Indie Publishing Secrets Revealed - Copy Edits

Is there such a thing as an error free first edition?

I've never seen it.

With that being said, I can't stress how important it is to get a great copy editor. In fact, you might need two. For Protected, I'm actually using three.

Why?
Well, I'm not very good at editing-especially when I've made a thousand changes during plot editing. I get to a point where I can't see the problems. I'm too focused on the story itself.

So, after I get all my plot edits done, I give it to a couple of English geniuses to help me fix the copy errors they see. After I fix those things, I send it to a paid copy editor. Yes, it costs money, but it is worth it.

Because she finds so many errors (especially commas. I love them and use them way too often), after I fix all the mistakes she finds, I send it to another English wiz to catch anything my copy-editor missed.  It's easy to miss things when there is a sea of mistakes.

I'm happy to say, that she didn't find many this go around. Yay!

Then, after it's published, I wait for my fans to tell me about errors that still remain. Yep. After all that, some mistakes still linger.

You might be thinking that I don't have a good editor. Well, it simply isn't true. In fact, there isn't one author I've talked to about editing who hasn't told me their editors, no matter how amazing or how expensive, miss things. It happens. So be prepared.

I happen to know some awesome copy-editors that are honest and very competitively priced. Check them out.
1. Tristi Pinkston  
In fact, you could win a 250 page evaluation from Tristi by signing up to attend a cool workshop THIS coming Saturday, January 21st. No joke. Sign up here. That'll save you a lot of dough!

2. Precision Editing Group

Have you ever read a book that had no errors? Not a single one? If so, what was it?