Things happen in publishing, as in life, over which you have no control. Being a writer truly is a faith walk. There are days, many of them, that I thank God for the day job. Even though I know it’s only an illusion, I feel that the day job is more under my control. Of course, it’s not. Both jobs are faith walks and I have to remind myself of that everyday.

The good news is that this snafu did not end my career, and readers like Rhonda still enjoyed the book. Thanks so much, Rhonda, for sharing that. It did get one bad review that I can remember, but then I try to block bad reviews from my memory.

Gayla, welcome to blog land, I think this is your first post, but I hope it’s not your last.

Sigrun, I do have a copy of the changed manuscript. It’s in a priority mail envelope. After the snafu I mailed a copy to myself. I’m not quite sure why at this moment, but I must have had a good reason.

Marilynn, I wonder how many writers don’t read their books after publication? I know of several who do because they call me and tell me how much they enjoyed their own books! Now I don’t think I could ever be that objective about my own work. What about you?

I can understand how horrified you must have felt to read a completely different story from the one that you ended up submitting. You really wonder how that could happen. Now when I read a book that has a lot of mistakes in it, I’ll definitely cut the author some slack. When I talked to an author at the only RT Conference I went to because it was in Toronto, I spoke to one writer about a certain mistake. She told me that she had it correct the first time she sent in the manuscript. Each time she got it back, it was wrong. Though she corrected it every time, the publishing staff thought they knew better and it was finally published with the mistake.

Since that is 7-odd years ago, I can’t recall the mistake for certain, though I think it may have been that an engaged female is fiancée and not a fiancé.

It’s very enlightening to read about the publishing path. Thanks for sharing with us, Angela. I wonder in how many other cases the editor or someone on staff doesn’t know the correct expression and thus makes the author look bad. I’ll definitely be more lenient in my thinking. “There’s many a slip ‘tween cup and lip.” And it seems that there’s many a mistake between writer and published work.

I am enjoying hearing about your publishing journey. I don’t read my published books either. LOL