| | In the spirit of the season, self-publishing authors can certainly relate to this frightening scene of doom and gloom: Receiving boxes of books from the printer only to discover a glaring typo. After countless hours of editing and revising the document, followed by editing and revising the proof, followed by another blue-line final, how do errors survive?
In fact, it often seems that the more glaring and obvious the mistakes are, the easier they are to miss. At Outskirts Press, we provide turn key publishing services for between 10-20 self-publishing authors a month and we've seen it all. One of our authors misspelled her title! (Hey, it was a BIG word, and we caught it in time for her).
No matter what editing procedures you undertake, mistakes happen. Employing these 5 methods, however, can drastically decrease the chances of mistakes finding their way into your published book.
1. Employ an editing service. The most common mistakes are minor-- incorrectly used words (their, they're, there), and simple misspellings. Outskirts Press offers basic editing services for our authors charged at $.014 per word. Many other CIPA associate members offer similar services. You can locate a full listing here: http://cipabooks.com/associates/editing.htm
2. Get a second (and third) set of eyes. Even if you don't wish to pay a professional, anyone who reviews your document will find mistakes you invariably miss. It's a function of the brain called cerbrainiumitis. Okay, I made that up--but the truth is, you're much more familiar with your manuscript than anyone else, and as a result, apt to miss obvious mistakes simply because your eyes glaze over them.
3. Read your manuscript backwards. Backwards reading is the antidote to cerbrainiumitis because a critical view of the English language cannot be corrupted by the flowing exposition you've massaged into sparkling prose. When you read your manuscript backwards, it's just a bunch of words, and those mistakes literally jump off the page.
4. Read your manuscript out loud. When you're forced to say the words, rather than just think and read them, it forces your brain to slow down and concentrate on the material. Bonus--you may discover stumbling blocks like awkward sentence structures and choppy dialogue when hearing your book read aloud.
5. Make the nightmares go away. When you deliver the final print-ready document to the printer, that's when the ghastly nightmares begin. Undotted I's; uncrossed T's; dangling particles when you wanted dangling participles. What do you do when that 5,000 print run costs $10,000 and features a grave error that cannot be dismissed? With vanity printers, your best recourse typically is a sticker and a sense of humor. But with Publishing on Demand companies like Outskirts Press, your nightmares become extinct. For one, you don't have to order thousands of copies in advance, so you'’re not stuck with boxes of blunders. Secondly, if you see an error, you can fix it for subsequent printings for just $99. We call it our Revision Service, and it provides all self-published authors with something to be thankful for. Oops, jumping ahead to the next holiday! Have a safe and happy Halloween, everyone.
Brent Sampson is the president and CEO of Outskirts Press, Inc., the gem of quality book publishing offering turnkey publishing services like single ISBNs, Library of Congress Numbers, worldwide distribution, and more. Learn more at http://www.OutskirtsPress.com
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