I’m sure I’ve ranted about proofreading and how important it is and about my skills as a proofreader. Well, I had to laugh the other day as the irony of a particular email came through my computer. This young lady is currently 23 years old and trying to start a business proofreading, I admired her professionally laid out email with the two typos from two of my articles on here and laughed, not at all quietly, to myself. She tactfully pointed out these two typos and told me where I could find her website. I’m not looking at her email but somewhere either in the email or her website it told me the price in UK pounds. It seemed a reasonable price.
I didn’t engage her services, however tempting it was for two reasons. The first is that I want to stand on my mistakes, either to find them myself or to leave them there showing people that even I am fallible; this blog is also a showcase to my writing and it shows how much I’ve improved over the years. The second is the question of money. I’ve been writing this blog for almost seven years, with an average of four articles a week, that’s a lot of writing and while I thought her price was good for a regular website with only a handful of pages, this blog with its multitude of articles is another thing entirely and I could see the pounds and dollars whizzing by in my head.
I did reply to her, I should have given these reasons for not taking her up on her offer but I didn’t. The reason I replied is that I’m on the lookout for a professional proofreader who is better than me, I might need one in the future. Looking at both her email and her website I suspect she’s the one, the fact that I love her tagline had absolutely no bearing on the matter.
Have a look at her website or not as you choose but I found the entire episode very funny and enlightening.