For the proofreading of A NORTH-SOUTH DIVIDE and ALYSHA, I approached Kate Haigh, otherwise known as Kateproof. I had seen Kate's website in the past, but this was the first time that I had gone to her with a book to work on. I let her know ahead of time that both books were set in the same fantasy world and that they crossed over at certain points, and as such there should be consistency in style between the two. She assured me that this wouldn't be a problem and so I sent both manuscripts over.

The results that came back were excellent. Kate did a great job of proofing the body of the work for typos, incorrect uses of tense, and other grammatical errors (all using Word's tracked changes for easy review and management). She also left some notes in the margins of things she had picked up on during the process that I might want to consider.

The first thing I noticed about the edits for both novels was the sheer number of obvious mistakes that I had made. I will admit to being embarrassed by the level of errors in ALYSHA, as I thought both books were sewn up nicely and that there wouldn't be anything near even a tenth of the corrections that came back. It almost felt as though I had just banged the keyboard with my fists and sent it off for someone else to deal with. Kate also fixed issues with incorrect quote marks and dashes. I set to work first going through the tracked changes (clicking accept 99% of the time) and then looking at the notes that had been left. In both books, Kate suggested that I consider my audience due to some bad language and violence.

Kate communicated well with me during the process, even going so far as to let me know of an inconsistency I had in A NORTH-SOUTH DIVIDE while working through ALYSHA. At this point, NSD had already been returned to me, but as it had not yet been published I was able to correct this issue easily. Overall, I found Kate great to work with. She's easy to talk to, enthusiastic, and very professional. I highly recommend you consider her for your editing needs.

You can find out more about Kate's services by visiting www.kateproof.co.uk

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