It's quite incredible how a manuscript can be checked umpteen times by four different people - all with proofreading experience to varying degrees, and yet I was still spotting slight errors yesterday afternoon when I was on the point of popping the sheets back in the envelope.
I'm sure there's a good chance that there might be a couple of little things noticed when the corrected sheets come back, but at least I know that as much care as possible has been taken to eliminate them.
The photo proofs arrived last Friday and a good job has been done fitting them in to the two black & white and one colour sections. The most glaring mistake was in one of the photos, taken from The Master of Ballantrae. In the picture, Finola Hughes, Richard Thomas and the young actor who played their son, Alexander, in the drama are all smiling at the camera, but poor Ian has been totally decapitated (he's not even nearly-headless) - you can only see him from the lace ruff down.
I'm sure that the photo will look like this once the proof has been corrected
I look forward to receiving the corrected proofs - and having very little to do except check through them, sign them off, and be one step nearer to having the finished product in my hand.
