This morning, I finished making all of the corrections to Thieves of Fire that were noted by my proofreaders.

This part always makes me a bit nervous because it’s so easy to introduce another error while you’re correcting.

So I go slowly and carefully.

Now comes the fun (to me) part—formatting the interior of the book.

When this is finished, Thieves of Fire will have reached the stage known as “first pages.” In other words, it’s the first time Thieves will assume the shape it will have when it’s finally printed on paper and bound in a cover.

So what’s this final edit all about? I read the entire manuscript aloud, one chapter at a time, as I paste them into InDesign. Once that’s done, I have to let it go.

I think of this last read-aloud as the final smoothing of the words on the page. It’s where I chuck the unnecessary verbiage, making my sentences as lean and readable as I know how.

Readable is the key word here because editing is all about the reader. So is text formatting and cover creation.

All about the reader, first, last and everything in between.

Once this is done, the cover will be finished and it’s off to the printer we go. As soon as I do that (after a few moments of whooping and cheering), I’ll move onto to finishing my next books and continue on the Carding short story series.