Lesson Number 1: When your blog post has links, check each link before publishing.

I’m thinking you don’t need details to imagine how this lesson came to be.

Lesson Number 2: Do not rely on Pages‘ spell- or grammar-checker.

I much prefer Apple’s word-processing software, Pages, to Microsoft Word. But then I hate Word and avoid it whenever I can. Thus it grieves me to report that Word could be superior to Pages in any way. But here is one way. A big way!

When I prepared my psychological thriller, WAS IT A RAT I SAW, for serialization on this blog, I did the typing in Pages. I did the spellchecking in Pages. I copied each serial chapter from Pages. However, to prepare the book for e-publication on Smashwords, I had to move the manuscript into Word. It was then that I discovered the typos. In well nigh every chapter.

Typos! Everywhere!

I so hate typos. I assume my readers do too. Fortunately, none of these typos changed meanings, but that is limited consolation.

For those of you who read RAT in serial, mea culpa and lo siento. I hope I can make it up to you. Come back tomorrow – the next post here will detail how to get a free e-copy of RAT with all those typos corrected.

Mind you I’m not saying it’s typo free. That’s a promise I can’t make and I’m not alone.  I can’t remember the last time I read a book that had a zero typo count.  In defense of current typo standards:  I was stunned at how many typos I found in the old hardcover version of WAS IT A RAT I SAW, which I re-visited to serialize. As I recall, the Bantam-Doubleday-Dell copy editor and I spent 37 months in proof-reading before that edition was finalized. At the time, I thought no typos had escaped scrutiny. I was wrong.