I’ve always proof read my own posts. For smaller posts I usually read over them once but for 2,000+ blog posts I sometimes look read through them 2 or 3 times as it’s easier for mistakes to slip through. Whilst reading the productivity eBook Blog Wise recently I noticed a comment from travel blogger Matt Kepnes. In the interview Matt noted that he has an editor proof read all his posts before publication.
I was kind of taken aback by this. I know most large blogs review posts submitted by their contributors but I (wrongly) assumed that bloggers who write for their own blogs just proofread their own posts. Very few bloggers I know do this. In fact, many bloggers, such as Jeremy Schoemaker, have acknowledged the fact their posts have spelling mistakes in them and don’t think it’s that important.
For smaller posts I don’t think it’s worth hiring an external editor to proofread posts however I can see value in doing so for longer articles that are more important (and perhaps took you a few days to write).
To get an idea of the extent Matt vets his own posts, take a look at this excerpt from page 20 of Blog Wise:
“Usually I go through writing spurts,” Matt begins. “So I won’t write for a while, and then I’ll get really in the zone, and I’ll bang out seven articles at once. “I usually do a framework for them—I won’t complete them—so I’ll do a frame and a draft and then I’ll add to that maybe two or three times until I get something workable. And then I send it off to my editor to read it. “Then she sends it back to me, and then I rewrite it or add to it after another set of eyes have seen it and after I haven’t seen it for a while. Then it goes back to her, and then it goes up on the blog, and I read it once more before it goes live.”
I don’t think I’ll ever hire anyone to proofread my posts as I enjoy getting my ideas out quickly, though I may do so with future books I write. I could do this with the help of email subscribers. For example, I could ask for the help of 3 subscribers to read a review copy of my book and advise me of any spelling mistakes, grammatical errors or inconsistencies.
What’s your proofreading strategy? Do you just quickly proofread your own posts like me? Would you consider hiring an editor to proofread your posts if it greatly improved the quality of your content?
Thanks for reading,
Kevin