Proofing

I finished my read-through of the proofs for First, and I’m glad I did it. I found two errors.

The first was the end of a piece of dialogue where I’d left a space between the period and the closing quote mark. It probably wouldn’t have been noticeable except for the fact it was at the end of a printed line, and with the extra space the closing quotation became an orphan on the next line. It’s too noticeable and I’m having it fixed.

The other error was a total miss on the formatter’s part. I was a little surprised since otherwise they did a fantastic job with the rest of the book, but the epilogue was mashed in with the final chapter. The main part of the book is divided into three sections, each with its own title page. The Epilogue should have been given the same treatment, but instead the final sentence of the final chapter was followed on the next line by the word “Epilogue” and then the narrative. Anyway, it’s not a big deal and should be easy for them to fix.

Why am I sharing this? Because I’m glad I read completely through the proof like I’d purchased the book. If I’d done a quick scan I might have found the problems, or I might not. I only get one chance at validating the formatting and it was worth taking the time.