Proofreading

Page proofs for THE LOST CROWN arrived on Friday, and they are prettyful:

Appealing as that is, you know what I looked at first? The back matter. Nerdy stuff like photo captions and bibliography:

I kind of like this page, too:

So. I'm supposed to be correcting the text, not just ogling it. Confession: I'm not the world's greatest proofreader. Ever seen that email that begins,

Aoccdrnig to a rseearchr at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit any porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

I can read that without even blinking. (Well, except for where it says "it self" instead of "itself.") I'm much better at spotting formatting goofs -- like misplaced italics and reversed quotation marks -- than spelling errors.

Nevertheless, I'm finding plenty to keep me busy:

270 pages down, 163 to go...