Proofread Like a Pro
You’ve taken your manuscript through the editorial process, and it’s finally time to proofread. Simple, right? Just read your book and fix the errors. Then press Publish. Voila! Perfect book.
Except that it’s probably not perfect. Achieving clean copy from cover to cover requires a mammoth amount of effort. And as a professional editor, I’m here to tell you it’s best not to attempt to do it all yourself.
Independent authors preparing to self-publish need a team of proofreaders. Why a team? Because with each proofreader’s edits, you’ll weed out more and more mistakes until hopefully there are none left for the public to find. In the best of worlds, you should line up four or six proofers to assist you.
Here is my process for proofreading along with tips to help ensure the readers who buy your book won’t come across typos or other elusive mistakes.
1. Before you create a page design, print out your book manuscript and proofread it in hardcopy form. You will be amazed by the number of mistakes, flubs, and nits (as one of my author friends calls them) you come across when you proofread the old-fashioned way! Use a red pencil to mark up each page so you don’t miss any corrections when it’s time to transfer changes into the manuscript file.
2. Carefully input the changes into the manuscript file. Take your time and focus on what you’re doing one correction at a time. You don’t want to introduce new mistakes, and it’s very easy to do so.
Make the correction, then read the sentence from beginning to end to ensure no errors have crept in.
3. Create a digital e-book ARC (advance reader copy), and ask volunteers to proofread the book in e-book (page-designed) form. This team of volunteers make up what I call the “proofreading pool.” How many people should be in your pool? As I mentioned earlier, four to six work well, but the more, the merrier applies when it comes to proofreading.
I like to use two or three for one round, then input their changes and send a clean version to two or three more for a second round. But even if you only have one or two volunteers, it's fine; you’ll be in much better shape than you will going it alone.
Using many fresh sets of eyes is important because different readers notice different things.
4. Once the changes from your proofing pool have been input, read the e-book yourself on something other than a computer screen. I use my Kindle Paperwhite and set the font size to medium-large. Once again, reading in a different format will reveal lingering errors.
Read everything from front cover to back, from the Praise pages to the "About the Author" blurb. Check the folios and chapter heads and every design element.
Highlight each error you come across, tap Note, and type in the correction you want to make to the file. When you reach the end of the book, input your changes to the file and generate a print version (if you plan to sell the book in paperback form) or a new version of the e-book.
5. At this point, your book should be in very good shape. Order an advance reader copy in paperback for yourself and one or two more proofreading volunteers. When you receive the corrections from this round, input the changes. If you’ve made many edits, make another paperback ARC and read it again!
At this stage, I continue to proofread and make corrections, then make a new ARC, until I can read the book and find only one or two (or zero) errors and nothing else I want to change. This is how I do it, but you can proofread as many times as you like and stop whenever you feel the book is “done.”
If you use this process, you will hopefully open your newly published book on release day and not come across any surprises by way of misspelled words or theres that should be they’res! Just remember, proofreading seems a lot easier than it is. If you do find an error after publication, it’s okay! Simply make your corrections and upload the new version.
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