This week I received from the printers my proof copy of “Trousers” in paperback. The moment of joy at having my own book in my hands was soon over though when I spotted the errors on the back cover. Now these are mine as I had used a precis of an existing piece with some changes to tense, but had failed to carry the changes through fully. Easily fixed though.
What is taking time, and has upset me more, is that I had employed an editor to review the text before if was passed to Kindle. They had been recommended to me and had suggested some changes and corrected some spelling all of which gave me confidence that they had found the things that I had missed, and it was this text that was supplied to the printer for the paperback edition.
I have therefore been horrified to find that that text is riddled with errors; grammar, spelling, tense and orphan words where an edit has not been tidied up. I am about half way through reading it slowly and carefully with the aim of putting things right as I can’t afford to pay for another edit at this stage. All being well I will be able to revise the Kindle edition and the paperback at the same time.
Another lesson learned the hard way. I shan’t be using that editor again, but will be on the look out for one to take on my next two books, both of which are coming along, albeit the pace of writing has slowed as my primary source of income is placing demands on my time.
So writing is still a joy, but the hard work that I mentioned last time still applies; throwing words onto paper is not necessarily that hard, but the effort that needs to be put in to polish these into coherent sentences and paragraphs, to ensure balance and pace and all of the other things that go into good writing all take time and effort.
The Voice of the Bloke at the Back 