This has got to be one of the most useful articles I’ve read lately, and it’s no surprise it appeared on Molly Greene’s blog. All writers want to submit a clean(ish) manuscript to their editor or proofreader, especially if they charge by the hour, but there are pesky errors that wiggle their way into every single page, of the kind that we tend to develop a blindness to. So, if you think that you’ve done an ace job cleaning up your manuscript, use Molly’s checklist and see what else you’ll weed out. Because some weeding you’ll do. Has anyone scrolled down with the pilcrow enabled? Anyone?

MM Jaye

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Save $$ With A Manuscript Proof Checklist

Does your proofreader charge by the hour? If the answer is yes, you may be able to reduce your bill by taking steps to find and repair basic typo-type errors that slip by during the editing phase. Let’s face it, when we’ve read a (fiction or non-fiction!) manuscript a thousand times, we miss a lot. This is my basic run-through before I send my baby to beta readers, then again before I submit for the final proof.

Um, bad news, it’s a manual process. It can be time-consuming. You’re going to hate it. It offers the best payback when you scroll through your document several times, focusing on one type of problem with each pass. But good news, it works! Use this as a template to create your own proofreading checklist. Note: Before you begin, you might want to make a copy of your mss and rename it to retain the previous version.

Read the rest of the article on Molly’s Blog and do NOT neglect to read the comments’ section! Great tips there too!