OH MY. I’m seeing that learning can be quite an embarrassing experience. What I thought was a polished manuscript of my second ever published book, I have discovered recently that it was not polished. What I thought was so professionally edited…twice, it was not. But what did I know then? Learning can be quite painful.
Okay, here’s the whole story. I finished Threatened Loyalties manuscript, thinking it was delightful and very well written, and I sent it off an editing company whom I trusted to read each word. After all, this editing company were published authors themselves and successful. And I had paid for their services as they demanded of their other satisfied customers.
Yes, I made the corrections. or so I thought, or so I believed that, if they said it was fine…it was fine. In fact, Threatened Loyalties had been professionally edited even before they had edited it and before it was proofed and before I published it.
Now, I’m going through this story yet again and do not like what I”m finding. It was NOT as well edited, by them or by me. Editing and correcting is far more challenging that I thought….then. And over time and with practice, you do develop professionally and see things better. You say things better. Well, you just write better and hopefully edit better.
My lesson to share with all new writers is don’t trust that your manuscript is right just because it was professionally edited. Reread every line before publishing. Read it aloud. Have others read it before editing, after editing. I’m even scared now that I’ll miss something before sending Threatened Loyalties back for reformatting and republishing. This is going to take a while.
Have you ever had this or some other learning experience with your books as me? Do you have any advice on how to polish a manuscript to perfection? I’d love to hear about it and thanks for the help.
