The Novel Navigator

If you’ve read any of my other posts, you know that writing isn’t really my thing. But reading? Oh yeah, it absolutely is. I primarily read romance, romantasy, fantasy, etc. And while I can pretty easily be immersed in a story, there are a few things that pull me out of one (even if briefly). I have a thing for proper grammar, punctuation and spelling, and continuity! I’ve heard that some people read in a way where they skip words and fill in with context clues or just generally don’t ready everything on the page, but I seem to be someone who naturally reads every single word. And in doing so, I’ve caught some errors in my time. Whenever I come across a misspelled word, a sentence missing punctuation, a continuity error, etc, I report a content error – shout out to Kindle for this feature. (On a side note, I wonder if it’s super annoying to receive content error reports.) If the book contains too many errors, it’s a big red flag for me to not continue reading as I’ve been pulled out of the world one too many times and ultimately it becomes too distracting. It also makes me think that the author maybe didn’t have someone proofread before they published. Does this happen more often if they’re self-published? Is this their first novel? With these questions, and many more, I think about how I could help. Even though I don’t have an English degree, I would love to offer a proofreading service to authors (and publishers??) and maybe in a less professional or structured way, be a beta reader as well. I know there are seasoned professionals out there, but are there roadblocks or access barriers that prevent authors or publishers from using editing services? Are they too expensive? Is there a general lack of understanding of the editorial process? The wheels are turning friends and even though I’m not ready to change professions, this may be a path I start learning more about.

My dream is to read for a living. If I could do that in a little cottage while fostering dogs, I think I’d be a pretty happy gal.

Note to my future self – it only takes one internet search to get the ball rolling. If you don’t start somewhere, you’ll get nowhere.