Last week I received my proof copy of Tied. Apart from it being nice to look at and hold, the proof copy has a greater purpose.
Reading a proof copy of my book gives a different experience than reading it in manuscript form or as digital file on a computer screen. There’s something about the tactile nature of it that lets me become a reader, instead of a writer, yet maintain my writer hat. It’s because of being in this different role, I see different things that have been missed when reading my book in other formats.
This is the purpose of the proof. As you can see in the above image, I found lots of things that I’d like to change. Some were small typos that squeaked by the deeper editing passes, but most were changes to words that helped clarify the story points.
I want to be clear that this is not a slight on my editor. She is very good at her job. The simple truth is, with every editing pass, we only pick up on ninety-percent of the errors out there. I’ve still missed ten-percent of what could be caught, but I have to draw the line somewhere.
So I’ll go through again and make some changes. However, with print-on-demand through KDP Print (formerly CreateSpace), if I miss a glaring error, I can still update the digital file on the fly, ensuring that future copies are error free. The process is forgiving, but it’s no reason not to be as error-free as possible.
So order your proof, and mark it up.
