The magic of editing

cj Sez: I'm sure I've told you this before, but the story never gets old. Did you ever open a book, read a few chapters (oreven a few lines), then discover errata, i.e.; those typos and misspellingsthat drive a pedantic like me up a wall. One or two will make me shake my head;gremlins happen. A lot of them will stop me in my tracks.
  Perhaps it comes down to the time it takes to do a detailedcopy edit vs. getting the book on the market as fast as possible.
(Copy editing is the process of reviewing and correctingwritten material to improve accuracy, readability, and fitness for its purpose,and to ensure that it is free of error, omission, inconsistency, andrepetition.)
  Speaking from experience, self-edits and beta readers don’tcatch everything that a professional copy editor will.
  When I was gainfully employed, one of myreport/column-writing rules was to get as many people as possible to read thedocument for accuracy and gremlins. The more eyes on it the better the endproduct. That wasn’t easy to do as I was always on the clock to deliver the corporation’snews via electronic distribution by eleven a.m. every day, and reading my workwasn’t on the top of someone else’s to-do list.
  That bit about the more eyes? The same thing is true for anauthor’s manuscript. But first, I, me, personally, do extensive self-edits. I wantmy manuscript to be the best I can make it before I pass it off to someone else. 
  I read the document on the computer screen then print a few pages and edit themin ink. (The font looks slightly different on the printed page and gremlinstend to show up better.) 
  Next I read the pages out loud. It’s amazing howquickly I’ll find the missing comma, period, or quotation mark that I keepoverlooking, and, more importantly, I’ll also discover confusing narrative andawkward dialogue. 
  After all that, I can be sure there is still a gremlin to befound by my editor.
  My advice to authors: Don’t presume that because you’vetyped “The End,” your manuscript is finished. It’s probably weeks if not monthsaway from publication. It needs fresh eyes. It’s a personal and financialconsideration for each author, but please consider hiring a copy editor if youcan afford it.  

  Caveat: Expect that if your manuscript is accepted by apublisher, their punctuation rules for how they want their publication to lookmay differ from your copy editor’s input. There could be, probably will be, morechanges to be made.
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  Okay, that’s it fortoday. You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same. Raisingprayers for a happy and safe you and yours. P.S. I sure do hope there are no gremlins in this post.)

cj
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➜ Follow me on        ➜ Amazon:    AmazonCentral Author Page➜ Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/CjPettersonAuthor➜ BookBub:   https://www.bookbub.com/authors/cj-petterson➜ Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3fcN3h6