Read your manuscript aloud

We cannot overstate the importance of hearing your writing vs reading it. This is particularly important if you have dyslexia (but if you have dyslexia, you probably already know this.) The value in hearing your work read aloud is word usage. Spelling checkers, grammar checkers, and humans do not always pick up on correctly spelt words used in the wrong context, but you can hear this clearly.

Most word processing applications have “read aloud” or “screen reader” functions. Google what to use for your software. If you are good at seeing what’s on the page, then read the book aloud to yourself. Our editor can frequently be found with the read-aloud feature working away.

Jayne Thornber uses this feature multiple times at line editing, copy editing and proofreading stages. KJ Matthews isn’t quite so pedantic about it, but we always suggest our authors use it before they send a book to us. 

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