It's Ok If It's Not PERFECT

 


You have heard the saying that nobody is perfect. And I believe that to be true. I also don’t think there is one perfect book out there. Even if everything is spelled correctly and there are no grammatical errors, there might be a few spacing errors or sentences that should be a different paragraph, and so on. I’m not saying this to be discouraging; I am saying it to be encouraging.

As an editor and a publisher, some of my clients have expressed concern over things like it looking like an extra space between words or they don’t believe a comma should be in a certain place. I want my clients to trust me, and I understand they want perfection or as close to perfection as they can get.

Even books that are “best sellers,” you may find mistakes in them, whether it’s in editing or formatting. I am not saying mistakes are a good thing, but I am saying there’s nothing to fret over. You definitely don’t want to put a book out there that has not been properly edited and proofread, but if you hire a professional to do those services and there still ends up being a mistake or two, or even four or five, don’t “lose it.” It happens.

More than likely, most people are not even going to notice. And if people do notice, well, that’s their problem if they don’t like it. I know that sounds harsh, but I have dealt with criticism in my own published books because I am an editor and I am expected to be perfect.

I actually had one woman give a not-so-nice review because she found some mistakes in one of my books. The funny thing is that book was published through a different platform, and unfortunately, I uploaded the wrong file that was not the final proofed version. When I went back to find the final copy, I read through it and found two small errors. It’s a shame she wrote that review, but I don’t mind owning it when I make mistakes, whether it’s uploading the wrong file or uploading the correct file with mistakes.

I am currently reading a book by an “international bestseller,” and there have been a couple mistakes—missing quotation marks at the end of dialogue a couple times and a few comma errors. Like I said, it can happen, and it’s not a big deal. Even the best writers have mistakes in their books. Stephen King’s books are well-known for having some mistakes. This book, however, has a big mistake on the inside front where it gives the description. It names the two characters who find a dead body, and the male character they name is incorrect. It’s not that particular character. It’s his brother. I would think that someone would bring that to someone’s attention so the publisher could fix it because that kind of thing is a big deal.

But like I said, we make mistakes. Your goal should be to publish a book that is professionally edited and proofread, but also to keep the attention of your readers and get them wanting more. So don’t stress, because unfortunately mistakes are made, but that doesn’t mean the editor, proofreader, or even the author is bad at what they do. It’s just something that happens. We are all humans, and we err.

I read a very good post by MK Williams about this. You can view it here: https://1mkwilliams.com/2022/05/25/what-to-do-if-you-find-a-typo-in-your-book-self-publishing-question-2022-fix-a-typo-in-book/


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