The proofreading checklist for your designed book

This page picks up where our self-editing checklist stops. That checklist is for your manuscript, before any editor sees it. This one is for the book after it has been copyedited and designed, when it finally looks like a book.

What proofreading is at this stage, and what it is not

The Editorial Freelancers Association describes proofreading as among the last stages of getting a manuscript ready for publication: a check for typographical errors and formatting mistakes on the proof, the file that will actually be printed. Design creates errors nobody could have caught on the manuscript: bad line breaks, missing text, stale page numbers.

Proofreading is not a last chance to rewrite. Every change now has a cost. The Scribe Method's chapter on locking in your manuscript warns that each change made after formatting and layout begin can add hours of work and hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. A changed sentence can also push text onto the next line, then the next page, and move every page number after it. That breaks the contents page, cross-references and the index, which the EFA notes is usually made once page numbers are no longer likely to change.

So the rule for this pass is simple. Fix what is wrong. Leave what is merely different from how you would write it today. If you find yourself wanting to rework a paragraph, the copyedit was not finished; our guide to copyediting vs. proofreading explains which job belongs where.

How to proofread

1. Read on paper, search on screen

   Print the PDF, or order a printed proof, to see facing pages, margins and the book as a reader holds it. Keep the PDF open on a screen to search: when you find one error, search for every other place it might occur.

2. Read aloud, slowly

   Your eye fills in missing words and skips doubled ones because it knows what you meant. Reading aloud forces you to see each word.

3. Make one pass per kind of check

   You cannot watch for a missing word and a crooked running head at the same time. Read once for the text, then flip through once for layout only, then check the front and back matter, images, ebook and cover as separate jobs. The checklist below is grouped that way.

4. Keep the style sheet beside you

   Your copyeditor's style sheet records every decision about spelling, capitals, numbers and names. Without it you may "correct" a deliberate choice back to the default. If you never got one, ask for it.

5. Mark, do not fix as you go

   Note each error and keep reading. Stopping to work out a fix breaks your attention for the next one.

Checklist: the text

• Typos. Misspelled words, wrong letters, transposed letters. Amazon's guide to Kindle content quality says typos are among the most common quality issues customers report.
• Doubled words. "the the," "to to," "and and." These often sit across a line break, where the eye misses them. Search the PDF for each common one.
• Missing words. Read aloud; a dropped "not" can reverse your meaning.
• Homophones. its and it's, their and there, principal and principle, affect and effect, complement and compliment. Spell-check accepts all of them.
• Consistency against the style sheet. Your framework's name, client pseudonyms, number style, capitals after colons, and spellings like "healthcare" or "health care." Search each key term once in the PDF and scan the results.
• Punctuation in pairs. Every opening quotation mark and parenthesis has a closing one, and quotation marks curl the right way.
• Stray characters. Leftover editing notes such as TK or XX, double spaces, and characters that turned into boxes or question marks in conversion.
• Notes and cross-references. Note numbers run in order, every note marker has a note, and "see page 112" now points to the right page.

Checklist: page layout

For this pass, do not read. Look at the shape of each page.

• Widows and orphans. A single short line of a paragraph left alone at the top or bottom of a page, or a lone word on the last line of a paragraph.
• Bad breaks. A heading at the bottom of a page with its text on the next; a name, number or URL split across lines; a word broken in an odd place ("therapist" broken as "the-rapist" is the classic).
• Hyphenation stacks. Three or more lines in a row ending in a hyphen.
• Running heads. The text at the top of each page says the right thing and changes at each new chapter. KDP's front, body and back matter guide shows the common style: author name on left pages, book title on right pages, and no running head on chapter opening pages.
• Page numbers. Sequential, with no skips or repeats. In a left-to-right book, KDP's formatting fixes page says even numbers go on left pages and odd numbers on right pages.
• Blank pages. Only where intended, such as before a chapter that must start on a right page. KDP's same page allows no more than 4 consecutive blank pages at the start or middle of a paperback file, and 10 at the end.
• Chapter openers. Each chapter's number and title match the contents, the style is the same every time, and they start on the right side if that is the design.

Checklist: front and back matter

These pages get checked least, which is why errors survive here.

• Title page. Title, subtitle and author name spelled exactly as on the cover and in your retailer listing.
• Copyright page. Year, copyright holder, publisher or imprint name, edition, and any required notices or credits.
• ISBN matching the format. Amazon's ISBN help page says each format (paperback and hardcover) needs its own ISBN, and that if you buy your own, the details you enter on KDP must match how the ISBN was registered. Check that the paperback's copyright page shows the paperback ISBN, not the hardcover's or the ebook's. Bowker, the US ISBN agency, says a book printed with the wrong ISBN needs a new, unused ISBN, stickers on the printed copies, and updates to every industry database (see its ISBN FAQ).
• Table of contents. Every chapter title is worded as it appears in the body, and every page number is the page the chapter actually starts on. Check each one by turning to it. Do this last, after all other corrections are in.
• Acknowledgments. Every name spelled correctly, with the right title and company. Check against a signature or website, not memory.
• About the author and back pages. Your bio, website and contact details are current, and any web addresses work.
• Notes, bibliography and index. Page references in the index land on the right pages; spot-check at least one entry per letter.

Checklist: images and tables

• Captions. Each caption sits with its image, describes what is shown, and figure numbers run in order and match the text that refers to them.
• Credits. Every image you did not create carries the credit line its owner asked for, worded exactly.
• Permissions noted. Tick each image, chart, long quotation and lyric against your permissions log. If there is no permission on file, flag it now, not after printing. Our guide to fact-checking and permissions covers what needs one.
• Image quality. No blurry, pixelated or cropped images, and nothing important lost in the gutter (the inner margin by the spine).
• Tables. Headings repeat if a table runs onto a second page, columns line up, and totals still add up.

Checklist: the ebook

The ebook is usually a separate file from the print PDF, so it needs its own check. Its text reflows to fit each screen, so check structure, not pages.

• Read it on a device. Open the file on an e-reader, a phone and a tablet, or in Amazon's free Kindle Previewer, which shows how the book looks on different Kindle devices and can jump to every image or table.
• Links. Amazon's quality guide says every link should take the reader where they expect, and asks you to test links, including the Go To menu, before the book goes on sale. Tap each one.
• Table of contents. The linked contents page and the device menu both list every chapter, in order, and each entry opens the right chapter. KDP's guide to creating a table of contents explains both kinds.
• No print leftovers. No page numbers in the text, no "see page 112" (change it to a link or a chapter reference), and no hyphens stuck inside words that once broke at a line end.
• Images. Every image appears, is sharp, and has its caption beside it.
• Fonts. Body text changes size and font when the reader changes the settings, italics and bold survive, and special characters display rather than showing boxes.

Checklist: cover and spine against the interior

• Title, subtitle and author name are identical on the front cover, spine, title page and retailer listing. KDP's paperback cover guide says cover text must exactly match the book details entered during setup, including title, author name, edition and ISBN.
• Spine text fits the spine and reads in the right direction. On KDP, the same guide sets a minimum page count of 79 for spine text (80 if you use its Cover Creator tool), so a short book may need a blank spine.
• Back cover copy gets the same proofread as the interior.
• Barcode and ISBN on the back cover match the copyright page for that format.

One practical note: KDP's proof copy page says proof copies carry a "Not for Resale" watermark and a barcode with no ISBN, so check the ISBN on the cover file itself, not on the proof copy.

How to mark and send corrections

Send all corrections at once, in one spreadsheet or table, not a stream of emails. Use these columns:

• Page: the printed page number, not the PDF page count (they differ because of the front matter). Say which you are using.
• Line: counted from the first line of text on the page, ignoring the running head. Use "last line" or "line 3 from bottom" near the foot of the page.
• Current text: a few words copied exactly, including the error, so the designer can search for it.
• Fix: exactly what it should say, not a description of the problem.
• Note: anything the designer needs, such as "layout, not text" or "check this does not reflow."

For the ebook, there are no fixed pages, so give the chapter and the current text instead. If you mark the PDF directly, use its comment tools and still keep the list, so you can tick off each fix. Then check the corrected pages against your list, and look at the lines either side of each fix to make sure nothing else moved.

Example correction list

Here is part of a correction list we wrote for a fictional book, The Steady Quarter, by an author we made up.

Notice what is not on the list: no reworded sentences and no new examples. Each line is an error with one clear fix. When the corrected pages come back, tick each row and check the contents page one final time, since fixes like number 5 can move text onto another page.

If you are hiring a professional proofreader for this stage, our guide to what a book editor costs has current rates. If you would rather talk through where your book stands, Scribe offers a free consult.