- If you are using Microsoft Word, please set the English to UK or US English and then run a spelling and grammar test, you must correct your manuscript according to the suggestion, and you should follow it strictly since the word processor will help you to make your manuscript look better. You don’t expect to send a manuscript to the publisher that has lots of red and green lines, right? So, do your homework before you are ready to take the project ahead.
- In case you are self-publishing your book on Kindle or Kobo or Smashwords all by yourself, then Spelling and Grammar check on MS Word is not the only level you think you should pass. If you are serious about your writing, you should hire a professional editor. Remember, if you are an editor yourself or you were a topper at your school or college, that doesn’t mean that you write grammatically correct English and again English is not the only thing to be considered while editing the manuscript. Moreover, it is always good to have another set of eyes on your manuscript.
- Re-read the whole book after you have run a Spelling and Grammar test. Reading your book might seem monotonous but, hey, it’s your book. If you don’t like reading it, how would you expect your readers to read it?
- Keep marking the portions you are sceptical about. If you are reading it in print, use a pencil or a pen to mark on it and also write the correction somewhere so that you can make the changes in the manuscript.
- So, you have read your manuscript. Did you find anything that you should consider? It can’t be that you didn’t find anything. You must have found something and have marked them. Therefore, you have to implement that in your manuscript and then make a fresh copy of it.
- Re-read the manuscript again. Sounds surprising right? I can understand, and you should know that writing is all about re-writing and the more you read, the more corrections you can come up with and the exciting part is, you are doing all these All By Yourself!
- So you have read your manuscript for the second time and what did you find now? Does it look more polished than the previous one? Yes. However, you still might have found some corrections to make? Do it, and your manuscript will be better after that.
- You might wonder why I am asking you this, but go ahead and read the whole manuscript now.
- Are you done with rereading it? Now either you might find minor errors, or you might not have found any errors. If you can trace the minor glitches, correct it else run a free Grammarly check and ensure that there are not even the punctuation errors.
- All set? Now you might be terrified of listening to what I am going to say. It is evident that your manuscript is perfectly proofread, and both Word Processor and Grammarly have given you a clean chit, which only means the manuscript is grammatically correct, but your manuscript is just copyedited now which means you can go ahead with publishing it yourself or submitting it to a publisher.
This was the part one of the Golden Rules to Proofread and Edit Your Manuscript. Stay tuned and don’t miss the part two of the series because I will talk about the next level of editing and hopefully it will be beneficial to you.