen errors in it acceptable, and I wouldn’t expect any reader to either.

So, though I was humbled by those seventeen mistakes, I was certainly glad to get them fixed now.

Act two: From Bad to Worse

Four days ago, I received proof copy—on paper—to review one last time. This is my chance to make sure the publisher didn’t leave any chapters out, accidentally duplicate a paragraph, rename my main character, spell my name wrong in the page header. That sort of thing.

By this point, the manuscript had been past me countless times. It had been past several beta readers. It had been past my publisher. Everyone found as much as they could. Guess who it hadn’t been past? A professional proofreader. Guess what I found while reviewing the proof copy?

Twenty-four additional errors. So there weren’t seventeen mistakes in the manuscript I originally turned in, but forty-one! Abysmal. If I published a book with forty-one errors in it, somebody ought to come kicking down my door to revoke my writer’s license. Forty-one. Lordy. At least they, too, are now fixed.

Act three: Lessons Learned

Aside from a smaller ego and a more nuanced understanding of the taste of crow, what do I take away from all this?

One, take your time when editing your work from first draft to final draft. The truth is I rushed that line edit. What I turned in is better written than it was when I started, but honestly, had I taken more time I could have made it better still. While doing that proofreading pass, I saw so many sentences I wanted to go back and make better, but it’s too late for that. Alas, while I can live with them like they are, I also have to live with them like they are. It sucks knowing that I could have done better but didn’t.

Two, even if you’re an editor, hire an editor! I’m an editor myself, but in my rush, I was cocky and didn’t leave myself time to hire a freelance copy editor or proofreader. I thought I could do just fine on my own without one. Well, never again. No matter who you are, you’ll always be too close to your own writing to actually see what’s in it. Fresh eyes that have never seen your book before—even if you think they’re less skilled eyes than your own—will spot things you’ll never catch.

Three, if your book involves characters who speak anything besides your native language, make sure you get a beta reader who is a native speaker of that language, and make sure your publisher has similar expertise available. I don’t speak German, but some of my characters do. There, I did reach out for help. While any errors in the German are still my responsibility, at least on that score I can rest easy knowing I did everything I could to make it be right.

Four, proofread on paper. I’m serious about this one. The reason twenty-four additional errors snuck past all those people was that we were all working on screen. I don’t know why and I don’t know how, but I do know that paper reveals mistakes. Errors have a way of hiding on screen, but on paper they somehow jump off the page and make themselves known. So even if you’re self-publishing and only ever intend to put out an e-book of your novel, you owe it to your readers (and your reputation) to print the thing out and proofread on paper. Yes, it’s a lot of paper. Yes, you’ll use up a lot of ink. But I guarantee, you’ll be glad you did.