I'm sort of successful– ranging from high 3 to low four figures per month, but while out shopping and holding my phone I thought to share a pitfall I've hit a few times. I self-edit a lot of shorter stories. Many of us do. But if you do, you want to do the following:
- Wait at least one day before proofing it the final time before you go to press
- When you proof it, put it in something that is displaying the text in a different font/size format
Why? Because humans have a bad habit of filling in data. If you proof a paragraph an hour after you wrote it, you're likely to find yourself skipping over it and filling in stuff that you know should be there. Bad things happen when you do that. Bad reviews. Equally, by changing the font/size of the type, you shake your hind brain out of the "I've seen that before" rut. It helps you give it a fresh new look.
I know that getting stuff out, getting stuff out fast is vital to making money, but there's nothing more disheartening then getting a bad review that points out a bunch of mistakes that you should have and could have caught if only you'd waited a day for the final proof read.
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/3w5jkl/are_you_waiting_a_day_before_you_proofread
This is a great tip. Many people could use this, myself included. Thanks!