Writing and Editing

I spent the better part of yesterday editing one of my novels that is already in print. A reader complained that the novel was poorly edited. There was one glaring typo in it, which I won't point out in case other readers haven't found it. But the reader also indicated a misuse of the word "there" in place of the word "their."  I went through the manuscript and used the 'find' feature to locate every time the words  "there" and  "their" were written and found they were all used correctly.  So the reader either is unaware of the correct use of the words herself, or she was just being spiteful.

I don't think one typo--which is actually a real word, just not the word it was supposed to be--constitutes horrible editing.  I have a publisher. My books are edited. We try our best not to let anything sneak through the cracks.  That being said, even the best editor  or publisher or writer in the world can miss a word.

Our brains tend to make sense of the words we see on the page, whether they are misspelled or not.  This means it is difficult to make sure that any manuscript is one hundred percent perfect.

So now I am looking back through both of my published novels and trying to make them perfect to have my publisher in effect re-publish them.  I am also working on the third and fourth books in the series, trying to make the story, which was originally going to take place in one book, less complicated by stretching it over two. 

And then I will rewrite, edit, have it edited, and it will be published in two parts, Chocolate City Justice Part One and Part Two. 

And they may not be perfect. A typo just may get through.

Hopefully, my readers will enjoy the story anyway.