This post, by Morris Rosenthal, originally appeared on his Foner Books site on 10/29/13.
Today I caught myself, with the shaving cream prepared for action on my hand, running my toothbrush under the hot water. I took it for my razor. So it’s not surprising that I have trouble proofreading my own writing, as my blog entries frequently testify. Believe me, I go through them several times before posting, you’re seeing the cleaned up versions:-)
One proofreading trick I discovered a couple years ago is to send Word files to an eInk Kindle and to read them there in large print. For some reason, this has more of a “published” feel to me than laser printed proofs, and the look of a published book is the only thing that recalls my proofing ability to the old days, when I never made it through a trade book without spotting errors.
Last week, as I was finishing up a guide to borrowing audiobooks from public libraries for Kindle and Fire, a little light bulb went off in my head. Audio? Proofing? I fired up my Kindle 2 (on which it’s possible to listen to library audiobooks though you have to download them to a PC first and transfer by USB) and used Send To Kindle to send over the draft I was working on. Then I used that funny synthesized voice that has been available on Kindle eInk since the beginning, and lo and behold, I picked up on a couple more errors I had missed through repeated readings.
Click here to read the rest of the how-to on Foner Books.