I finished reviewing my page proofs for An Art Lover’s Guide to Paris and Murder a few days ago. Page proofs are a mock up of the final book after copy edits are done. It comes on regular paper, but you get to see how the pages will be set up, any fancy fonts, things like that. Most importantly, this is the last chance for the author to go through the pages looking for errors. This is important for a number of reasons.
First, copy edits can be messy! Two of us are working on the same document. The original text is in black, the copyeditor’s edits and comments are in blue, and my edits and comments are in red. When pages are very marked up, it can be difficult to see if I deleted a whole sentence, or if I left an extra space, or letter, or word. If I did, it will show up in the final document and it’s my job to find it!
Because it’s so easy for my eyes to skim right past an error, I often read the proof aloud. That’s when I find the tongue twisters. My books have all been recorded for audio and I don’t want to make things more difficult for the narrator. It’s also a good way to find echoes—words used more than once in close proximity. If it’s a word like in that’s no problem, but using a word like proximity twice in the same paragraph is noticeable and might pull someone out of the story. Besides why would anyone need to use the word proximity more than once in the same paragraph, right?
The last mistakes are those things that I read past so many times—historical details that I think I know, but never double checked. And in the case of this book, French words or phrases that I really ought to check or those I have in English that should be in French. At one point, Frances is snooping through the date book of a French art jurist and sees the word, lecture. Oops, the man is French, why would he have written an English word in his book? I also had to review a historical wiring diagram to make sure my character really could pull on a chain to turn on a lightbulb. Fortunately, that was correct.
I hope you don’t mind my revealing how the sausage is made, but 22 corrections later, I’m hoping An Art Lover’s Guide to Paris and Murder will be in perfect shape for your reading pleasure!
One last comment–I just learned that A Newlywed’s Guide to Fortune and Murder was nominated for a Lefty Award! What an honor! The Left Coast Crime conference will be held in Seattle, WA this year. Hope to see you there.