Although pudding is more enjoyable, proofing is an important aspect of writing and publishing a book.
I don’t know about you, but I find proofing my own work dreadful. But that’s OK, because I decided early on that I was going to hire a professional to proof my book so it would be in tip-top shape.
Of course, before I handed the book over to the proofreader’s capable hands (her name is Kathy Watson, the Ruthless Editor), I proofed the book myself — which was proof #1.
Then Kathy spent hour-upon-hour pouring through chapter-after-chapter of A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing before delivering the book back to me (Proof #2).
But that wasn’t enough.
Turns out it takes many proofing sessions to catch every typo, grammar error, and occasional sentence that just doesn’t make sense, in a book — especially when it’s pushing 400 pages long.
So I had another person proof the book (thanks Eric), someone who is in marketing and much smarter than me (Proof #3). And I’m actually in the midst of the (hopefully) final proof myself before we go to press — which is Proof #4.
As you can see, the point of this article is that you’ve got to proof the heck out of your book before you launch it!
The flip side of this is that you do actually have to launch the book at some point. It’s true that you can’t go on proofing forever. And there will probably still be mistakes. But it’s a good idea to mitigate as many errors as possible by having your book proofed many times.
That’s why the proof is in the proof!
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