Proof-reading, an underestimated profession

 If you follow my blog, you will know that every now and again I do come up with some controversial posts. Their purpose is to make people think, consider different angles on one subject. Today, I'd like to write about proof-reading due to a recent appeal from a self-published author who received reviews saying his books are in dire need of it. Several people have kindly volunteered to help him out, but do they really know what their job will be? Do they actually have the knowledge needed to proof-read a book? Many will pipe up saying they are good at it, but only few really are. It's an underestimated profession which demands a keen eye on detail; it's exhausting because you have to concentrate. And: you're the last one going through a manuscript and therefore will be judged based on the cleaniness of the book.

Proof-reading is not only correcting a few typos, I think that almost everyone can do; proof-reading is correcting grammar, punctuation (including dialogue attributes), it's looking out for inconsistencies, meaning that the spelling of a character's name, for example, is always the same. Very important in fantasy, where you have made-up names and places. A good proof-reader will find every single stray comma, spaces, misplaced/wrong quotes, correct apostrophes and semi-colons, find missing indents and paragraphs. They will go through your ms with a fine tooth comb and erase all errors that might distract a future reader.

I would suggest to look at someone's e-mails, posts or websites, to see how their writing is, if you find errors, steer clear, if the person starts out newly, like the one above, test them. Let them proof-read the first few pages or even the first chapter of your novel. Then go through it slowly yourself or ask a friend to check if the services has found all of the errors. If yes, you can go ahead. If not, thank them and find someone else. Always remember, your author name is a brand and if you put out an error-riddled book, you'll have to do a lot of damage control and I speak from experience. Finding the right proof-reader is difficult and the work-relationship is based on trust. Your novel is your baby, take good care of it.

Another word of warning: proof-reading is the last step in the whole process. Please make sure your novel has been edited beforehand or you have to pay twice.

Boy was I in for a shock!

If you're following my blog, you are aware of my opinion about making your book as good as possible and don't publish before you have been through editing and proofing several times. I've been banging on about my book being spotless -- I'm a perfectionist and not to practice what I preach would make me a big fat hypocrite, wouldn't it? Yes. Now I've had three people telling me that my novel No Wings Attached is riddled with awkward sentences that don't make sense on top of the usual errors (spelling, typos, etc.). I was gutted! Of course I was, because I know my grammar needs attention, hence I asked around who can help me smoothing out my Germish, as I call it lovingly. I'm writing in second language and though I'm pretty good, it's far from perfect. I know I need someone native who fixes the syntax. And of course, after correcting the corrections, I know I need someone to pick up the errors that sneak in when you take a sentence apart, add words, delete others, etc., plus the usual errors like quotes, commas, spelling and punctuation. So I've had help for both, but when I received that review, I was in for a shock and quite frankly I was more than annoyed.
Please don't understand this as a post to blame, it's not. It's about my experience and to share what I've learned and what I would advise others, especially if you write in second language. I'm extremely lucky to have friends who kindly offered to help me, both natives and absolutely wonderful people. The first went through my book eliminating my Germish, she told me I would need someone to go through the book afterwards, to which I replied, yes, I've got someone who will do that. The mistake I made was to assume she's done ALL the syntax/odd phrasing, which she didn't. That had a snowball-effect: I went to the next person and said, please only look at spelling or typos, missed commas, etc. A clear instruction which she followed. After that was done, I went through the ms in a 7-hour-session and found some more things (missed quotes, capital/lower cases, spaces, etc.) Then, I was sure the book's perfect. But one reader, a German friend, found about twenty more things, which I gratefully accepted and corrected. Finally, I thought, my novel is error free!

As the recent review shows, it's not, the reviewer said, "as there were a lot of spelling and grammatical errors. If I weren't reading it on a Kindle, I would have taken a red pen to it myself. The phrasing and conversation structure was awkward". I first assumed it's the BE spelling, which concerns a lot of Americans, but after checking with her, that was not the case. I wasn't very happy as you can imagine, neither was I about the 'editor' comment, since I'm only editing plot, pace, voice, characters and steer well clear from grammar, except dialogue attributes or the odd comma, for the obvious reasons. I will explain the process of publishing, editors, proof-reading, etc in a different post as there are still some misconceptions of who is doing what.

After I've re-gained my calm, I'm working with another friend on the issue. This time, I made very clear what I wanted/needed. Since I'm writing in second language I can't control things as I could with editing. I have to trust blindly. If I cook a bolognese and ask someone else to season it, I would be able to say if it's overly salted or needs a bit more. That, I can't do with English. If I knew how it's done correctly, I would've done it myself. What I'm trying to say is to be clear with people, tell them what you want, ask them what they have done and where they think it needs more work. I don't support the need for a professional editor/proof-reader for those things, every educated native English person is able to pick up on awkward sentence structures. I know this because I've done that the other way round. But please make sure you get your book double checked, either by another beta-reader or another friend. And if you have someone who's really good with grammar and knows something about dialogue attributes, that's enough, too.

One person said, just put a note on the book that it's written in second language, which I argued against. I'm trying to sell my book for hard money, and that's not the solution. Same goes for the comment another person made, "What are they complaining about? They paid a low price," to which I argued, that's no excuse! As soon as I sell a book it has to be free of errors. I want my readers to enjoy the story and not to feel tempted to pull out a red pen -- let alone the effect it has on my reputation. For the time being, I've stopped promoting No Wings Attached as I'm rather embarrassed about the whole situation. I can't unpublish it without losing all the reviews; readers love the story, the characters, the romance and the twists and turns. I think I can call myself lucky that someone had the heart to point out the mistakes so I can fix them and give readers the reading experience they deserve: being lost in a world I created witout being pulled out of it by errors.