Congrats, Authors, if you are at this final stage of getting your book baby to publication (or to the querying agents stage).
Your manuscript has reached the final relay station before completion. Give yourselves (and your beta readers, your arc readers, your editors) a big pat on the back. This is quite an accomplishment.
One step away from glory! Oh, wait! Actually, you are 97% of the way there after PROOFREADING! The remaining 3% includes consistent formatting, book cover design, and printing!
Sadly, many self-publishing service companies advertise that they edit, when technically, what this do is simply proofread. Not that proofreading is as simply as it sounds.
Proofreading specifically evaluates punctuation, spelling, grammar, and internal consistency. The goal of proofreading is to establish a seamless, professional quality manuscript ready and worthy of publication.
Proofreading corrects any final typos, spelling errors, style inconsistencies, and punctuation errors. It points out if a word is capitalized in Chapter 3, but not in Chapter 9. If your book uses references, the proofreader checks references are formatted consistently. If your book uses headings or dividers, the proofreader ensures they are consistently applied throughout the book.
A good proofreader will also check the following:
- Are sentences complete?
- Is there variety in sentence lengths and structure?
- Is punctuation used correctly and consistently?
- Does the manuscript follow writer's style guide, if applicable?
- Does the manuscript follow Chicago Manual of Style (the Book Editor's Bible) guidelines?
- Is punctuation used correctly in dialogue?
- Does dialogue follow natural speech cadence?
- Are speakers clarified with dialogue tags/action beats?
- Is verb tense correct and consistently applied?
- Does the author only use passive voice when appropriate?
Congrats if your book baby is at this stage! You are almost there!
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If your manuscript is ready for that final scrub to polish to a pretty shine, reply to this email or visit my website at https://www.bookmageediting.com for a free consultation to discuss how I can help you.
*** Words of warning: Some authors rely on AI tools such as Grammarly, PerfectIt, and others for this stage. If you do, please go through the changes personally to ensure correctness and consistency or have an editor/proofreader validate the findings of the AI tools. These tools do not understand author's intent or voice and will unnecessarily flag the wrong/inappropriate things, and not flag others that do need correction.***
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