Tuesday, November 28, 2017

PSA and Rant

If you're a writer... hell, if you're in any kind of business where you present marketing materials to the world... proofread your stuff before it hits the public eye. 

It goes without saying that your books should be proofread.  Over the course of 65 to 150 thousand words, though, you're bound to miss something here or there.  With those words, do the very best you can. 

In a marketing materials, generally the shorter the better.  But let's say, for the sake of argument, you're putting out a blurb of like 250-500 words.  Surely, you can proofread that to perfection.  Surely.  And if you can't, then get someone else to do it.  Get several someones.  Something.

I just read such a blurb for a person trying to sell their book on how to sell books.  Not a damn comma in the whole thing.  And there should've been.  Trust me.

I've seen ads in the local paper.  Maybe 20 words?  With misspellings.  Now, sure, these aren't for writing services, but still.  You're touting your restaurant as being an upscale alternative in the area?  Then make your ad look like you gave a damn.  If you spell Wednesday like Wensday it looks like you don't care.  How can I then trust you to care whether my fork is spotless or whether your employees wash their hands?  :shudder:

Hell, I've seen misspellings and typos in the damn news.  Argh.

These are things that ought to be proofread to within an inch of their existences.  But no.  And people are getting paid to write that stuff, which really offends the hell out of me.

Yes, yes.  This pot is calling the kettle tarnished.  If you consider these blog posts as marketing materials, that is.  I've warned y'all before.  I don't proofread the blog, for the most part.  If I see an error, I fix it, but other than that, blog posts are on their own.  Non-marketing FB posts are on their own, too.  Sometimes, I'm just a person, jotting my thoughts down for the world to see. 

My blog posts probably make my editor cringe sometimes.  I can almost imagine her up there shouting "COMMAS, B.E., COMMAS".  :shrug: 

This has been a Public Service Announcement... that sort of turned into a rant.  :shrug:  Do the world a favor and proofread your marketing materials.  Please. 

2 comments:

  1. I'm amazed at the current crop. I asked someone once--who has a masters--if she could diagram the sentence she wrote. She just looked at me, blinking, deer in headlights. She could barely name the parts of speech. I asked who wrote her thesis and she got all offended. She had to pay huge bucks to an editor to correct all the grammar problems. When I went through high school English, a dangling participle or a split infinitive was an automatic F. As a wordsmith, yeah, I make typos. "It's" for "its" is one of my bugaboos. But I do my best to fix them all. When I see so-called professional journalists make those kind of mistakes (and worse), I gnash my teeth. *sigh* What's the world coming to? *shakes fist and yells "Get offa my lawn!"* ;)

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  2. Commas are tricky, but getting rid of them isn't the cure. Sheesh.

    A favorite typo in town is the sign that says "Churh" instead of Church. Can't remember which church, which is probably just as well.

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