A Publisher's Conversation with Authors: Common Errors Found by Copyeditors
(photo by Frank Perez) Today is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic is about errors typically found by copyeditors. Some of them will not be picked up by spellcheckers. Avoid these to impress acquisition editors. Word Choice. The words that you use portray a picture of you as an author. The most successful authors choose their words well. The verb to be i s not your best friend, but when you read the manuscripts of many authors who would like a publishing contract, you wonder if they know any other verbs at all. Linking verbs provide no action, no definition, no story. They just connect two nouns, making the sentence static. Replace all the link