Don’t Trust Your Spellchecker

            As writers, many people choose the course of least resistance. It’s easy to leave the spelling and grammar in your manuscript to your computer. Then the machine can mark any of these errors, you can go through each one, save it and be finished with that process. In this article, I want to give you some additional actions to make sure you submit the best version of your material before hitting the send button to that editor or literary agent.

            Book proposals require a lot of work, and anything you send to a publisher should be completely error- and typo-free. Here’s some additional steps every professional writer will take to make sure your submission is in the best possible shape. First, set it aside for a period of time—a day or even a few hours before returning to it and then read every line carefully and aloud to yourself. Why take this step to read it aloud? Because the ear is less forgiving than the eye.

            I will print my manuscript, grab a pencil or pen and read through it aloud. As I see something that needs to be changed, correct the paper version of my manuscript. Take the time to read every page of your proposal aloud. I encourage you to review it multiple times, rewrite and make sure every area is complete and your proposal is error free of typos. Also don’t completely trust the spelling checker and grammar features of your word processor. Yes, these feature help but you should not completely trust them.

Recently an author sent a manuscript that I read. When I informed her that it had numerous typographical or spelling errors, she instantly became defensive and said she had spellchecked it numerous times. The English language has many similar words, which your word processor program will not catch. You will have to read and reread your proposal aloud, in order to catch these types of errors.

Here is an example of two sentences that only a person can fix:

The red book was read.

The read book was red.

Each sentence is technically correct, but which one did the author intend to use? Only a person can make this decision and not a machine.

Throughout the publishing industry, there is all this talk about artificial intelligence. In my view you can use it for some things like research and possibly some initial drafts but at the end of the day, the words have to be done in your writing voice. I encourage you to drastically revise and rewrite anything generated from artificial intelligence to avoid any potential conflict.

Consider also taking your proposal to a critique group of other writers. (If you want to learn more about this topic, read my detailed article at terrylinks.com/critique.

Be careful who you let read your proposal, and always take the feedback of family members with a grain of salt.

Ultimately, you are the only person whose opinion on the proposal counts before you send it to a publisher and get their feedback. Some people tend to absorb every positive and negative word from other people. They need to evaluate the comments, take the good ones, and discard the poor ones (purely a subjective call on your part).

After receiving this feedback, make sure you’ve corrected and rewritten every sentence of your proposal and sample chapter to the best of your ability. This type of detailed approach to your proposal will aid in the reception of your materials at the publishing house. Too many proposals and cover letters arrive with missing and misspelled words. Your proposal will rise above the others if you have handled this concern with care and professionalism.

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in California. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. Get a free copy of his proposal book (follow the link). Check out his free Ebook, Platform Building Ideas for Every Author. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook, his blog and LinkedIn.