I format books for ebook and print distribution for my clients. I finished up two books for one of my clients recently and prepared to upload them to the various distribution channels.
I was doing a final check of the book, and noticed that some of the chapters were missing the initial drop cap letter at the beginning of the chapters. Back to the formatting program to get them corrected.
I compiled the book again and checked it a second time. As I was going through I found one chapter that I’d missed changing the closing quotation marks at the end of each bit of dialogue. Back again to the formatting program.
After another compilation and going through to check that the quote marks were correct I found a spot that was missing closing quote marks completely. You guessed it. Back to formatting and compilation again.
The fourth time through the book I didn’t find any more errors. I’m trusting that I have caught everything at this point. I’ve already been through the book several times with a fine-toothed comb, getting all the typos, punctuation and other errors. Just goes to show you that even though you’ve done a thorough job the first three times around, you can still miss the small nitpicky things.
Being a perfectionist in such cases is a Good Thing(tm). Making the effort to go that little extra distance is worth it. I want my clients to be happy with my work so they will say nice things about it to their friends. Hopefully those friends will become clients in the future. The client I completed the two books for came in from a referral their friend gave them.
Of course, no matter how many times you go over things, some mistakes might slip through. Such is the nature of Life. I know I’ve made posts recently that have had mistakes. I guess if nothing else it shows that I’m human and not an AI making these posts. The new wireless keyboard I got doesn’t always put the letters I type on the screen. I have to go through and try to catch the mistakes. It doesn’t always happen before I send out a missive. At least if I make a mistake in the related blog post I can correct it when I find the error.
In the end, my Hordeling, the best you can do is the best you can do. Just be aware that your best might still have mistakes. Just do your best to correct them when you find them.
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