Authors Repeating Themselves in Their Books

The topic of authors (like me) repeating themselves while writing their books has been on my mind since I'm revising my next private eye novel. It is part of a series, so the chances of repetition are even greater. This applies to the novel's dialogue, settings, plot devices, and other such things. I read where Sue Grafton keeps thick notebooks of recorded details and information, so she can maintain a freshness to her Alphabet Letter series. Readers running across instances of repetition are probably left with the impression the author is being lazy or careless in the book. Perhaps it is due to the manuscript not receiving the attention it requires during the revision stage. I know I catch different problems (including repetitions) with multiple readings of my long fiction. Even within the same novel, the repetition of phrases or expressions drives readers to distraction. I used to run a program that counted up the number of times each word was used in my manuscript, and that was helpful as well as an eye-opener. I should dig out the program from where it resides on an old computer.