If you write much of anything, you need to proofread.

Errors in grammar, usage, and spelling can be very entertaining to the reader. But you may not want to have your writing provide that kind of entertainment.

Proofread your work!

• books
• articles
• newsletters
• brochures
• business cards (Yup, I got one from my bank that has Cleint on it!)
• promotional letters
• ebooks
• websites
• blogs

Now let me break some bad news to you.

We all easily miss some of our own mistakes.

Any honest proofreader or editor who knows his stuff will agree with me on that point.

So what to do?

Get another set of eyes hitched up to another brain.

But the cost is prohibitive. And I doubt your health insurance would cover the procedure.

It would be far less expensive to pay me a few dollars to put my set of eyes (hitched up to my brain, of course) to work on your writing project. And think of the pain and downtime you could avoid.

But why me? What am I?

A professional proofreader?

Well, please stand by while I puff out a few fine notes on my own horn. I really do dislike doing it, but I suppose if I did, you would feel better about entrusting your work (and your dollars) to me. So here goes...and I'll try to keep it short and not too loud:

I taught high school for ten years (or was it twelve?). I had to read and grade way more writing than you'll ever submit to me.

I reviewed and edited various projects for Christian Light Publications and Lamp & Light Publishers. (And I did both English and Spanish projects.) And once upon a time I went to Nike headquarters as a temp and proofread a glossy catalog for them.

Even when I'm reading non-professionally, my mind still snags the word that's misspelled or incorrectly used. (All of them? Now don't be silly.)

There. That's enough horn music. But allow me more time for just one of several recent examples on that last point. In my recent house hunting, I was reading a realtor's short bio, blurred here to protect the innocent:

I was looking for information, not for errors, OK? But my mind still had its red pen at the ready. Move your cursor over the above image to see what happened.

OK. Enough of that. What will it cost you to engage my service?

• If your piece consists of 300 words or less, $3.

• If it has a maximum of 500 words, $5.

• Up to 800? Make it $10.

• Does it top out somewhere between 809 and 1,653? I'll have to have $15.

• Over 1,700? We'd better talk about that.

Next I need to be clear about three other things....

• The above prices are for English projects. For Spanish I charge double.

• The above prices are for digitally-submitted projects. If you want to send me a print-out via snail mail, please contact me for a quote.

• I reserve the responsibility to refuse any project.

So your job is to get the material to me along with payment.

My job is to correct any errors I find in spelling, grammar, and usage. And then return the corrected material to you, of course.

Every error I catch means one less "hit" against your reputation.

And if I find no errors to catch, have you wasted your money? Come now! You know better that!

But what if I miss an error in your work? Then I'll do a proportionate refund of some sort.

Now a closing deal: For every mistake you catch on this Web page, I'll give you a $2 discount on the next project you have me do for you. (Good luck! Ooops! I mean, happy hunting!)