"But Ma! I don't need a proofreader -- I am a proofreader!"
My favorite rebuke of 3L Publishing's editorial services comes from professional journalists, English teachers or editors who swear in stone they don't need our editorial services. This declaration always leaves me smiling like the all-knowing publisher that I am. Let me entertain you now with true confessions: I (the publisher and professional editor) NEED a proofreader ! Shock! Awe! No ... you ? Yes, me. Let me take this a step further: I don't care if you're a Pulitzer Prize winner for literature, guess what? You still need a proofreader. I have said this in the past to help laypeople understand how hard it is to proofread, so I will use the analogy again: Imagine taking a huge jar of 100,000 black jellybeans. Now take those black jellybeans and spill them on a white table. Now go look for the flawed beans. You will find you have to pick each one up, look at it, and put it back, and so on. Friends, THAT is how difficult it is to perfect a manuscript with 100,000 ...
