Writing a book is hard. There aren’t many people who would argue against that statement. Editing a book, on the other hand, can be a whole ‘nother level of difficulty that can drive us authors insane as we chase perfectionism, if we let it.

The ultimate truth, though, is that besides the Bible, no book is perfect. Including ours. And that’s okay. It’s perfectly normal.

Perfection Doesn’t Derive from a Publishing Route, Nor from Dozens of Eyes on a Work

Indie/self-publishing carries a bad reputation for publishing books that are “riddled with careless errors”. This is true for some Indie books I’ve read (i.e. not italicizing movie titles or failing to do a quick search online to make sure items mentioned in the book are historically accurate), but what many people in the bookish community fail to realize is that traditional publishers are also guilty of regularly making editing mistakes.

While I won’t reveal the name of the book, a few years ago there was a critically acclaimed traditionally published novel that made the error of portraying a town in the western part of my state as being closer to the eastern side. It was a glaringly obvious mistake to me, as I knew there was a multiple-hour driving distance between the two locations, but the detail somehow escaped notice of the book’s author, editors, and eventually the screenwriters and producers of the book’s film adaptation! There have also been several instances of typos in traditionally published books from one of my all-time favorite authors who has been writing books for 20+ years and has heaps of people working alongside them to “perfect” their work before publishing.

What I’ve come to learn in my seven years of being an Indie author, and in my thirteen years of being an avid reader, is that even if a work of fiction has multiple eyes on it, scouring the work for any potential errors, something will be missed. Perfection, my friend, does not derive from a publishing route. In fact, it’s not attainable at all! All Indie and traditionally published works are subject to inconsistencies, grammatical errors, overlooked typos, and formatting mistakes, and no matter how hard we try, there’s no possible way to catch and remedy all of them before a book hits the shelves. Because even with all those eyes on the work, no one will be able to catch those pesky mistakes… until after the book is printed and in the hands of readers. True story. 😛

So, if you’re like me and have been editing your book(s) relentlessly, aiming to publish a book free or any and all errors so that you can either 1) prove all those naysayers wrong about Indie publishing or 2) live up to the impossible standard readers often hold trad pub books to… take a deep breath and accept the fact that no book is perfect… and yours won’t be either.

This realization doesn’t give us a free pass to publish half-baked stories, but instead the grace to realize when we’ve done as much as we can to make the story shine and know it’s ready to be released into the world.

Talk to Me, Arrowheads!

If you’re an author, how do you know when your book is ready to be published? Are you the type to relentlessly edit your work, or do you know when to quit? 🙂

If you’re a reader, please know that while we are striving to produce the best books we can, we’re still human and prone to making mistakes sometimes. No book is perfect, and that’s perfectly normal. 🙂

Aim high, stay strong, and always hit your mark.

-Allyson 😀