What a day! From the high of receiving my final proofs to the low of seeing two stupid errors to the relief of my PSA saying send the changes in and we’ll fix them.
The spelling of the award Judy received really challenges my brain. I have to check the spelling every single time I see the word, and when I think I finally have it right, it’s wrong! That was error #1. At least it was spelled correctly in the chapter title, but I couldn’t believe somewhere along the line it had become misspelled in the text and I hadn’t caught it earlier. Well, we’re all human, eh? Even me!
So after I decided to let that go and not request iUniverse to fix it, I came across error #2. And this one was truly aggravating. I had asked the proofreader to remove the periods in the degrees after one of the doctor’s names, to be consistent with the style for all the other docs. Hmmm…I’d better back up a little. iUniverse sends you this nifty proof form where you type in the page #, paragraph #, and line #; then the way it looks now; the way you want it to read; and lastly explicit instructions on what you’re changing. You can use the form in Microsoft Word or WordPerfect. Both there programs are very helpful in the same way, that is, they automatically change “(C)” to a copyright symbol. Except I didn’t want a copyright symbol after the degrees, I wanted (C). I changed it back. The program changed it back somewhere along the line, and I missed it. And so that’s what the proofreader did — removed the periods and changed the (C) to a copyright symbol. Arrrrrrggggghhhhhh!
I’ve calmed down now. My PSA, Mike, came to the rescue and arranged to have the changes made with no huge hit on my wallet. So the book is off to production, and the next time I hear from iUniverse, it will be to see the final thing, the actual book. Exciting!!!
