Used to think proofreading services were a scam, then I hired one

A client dinged me on a $2,400 contract because of three typos in the final deliverable. Paid a local freelancer named Jenna $60 to go over my next draft, and she caught 12 things I missed. Anyone else eating crow on something they swore they'd never pay for?

4 comments

4 Comments

faithpatel6d ago

Dude same here. I swore off editing help until I missed a typo in an email to a big client and they called me out on it. Now I pay a friend $40 to skim everything before I hit send.

blake_kelly196d ago

I get where you're coming from but I actually see it different. Reading out loud works way better for me than paying someone else because it forces ME to really pay attention. I started doing it after I sent a contract with the wrong date and it saved my butt ever since. You catch the awkward phrasing AND the little mistakes at the same time, plus you don't have to wait on someone else to get back to you.

corap616d ago

OH man, the "miss a typo in a client email" thing is THE WORST. That happened to me once with a project proposal and I felt sick for three days. I now do the same thing but with a different system - I read EVERYTHING OUT LOUD before I send. It catches like 90 percent of the dumb mistakes. But to be honest that friend for $40 sounds like a STEAL compared to the anxiety I still get.

brian_hart6d ago

@corap61, you mentioned reading everything out loud catching 90 percent of mistakes. I used to do that too until I realized it only catches the ones you're already anxious about. The stuff you're confident about sneaks right past. My issue was I'd read what I thought I wrote, not what was actually on the screen. Jenna caught a "their" vs "there" I'd read past four times. Not trying to knock your system, but that last 10 percent is where the expensive typos hide.