Since I published The Adults in the Room in April of 2019, I have paid over four thousand dollars for editing and proof reading services and I still find mistakes even to this day. Stupid stuff such as the word Bought which should be Brought and You which should be Your. The list goes on and on.

Although I am not accusing anyone of ripping me off (which is why I am not naming names) because these editing/proof reading services did make changes and did make corrections and improvements to my novel. They just did not find all of my mistakes ( and I foolishly thought that they did). However, my readers did and they let me know about it. I have to say that I was very embarrassed.

Recently, my wife Kathleen proofread the most recently edited copy of The Adults in the Room and found fifteen errors. These have now been fixed.

Now that I have two other novels under my belt, I have learned a couple of things. Number one, you are responsible for what gets out there so if you hire someone from the internet to edit or proof read your book, make sure they can offer you a guarantee. If all they are going to do is run a spell and grammar check, then you may as well save the money and do it yourself.

Number two, editing and proof reading is a true talent. I have no clue what the average proof readers makes at one of the major publishing houses but it is probably not enough.

Jeffrey Mechling