Significance of Great Proofreading for the Independent Publisher.

Wendy’s Newsletter

The Writing Process

Newsletter 10 Thursday April 22^nd  2015

Hello again. Thank you for returning to my Newsletter.

If this is your first time, welcome.


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 Every day produces something new: a new idea, a new approach to writing, to reading, to researching and reviewing. One day we are inspired by someone who turns present day despair about publishing into the personal adventure of independent publishing. Another day we meet  a new contact who urges us to try a new thing …

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 Today - a further note on the importance of good proofreading when you are publishing your own work or are collaborating with colleagues -  as I am - to publish works of fiction.

I had meant to write something about research.  But things have happened here this week to make me add a footnote to the points I made last week about the need for assiduous proofing in the final stage of producing your novel, to ensure that your manuscript is as perfect as it can be before it goes to press.

Three things happened:

A new reader (thank you Christine!) pointed out some proofing omissions in Writing at the Maison Bleue. The great thing is that - now I am in control of my own publishing process - I have been able to go back into the Kindle and the Paperback edition of the novel to make those changes and make it more perfect for my readers.

I was talking about this to my daughter (an experienced professional writer and editor) and she said, ‘Here’s a tip. Don’t give your work to a friend or an acquaintance to proofread because they ‘like to read’. They don’t have your priorities and many of them think that proofing a book is like being a teacher and marking an exercise. And it isn’t.’ She paused and added. ‘An ill-proofed book is the sign of the amateur. Nowadays there are a lot of these around.’

And then, I was talking to a good friend (a successful eminent author) who said her best tip was to start at the end of the book and go backwards in your proofing. ‘This stops you reading on for meaning and ignoring the slips which might be there.’

Chastened, and determined to increase my efficiency in this area, I decided the think further about this proofing problem. In the author press I see advertisements for courses in proofreading, promising work at upwards of £13 an hour. Much as I would like to provide work for deserving people, it has occurred to me, as an independent publisher, that I could not afford these rates for my forthcoming 92,000 word novel The Pathfinder.

Clearly those of us who are going it alone and creating new pathways in publishing have new and stringent responsibilities.

With all this in mind  I was very responsive when into my inbox dropped a name and a service that I decided to investigate. I liked Clive Johnson’s clear and helpful website and we exchanged emails. (He is the professional proofreaders whom I quoted in my last Newsletter).

 I liked his very clear distinctions between proofreading and editing – the different aspects of his service. I liked the fact that he is a writer himself and can take on board the manuscript from the writer’s perspective. I liked his time scale. The work is done on-line, although he can and will work on hard copy. He said that The Pathfinder would take four days.
So the third thing that happened was that - sure enough - four days later his meticulously proofread version of The Pathfinder plopped into my inbox.

Looking at the proofread manuscript I am very happy. This work was clearly worth my investment. He has snagged all the tiny slips (hundreds!) that my writer’s eye had swum over. My mind, crowded with compulsion to edit this quite complicated narrative, had failed to catch on onto these small but imprtatnt things.

In the days when I was much more corporate I complimented my big-publisher editor on the quality of her work. She smiled and said, ‘Well, that’s my job. I could never write a novel as you do. Not in a thousand years.’

Horses for course, you might say! But in these more challenging times for the novelist you might say she has to be able to drive a four-in-hand to get her book to market.

Next time I will write about a novelist's  unique and esoteric approach to research

Happy writing, happy proofing.

Wendy

Link: Clive Johnson.

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