I stumbled onto Maria Grace's Jane Austen's Dragons series last year and really enjoyed them. I get notices of her blog posts and all that; it's been fun. A post back in February or March noted that one of the proofreaders for her newest book, Dragons Beyond the Pale, had had to drop out. In a comment, I offered to pick up the slack, never expecting her to take me up on it. But she did! She sent me the book in 4 files, which I proofed and sent back to her. The book came out last week "and I helped!" to quote the ancient Shake & Bake commercial. As a thank you, she sent me an e-copy of the book and is also mailing me a paperback version.
It was little weird in that I didn't want to tell an author what to do, but the language geek in me just has to fix the punctuation, catch the repetitive phrases, etc. And of course no one is immune to typos. i went thru each file twice before returning it. It was interesting to see what I missed on the first pass, usually because I was a little too engrossed in the story but sometimes because I think my brain just read what should have been there instead of what was actually there. My notes reflected my ambivalence: "Hmm; perhaps ..." or "consider using __ or __ instead" or "I don't think you need to use this; it doesn't really add anything." I haven't checked the e-version yet to see how many of my suggestions she kept. I may wait for the paperback to arrive.
This was fun! I got to help an author I enjoy get her newest title into the hands of her eager fans - that was something of a rush. This book leaves the door open for at least 2 or 3 more in the series; I sure hope she taps me for those books, too.
