Proof Reading

I dread proof reading have never been good at proof reading my own work, but when you are self publishing on a shoe string like I am, you need to get good at it.

I just finished proofing the hard copy of my second Aledan novel Journey of the Searching Star that I am preparing to go live on CreateSpace. When I revised the manuscript last year, I only had a hard copy of the manuscript that I could use.  So I used the Windows voice recognition program to dictate it into the computer. Years of keyboarding on the job and for my writing have resulted in repetitive stress injuries to my hands.

Reading aloud from the manuscript meant I was not looking at the screen, so I missed a lot of wrong words that sounded like what I was saying. Spell checker does not catch those kind of mistakes. Even though I proofed the manuscript two times, I still didn't discover all of them as I learned this time through the hard copy proof of the book. I found many more typos and wrong words than I ever expected---to my chagrin.

However, I find I am not alone in the quest for an error free manuscript. I have found numerous typos in books by far more successful authors than I. When possible, it is especially helpful to have someone else proof your work because it's much easier to find simple errors in works that are not your own.

That said, the best way for me to do it is to read it as though I'm reading it aloud one word at a time. It's not fool proof, but it helps.

Because of the numerous errors in the second Aledan novel I will be re-editing the rest of the series and releasing new editions of each as well as the box set. Anyone who bought it previously should be able to access the revised editions.

Chris Myers

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