One of my fans surprised me a while back. She offered to correct a few of the errors in one of my books. I suspected that a few errors had slipped by, something that I actually dread, but really, how many could there be? Since my fan offered to do the edit for free, how could I turn her down?
I contacted my fan, Mary Anne, and let her know I was interested. Within a remarkably short period of time, she returned a detailed list of where and what the error was, what she recommended as a correction, and in some cases a note to explain why she thought it was an error.
I was surprised at the number of errors she had found. They were the kind of errors that spell-checker would never find, errors that were easy for someone who is way too familiar with the content to overlook. What wasn’t included were errors that I had deliberately made – manners of speech, dialect, words that a particular character might use, contractions that we use in speech but not in writing.
I was very pleased with the result.
I was pleased to learn that Mary Anne was pursuing the copy-editing career full time. She has a website – FourPennyPages.com – where you can learn more about her services. I highly recommend her for your proof-reading needs. And trust me, even if you don’t think you need her help, you do.
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