You need the services of a proofreader for your children’s book to stand out on the market. Remember that a proofreader is an individual who works alongside the copy editor to make sure that your manuscript is readable and fulfills its purpose. Regardless of how accomplished an author you are, you need children’s book proofreaders to read your work.
Your manuscript needs to be edited and proofread before you can decide to publish it. No doubt, you need to pay close attention to proofreading and editing because they can affect the overall quality of your book. This post discusses the key proofreading tips for children’s books.
The Importance Of Proofreading
While writing a children’s book, you can usually focus on the content that appeals to your target audience. There is a chance that you may concentrate on writing the right words, but this leads you to neglect some grammatical rules. This is the reason why you need a proofreader for your book.
Take note that editing and proofreading requires a person to correct the content and restructure the sentences. This is a crucial part of writing that makes sure that the quality of your book is great and makes the written piece to be more accurate, appropriate, clear, and engaging.
Whether it’s an academic paper, a blog, or a book, you need to proofread your work. This is because editing and proofreading can make your writing better in quality. It’s worth mentioning that proofreading is a component of the editing process that a person can do at the end of the writing process. Therefore, a proofreader can look and correct spelling errors, grammatical errors, and many more. If you desire to know whether or not the final version of your children’s book has any minor mistakes, then you need to hire a proofreader rather than an editor.
Proofreading Tips
Most children’s books, particularly non-fiction titles, usually have interactive elements like pop-ups, flaps, activities, and stickers. Therefore, if you intend to proofread on screen, you can see the pages in two dimensions, but you may need to figure out how various elements of the manuscript can work together in real life.
You don’t have to print out things to proofread your manuscript, but it makes sense to check the activities and cross-reference various parts of it. You need to make sure that you consider this when it comes to the time you want to proofread your book.
An eBook is a quite popular format for children’s books, and it tends to have a different set of considerations compared to a physical book. Therefore, a proofreader may need to check how highly illustrated layouts transfer to an eBook format. Ideally, it should have all the elements and in a sensible order.
With an eBook, a proofreader can find the best way of returning comments, which cannot be in the same form as a more traditional mark-up. Instead, they can come as a list of corrections.
In most cases, children’s books appear easy. This is especially true when it comes to younger readers because you may need to have few words in a sentence. It can be intimidating to proofread a book that doesn’t have enough text. This is because any remaining mistakes can be hard to hide, and can come back to haunt you over time. For example, you need to make sure that the title on the cover matches the one on the spine and on the title page.
In most adult books, you can often begin reading a book from the top left of a page, and continue reading until you reach the bottom right, and then begin the process once again. On the other hand, you don’t need to do this with children’s books because the layouts can be more dynamic. And, they usually have smaller blocks of text that are arranged across the page or even spread and integrated with pictures. They can also be interspersed with smaller text elements like captions, annotations, and boxes.
You need to focus on the reading order of the various elements, making sure that it’s logical. In some cases, captions are the only part that you read, so they need to stand alone. Make sure that they have to work hard and add value to the pictures they refer to. Also, the annotations must refer to the specific part of the pictures they are pointing to.
Whatever you proofread, you need to consider the targeted reader. Children being the audience, you have to make some additional considerations. The text should be legible, use the right fonts, and many more. You should note that by the time you decide to proofread, you may have already made some basic decisions like font choice. There is also a chance that you may face situations where you need to tweak some things to assist a young readership. Besides, you need to look out for words, particularly jargon or technical terms that may not fit a certain reading age or require to be explained further.
Children’s publishers usually have guidelines for writers on inclusion and diversity. These aspects need to be considered from the onset of your project. A good book needs to be diverse without focusing on diversity as its selling point. Remember that it’s still a crucial aspect for a proofreader to be aware of.
Children’s books should have pictures. You can regard yourself as a word individual, but in most children’s books, it makes sense to include many pictures. Therefore, you need to focus on the pictures as well as the text of your book. if the text describes any item shown in the pictures like color, the picture needs to reflect this. If the picture shows a step-by-step process, they must be in order.
Most children’s books are often commissioned in the understanding that they can be co-editions or even sold into a wide range of territories. Quite often, you must check parochial details in the pictures that can limit the marketability of your book, such as very British-looking police uniforms or right-hand-drive vehicles. All these elements can sometimes have an impact on your potential readers.
