If you have contributed to BLOOD HEIR by offering Hebrew translations, medical assistance, religious research, etc, please email me through the contact form on the site with your name so we can thank you in the book. Please pick Acknowledgements option.
Proofreader
Update: Thank you, we’ve received enough applications. No applications sent after 10:00 AM central on 10/30/2020 will be considered.
We are looking for a proofreader. The pay is flat $800. The manuscript is 95,000 words. You will be editing the final manuscript, after several editorial passes, in Word. You will have a very short turn around, 3-5 days and will get the manuscript on November 10th at the latest. If you do a good job, there will be a one-time $200 bonus because of the short time frame. We are looking for someone to work with us long term.
You are the last line of defense before the manuscript becomes a book and goes to publication.
What’s expected:
- Correcting grammatical mistakes, such as typoes, verb tense, etc.
- Correcting punctuation
- Querying egregious errors
Egregious errors: occasionally stuff slips by the copyeditor or, more often, because we are merging several sets of edits, sentences get jumbled. If you don’t understand a sentence, we need you to point this out.
Most proofreaders fail because they correct too much. This is a work of fiction, and fiction authors take creative liberties.
You make this correction, and you won’t be asked to proofread again. This is not the proofreader’s function.
You make this correction, and you won’t be asked to proofread again. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Leave the stylistic and authorial choices alone.
To apply:
- Email using this contact form on this website. Choose any issue. Put Proofreader in the subject of the email
- List your qualifications in the body of the email
- Indicate if you would be willing to sign an NDA
NDA is primarily used to safeguard the manuscript from book pirates. If you leak it, we will sue you.
You will only hear back from us if you are hired.
I would love to be a proofreader, but I think you want someone with legitimate qualifications. You deserve a professional. (I proofread a lot at work, but I’m sure it’s not the same thing!) Good luck in the search! ????
Whoo Hoo! I got first! That’s very rare for me. (insert happy dance here) ????????
+1
My first thought was: “Oh no, they had a breakdown and needed medical assistence!”
My second thought was: “Oooh, they meant the narrative!”
Please don’t scare me like that…
I’d love to proofread, but I am not a native speaker and you probably look for somebody at least semi-professional among the BDH… *sigh*
Writing books looks hard. Proofreading books looks hard too. Good luck in your search for a proofreader. I’m happy buying and reading (and then listening) to the final copy. I’ll wait patiently for the bestest version.
Thank you a million times for your stories!
Awesome, this would be my dream job but I don’t have a pc and am sadly out of practice with word processing. Good luck to whoever is able to do this job justice 🙂
I filled out a contact form. So you know, it’s not currently set up with a subject line in addition to the issue, but I did put “Proofreader” at the top of the message box.
Ditto ^
So cool that you ask on your website for someone do this! I’m sure there are business channels you could go through to find someone. I really appreciate the glimpse into the book making world!
I will not be applying since i have a horrible time proofreading my own emails and texts. Let alone a manuscript!
Sadly, I do not have any formal qualifications; therefore, I will not waste your time by applying. This would be an amazing job! Good luck in your search. Your books are always wonderful.
+1
There’s little that’s more distracting in a book than grammatical errors that jar the reader out of being immersed in the story line. Or maybe that’s just me! I appreciate how professional your books’ writing is and can’t wait to see the final product; best of luck finding an appropriate proofreader.
Wow! What an amazing opportunity to give your readers! Ilona & Gordon you’re the best out there!
I’m keeping fingers crossed for an excellent proofreader. Your books are one of the best proofread I’ve seen on the market!
Good luck for you and your amazing team!
Love the picture of the editor!! You have a gift for choosing the artwork to go with the post!!
(My h.s. freshman year English teacher used to give us “the glare” just like that. Still memorable after 48+ years!)
I’d love to apply but you need an American proof reader not a British one. I’d be looking for missing ‘u’s and using ‘z’ instead of ‘s’. I’m already perturbed by ‘typoes’ as I’d say ‘typos’ ???? Good luck ????
Ha ha ha yeah I’d be the same I miss my ‘u’s
I’ve never seen “typoes”. It’s typos here in America too. (Even my phone spell check agrees!) So, if you see typoes, it really is a typo! ????????????
Back in the old days, words ending in “o” were made plural by adding “es”. Lots of the things we learned in the old days, has changed now. Especially past tense words.
Typos doesn’t take an “e” because it’s an abbreviation of “typographical error”, hippos don’t have an “e” either. 🙂
Yet another place where English is so wonderfully quirky.
(“It doesn’t matter what the word looks like, it matters what the word implied.”)
The other gotcha of course is the British vs American changes in the language over time, which always used to trip me up since we watched a lot of British TV on PBS during my childhood.
Yes, same here! ????
I’d love to do this, but I don’t have formal qualifications and alas, look nothing like the pictured proofreader. Best of luck!
LOL! Yes, that’s precisely why I’m not applying either. 🙂
I would love to be a proofreader and am qualified. But the only contact form I see doesn’t include a subject field. Is it not under contact?
I applaud your form. I’m not a proof reader. But I love this advertisement. Signed a writer who is told that her fiction words are made up. Hint. The are supposed to be.
I’m so excited to see this post because to me it means Blood Heir is coming along nicely! Excited to get to read it when it comes out!!
I proofread as a secretary at a law school. I proof manuals, book chapters, letters, emails, blogs and other assorted writings and posts for both the faculty and students. I understand confidentiality and would be willing to sign an NDA. Thank you for your consideration.
I think you need to apply via the Contact form, rather than the comments ????
Lucky proofreaders! They get to read Blood Heir way before the rest of us.
Not volunteering for the job. I’m sure I’d be terrible at it.
^This^ is exactly how I feel. Good luck!
I filled out the form, but there isn’t a send or submit button. I’m not sure what to do. Do you have any suggestions?
it needs the answer to the anti spam question AND the Captcha. if both is right the submit button appears.
I’ve done both. It still isn’t appearing. 🙁
Good luck to all who apply for the proofreading position.
That is not me. When I wrote any papers, my mom helped me with them. That included my dissertation. The only time I didn’t need her help was when I wrote the statistics portion. She told me I was on my own on that. ????
Congratulations to all who helped Ilona and Gordon with Blood Heir!
God, it would make me so happy to do this! If only I weren’t a postal worker! The closer we get to Christmas the less time I get to do anything. I’ll just have Blood Heir to look forward to to keep me going!!!
Proofreader—
10+ years proofing and editing, mostly for academic theses and dissertations across the curriculum, but also including self-published novels and small-business/government materials such as annual reports and informational booklets.
Also a creative nonfiction writer as a matter of personal fulfillment (and stress release), so understand well the importance and function of—and can easily recognize—authorial and editorial grammatical and linguistic choices.
Efficient, organized, and eager. Consider deadlines a matter of personal pride. Read through the “proofreading” examples in the post and said, “Duh.” Willing to sign an NDA and adhere to it.
The picture makes me laugh! ???? best of luck finding someone.
Good luck. A true proof reader is hard to find. Long, long ago when I was an undergraduate, and people still typed papers, I hired someone to type a paper for me. I was in a graduate class studying Roman Wall Paintings. Although I was an undergraduate, I had taken many of the Professor’s classic classes so he allowed me to take the graduate seminar. There were 6 people in the class so I knew my professor’s humor and idiosyncrasies; I wrote my paper on Etruscan cave paintings accordingly. That horrid, bloody b**tch of a typist edited my paper, took out all the inside jokes and quirks, leaving me with a boring, dry as dust paper. Forty plus years later, and I am still pissed. Good luck.
gosh how i would love to and i do have experience in proofreading but while i am comfortable reading and writing in englisch, its not my native language and i am not able to proofread in englisch on any level let alone on this professional level. what a shame but i am happy to read its making progress and i will soon read it on a totally not professional level 😀
i hope you find what you need
Proofreader
Not a professional proofreader although I am an avid reader. I am also a RN so do have medical knowledge. Would be happy to sign a NDA.
Man…. if only I didn’t have 250 11th grade English papers to grade this weekend!
Yeah, I’m another of the ‘I’d love to proofread like this’, even though I know I’m unqualified. Even worse, what little experience I have is with amateur fiction written in another language, where correcting phrasing is urgently needed.
Oh, well, best of luck, authors, and I look forward to having more to read!
Dyslexia is a really bad thing for a proofreader to have.
I am great at the big stuff – homophones, weird verb tenses and archaic spellings, for instance, but terrible on the easy fixes, like repeated and missing words. Even though I will notice them (not many in IA books!), I will make no attempt at a paid position.
Mostly, I would hate for reading to become work.
Hello, my name is Carol and I am an obsessed IA reader, I am currently living in Brazil, teaching english remotely. I would love to be a part of this incredible world. Even though my first language was not english, I learned the language by myself at the age of 14, around that age I started to read in english only, and have worked with the language since 18 years old. I wanted to tell you a little bit of my story, I am also free for any portuguese related jobs. Qualifications: Toefl certificate (my mother language is portuguese). English teacher (5 years of experience). Translator/editor (english and portuguese) 4 years of experience. I am willing to sign an NDA.
Applied!
And then of course I forgot to indicate I’m willing to sign an NDA. Doh. To me, that’s an obvious request and I would do it – I sign them at work every so often when needed. Hopefully I’m not cut out of the running for that!! Good luck to everyone and excited to hear that the book is coming along nicely. 🙂
Hi, I would love to help you with proofreading your novel. I have enjoyed every book of yours so far!
I have proofreading experience at my former day job (I’m retired now, so have lots of time.) And I’m a member of Proofread Anywhere (a Facebook group that encourages people to become professional proofreaders—with a very supportive online community) and I’m also a published co-author of 6 novels (5 historical fantasy, one a historical wine-country romance. Sadly, they weren’t best-selling and are no longer in print.)
I hope you will consider my application and get back to me as soon as it’s convenient. I can’t wait to read your book! (Whether it’s to proofread, or to buy and read.)
I sent this to a woman I know that I used as copy editor for a journal and who has also done fiction.
Haha, you wouldn’t want me to proofread but it’s exciting that you’re posting the job offer to the blog. I have no doubt there are a plethora of grammatical junkies roaming this site eager to proofread.
I’d love to help, but it’s been so long since I had college English, I might not be asked to do it again. As for the pay, I’d do it for free, but being an out of work substitute teacher, it’d help. I can deal with creative language, but I DO catch extra words and grammatical errors, so I’d like to offer myself as an option.
Wish I could proofread for you! I proofread technical, legal, and investigative reports, which is a whole different deal. If you ever need someone to edit out all the “fun” parts, then I’m your gal. LOL
Proofreader: I am a bit neurotic when it comes to grammar and punctuation. Perhaps this is the result of an English degree, but likely my mother’s constant nagging is to blame. My husband wrote essays for NPR for several years and I was his proof reader. (While I admit to having made the odd change of syntax I was right and he never noticed.) On the other hand I have great admiration for your work and would not presume to fix a run on sentence, add an oxford comma, or corrected an idiom. I would check spelling, fix sentence typos and make certain any grammatical errors are deliberate.
I am not certain what you are looking for here so I included my website for a self published book I put on Amazon.com.
I do not expect you to read it. (Who am I kidding, I would love you to read it, but I expect you will not.) I would sign an NDA
Hard pass.
Too often, I’ve heard the phrase, “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
I enjoy working with my hands, I always have, so I became a carpenter. I enjoyed doing it, I simply resented having to do it for a living.
Nope, I enjoy y’all’s work too much to get paid for reading it.
Good luck in your search. I’d love to apply but I’d get so caught up in the reading that I’d forget to do the editing LOL
I applied via contact form but first wrote here hahaha.
I think it’d be fun, and a change from my normal consulting 😉
I would absolutely love to proof read for you. I have always wanted to find an in into the world of proof reading considering I read 2 books a day depending on my available time it would be the perfect job.what qualifications are you looking for? What does it take to become your proof reader?
I’m another person who hates when an error pops up in a story I am reading. Misspelled words are bad enough, but an obvious one where “she” is written instead of “he” can throw me right out of the story world. I don’t think I have ever found an error in one of your books, so you must get awesome proofreaders!
My dream job for sure, but no references and no spare time!
I look forward to buying the book when it comes out.
Where ever you found that picture of the man with the quill pen and outraged expression, it is priceless. Have logged on several times just to look at his face.
I sent a few of my proofreader friends your way, but they can’t seem to submit the contact form. Any hints?
Never mind, figured it out!
I would love to say I could do this but honestly…I would be too busy enjoying the story to actually do any proofreading ????
Not applying, just saying that is a GREAT picture choice. It was really hard not to laugh the first few times I saw it.
I might be a candidate for proofreading. After all, I had grammar drilled into me in the 60’s by a 9th-grade teacher who would angrily mention the Crest toothpaste commercials (“Look, Mom! Less cavities!”), and literally pound her fist on her desk, crying “The WORD is FEWER!!!”
I applied, although I’m sure there are others who are more qualified. I also forgot to say I was willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which I am. Le sigh….
I filled out the form, but can’t find a “send” button. Not sure if it’s just me being technologically challenged or did they have so many applications that they closed the form.
Got it. Always thought violets were actually purple. ????
heh heh Yeah, it sounds so easy to be a proofreader/correcter of errors, but it’s really not. For one thing, you have to actually know how to use “Word” and all the ways it works. Open Office is a free program, so that’s my choice for word processing. But mostly, you’d better know the entire history of the world as it exists in the world of Kate Daniels, because if you correct something that’s wrong in our world and right in theirs, you’ve just ruined the entire book. I really hate being jolted out of a good book by errors, but the time frame to read all that on a computer screen and make notes of errors on the first pass, then read it again and check to see if they really are errors at all on the second pass, correcting as you go? Nope. Because after you do those corrections, you have to read it all again and see if you made errors, too! Spelling, grammar, and verb tense are easy to correct. But the continuity of the book can be completely altered by a mistake made at the end. I’d be terrified to alter a single sentence in a book written by such great authors. I know my limitations.
But it’s really wonderful to know that the manuscript is done and ready for it! I do hope it works out well for all of us to read the final draft a few times and absorb the entire story.
Thanks to authors and everyone else who contributes on bringing this book to readers. 🙂
I can’t even imagine Kate or Julie saying “Thank goodness”. Maybe Dr. Doolittle. 🙂
Best of luck finding just the right proofreader for you!
It’s coming closer….and closer…yippee!!!
I’m one of those evil edit as I proofread people, which is fine in scholarly articles and with the permission of my writing partner but not fine in fiction. I would forget. ????
So glad the work is at the proofread stage!
Great pic!!
I wish I noticed this earlier and applied in time, but the time difference and work got in the way.
I’m a huge fan and would love to be a proofreader because it would be an absolute pleasure to contribute even in a small way.
I’m certain you’ll find someone you’ll be happy with! Hopefully next time I’ll notice in time and throw my hat in the ring!
Looking forward to your next novel!
Damn, now I wish I had paid more attention during my classes in school,but a native speaker will be better anyway *sigh* I look forward to reading Blood Heir when it is finished with the rest of the BDH
My first thought when I read this was that I would pay you to be allowed to proofread your work, but I only have a fairly small IPad, and I’m extremely nearsighted and need a large font, so it would be difficult. Also, while I did a lot of proofreading during my career, I’ve been retired for a couple of years, and I’m out of practice. It’s good that you have the applications you need. It was a tough decision not to apply though!
I saw your post and laughed. Not because it is bad or funny but because I know I would be an awful proofreader. I can obsess with the best of them on grammar and language. I don’t know if it’s because I’m an attorney and we can’t leave anything alone or if it’s just me.
I will simply look forward to reading your next book and keep my picky comments to myself. ????
LOL… it would be the ONE day this week that I didn’t check the blog. Instead me and household went out and voted early, since we had the same day off, and then had all you can eat pizza and fried chicken at PIZZA RANCH – so so good! Went shopping and then collapsed for the rest of the day.
Then I see you all decided to get a proof reader. Well darn. I have no professional qualifications, but I’d do it for free =D Just to get a look see early. What I probably could do is catch the odd word that spell check would let pass because it’s a real word, just not the right one – like bide instead of bite, or rush instead of rust. Or catch the occasional missing word like, instead of “He ran to she lay” it would be “He ran to where she lay” etc. Couldn’t say boo about grammar though. Ooo we are close to a full fledged book!!! I’m so stoked!!!
Guess I’ll go drown my woes with some cheese stuffed and bacon wrapped Jalapeno poppers. I will never bread my poppers ever again. Bacon is where it’s at 😀
I’d offer to proofread, as a lawyer (even though I’m British) I know I have the right skill set and I’d enjoy the advance read. However as someone who is lucky to be still fully employed through these hard times I would rather leave the opportunity for someone else. Maybe when I retire, in a few years, for a future book!
Miss the blog for a few days and miss out on an opportunity.
Hope you guys are well and not super stressed getting through the editing on Blood Heir.
Gah, I’m so sad I didn’t see this in time to apply :'(
not a proof reader but jealous ( in a good way ) of the lucky one who will get the job. Book is out in January …soon. Soooon…
Of course you pick the announcement time for right when I hear Austria is about to go back on lockdown*, so I miss a day catching up on all my errands and didn’t see this until 1400 CDT yesterday. Best of luck to you and whomever you select.
*worst part? It’s not actually a lockdown. It’s a sorta halfway thing. Borders still open, ALL stores still open, schools under the US high school equivalent still open (older students on distance learning). Restaurants closed, and there will be an 8pm curfew for a week during which time you can be out and about but can’t meet with anyone. Because it’s well known that Covid becomes significantly more virulent between 7:59 and 8:00. Locking down screws the country economically, and half-assed measures haven’t worked to prevent or halt the spread of infections for a single country yet. So they decided to get the best of both worlds. Lose money, raise unemployment, AND keep those virus numbers up! Yay us!
I would love to read your books in my language. You (Kate Daniels) have a lot of fans here in Czech Republic. But unfortunately the publisher says that´s almost impossible to get rights for your books. Really pity. Looking forward to Julie´s book and hope for Elara´s book soon. Thank you and good luck.
I read. I have a sense of humor. I understand irony.
I want others to have the same joy of discovering the worlds you create.
Destroying the language and communication between the authors and readers is inhumane.
I’m sorry I didn’t see this post sooner. Oh, well. I probably wouldn’t have been picked as my training lies primarily in copyediting rather than proofreading. It’s a fun thought, though. Good luck!
I’ll just have to look forward to enjoying the book as a reader.
Waaaaaah! I don’t get to edit! ???? (granted I mostly just want to read it NOW.) Time frame would have worked because I read and work like that, all at once. I am a world language teacher so I edit for comprehensibility rather than “correct” grammatical usage. I also am familiar with the authorial style and love it… ah well, se la vie/así es la vida. Can’t for it to come out!
*Can’t wait for it to come out!
Maybe it’s ok I am not trying to be a last line of defense editor! ????????
I am so excited to delve back into a familiar world with a new storyline! I have always wanted to be an editor, and would love to work for such an awesome team! Thank you for the opportunity!