My Manuscript’s Ready For Publishing — Don’t Change A Word

“Before I give you my manuscript, I must tell you; It’s ready for publishing the way I want it published. Don’t change even one word.”

“Well, LaVon (not her real name), let’s take a look.”

A cursory review of the first three pages quickly revealed way more errors necessary to convince me that LaVon’s manuscript was far from perfect for publishing.

For reasons unknown to me, once one error is pointed out, others pop off the page.

It’s like killing mosquitos. If you kill one, two come to the funeral.

So it was with LaVon. Once she recognized some of the mistakes in the first three pages. she quickly found the same error on other pages.

Humbly picking up her not perfect for publishing manuscript, LaVon departed my office. “I’ll be back when my book’s ready to be published.

More than a year later, LaVon returned with her cleaned-up manuscript ready for publishing.

After our publishing review committee looked at her manuscript, we decided LaVon was correct — her book was ready for publishing, and we issued her a contract.

That was more than ten years ago. We’ve published eleven books written by LaVon. She’s a better author than the one who submitted the perfect for publishing manuscript.

Her last manuscript was nearly perfect for publishing.