Proofreading: Who should get the honor?

While your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is the perfect choice for battling off goons, I don't think you're going to get him on speed dial for your next novel. However, if anyone accomplishes that, please do let me know because he knows Deadpool and I'm a huge fan of both!

Moving on. The first person I granted the honor to proofread my book was my husband. This was not a good idea. Please, save your marriage and don’t have your spouse proofread your work before anyone else. Unless you’re married to an editor, then by all means, please continue doing what works for you!

For the rest of us who weren’t fortunate enough to marry an editor or publisher, I suggest going to someone else. Your spouse is the person who is going to support you and cheer you on, hopefully, and that’s amazing!! But their critiques hit closer to home and if you write something that they’re not interested in, it might put a strain on your marriage.

After learning about how your spouse shouldn’t read it until it’s ready to publish, I broke down specific qualities that I wanted in my proofreaders: honest, loyal, not afraid to speak their voice (kindly), reads, loves the genres I’m writing in, and is close to me. Remember, "With great power, comes great responsibility." It's important.

The first two proofreaders I chose are my best friends who love storytelling. One of them thrives on long novels involving my main genre: fantasy. We brainstormed almost every night and his speed reading is remarkable. The other, his girlfriend, is on the path of becoming an author as well and it just brought us that much closer. All of us generating ideas back and forth was really fun and it was an incredibly smart choice to bring them in!

The next proofreader I brought to my team was another friend who loves romance novels and reads incredibly fast. Since romance was my subgenre, I thought it’d be good to get her input. Her energy makes everyone smile and she is really nitpicky when finding errors. Absolute need!

For the last proofreader, I wanted someone who enjoyed reading but not to the point where it was constant. I needed to know if my book was one that she’d read if she only read once every few months. It’s an important thing to consider. Not everyone reads one book after another. So, you really want to make sure that if someone is going to pick a book, that it’s your lucky book. She enjoyed it and said it’s something she’d buy to read again.

Keep these things in mind when considering the first people who will look over your novel. Think about what traits are important to you and that you don’t have too many people. Everyone knows, the more people you have, the more opinions you will receive. Not all feedback is needed, especially when writing your first novel is stressful enough. But you also don’t want someone who will be too shy to not tell you if something doesn’t work in your book. Make sure their passion matches yours and always remember to have fun!