Typos

Having never been traditionally published, I don't know if other authors' mothers and friends come up to them and say,

"Oh, do you want me to let you know when there's a typo?"

"Oh, do you want me to rip your eyes out?"

"No, I don't. But thanks for reading."

I'm actually being quite brave to admit there are typos in my independently published book (I paid the $400, I'm a real book publisher now). Because the demons in my mind immediately jump up and start screaming something fierce about my editing abilities and generally how much I'm worth as a person. There's the stereotype that self-pubbed books are pieces of garbage that are slopped together without any care or feeding, and oh dear God I'm perpetuating it.

Ahem.

The thing about books (all books) is that they're 78,000+ word monstrosities. If you've ever had to proofread a paper, or worse - a power point - you know what I'm talking about. The expectation that your book will ever be perfect is folly. And the expectation that the Editor to wave their magic Edit Wand and make everything perfect is...well...ridiculous.

In Goblet of Fire, the fourth Harry Potter book, there was a HUGE error - not typo, but content-based. At the end of the book, when the Priori Incantatem was regurgitating all of Ol' Voldepant's spells, Our Lady of Scotland, Jo Rowling (praise be to her name) got it wrong.

As written, the order was: Hand, Old Dude, Bertha, James, Lily.

As canon, the order should have been (in reverse order of deaths): Hand, Old Dude, Bertha, Lily, James.

I mean... you do not know the thousands of theories that spun off of this error (WAS HARRY LIED TO ALL THIS TIME!?). Harry Potter fandom in the middle of the book releases was never a good place to be.

But my point is that even Our Lady of Scotland, Jo Rowling (praise be to her name) makes mistakes. And so does Stephen King. So does George R.R. Martin.

So quit picking on mine, and enjoy the damned story already.

I've said this about a billion times, I know, but all of my books have already been written. I haven't actually had a "new" idea in about 15 years, but it's okay, cause there's enough ideas to keep me busy for another 15. Double Life was 75% written when I picked it back up in 2013. I know, because I remember reading it in my Identity and Access Management class and saying, "Gee willackers, this book ain't half bad. I should publish this."

So when I actually got serious about it (a year later), the majority of the work in the book was simply content and grammar edits, with some limited new content.

Editors will tell you that it's impossible to edit your own work. I agree with that with the exception that if there's enough time between writing and editing, you can do a bang-up job yourself (and sometimes I completely forgot that I wrote something the day before and it's brand new!)

That is why I made a conscious decision to NOT go with an Editor for Double Life, only beta readers.


Do I regret that decision?

Maybe a little. My OCD may be quieter if I did.

That being said, Am I going to hire an editor for Alliances?

You bet your sweet fine ass.

Again, the difference is that with DL, it was an edit job, and with Alliances, I'm writing basically the entire thing from scratch. Being so close to the action, and especially with the twisty-turny plot twists that are so awesome in Alliances, I need an extra sixteen set of eyes to help me make it the best book I can make it.

And once that's done, it will go to a copyeditor.