I read about this on a self-publishing website, that it is a good idea to read through one’s book aloud as part of the preparation process. I have been doing this and see why it is excellent advice.
I sent my chapters to be proofread and corrected as I wrote them. When they came back, I cleaned them up and started working on a format. This included not only page size, but titles, page numbers, and photographs.
My book has a lot of photographs. This is in keeping with my blogging style which is important, because the book is based on my blog, and my blog has lots of pictures. For the book, I’m finding that these are a good place to add useful information in the form of captions. For example, in the chapter about food self-sufficiency, I talk about the many ways we are food self-sustaining and include photographs of these. The caption for the photo of pouring beaten eggs into muffin tins, can explain how to freeze eggs. I can give details that would be so many rabbit trails if they were included in the text.
There is a potential problem with adding photos if a lot of cutting and pasting of text is necessary. To keep my white space balanced and keep a uniform appearance throughout the book, I did indeed do that. I also found I sometimes had too much text, or not enough. Sentences, even paragraphs, were cut, or, I had to add some. As I’m reading through aloud, I catching places where sentence parts were not included in the cut and paste.
I’m reading through from beginning to end, chapter by chapter, slowly. I’m making sure I focus on and say every written word. I’m keeping the proofed manuscript next to it, to compare if something seems amiss. If I reworded something or added text for the sake of formatting, these are being sent for proofreading.
Once I’m satisfied with the chapters, I’ll put them all together in one file. Then I can begin adding page numbers to the index. Maybe I’ll give a step by step of how that is done. What do you think?
