The First Proofs

In the long process of pub­lish­ing, I have always loved the moment when the first “proofs” of a book arrive on my desk. Strict­ly speak­ing a proof means, “Some­thing that proves a state­ment; evi­dence or argu­ment estab­lish­ing a fact or the truth of any­thing, or belief in the cer­tain­ty of some­thing; an instance of this.” (Oxford Unabridged Dic­tio­nary) In the world of pub­lish­ing, how­ev­er, the term means. “A tri­al or pre­lim­i­nary impres­sion of a print­ed text, tak­en to be checked for errors and marked for cor­rec­tion before sub­se­quent revi­sion or final printing.”

First used in 1602, the cor­re­la­tion between the two words is clear enough: The proofs of a book prove that you have writ­ten a book.

It is per­fect­ly true that in a world of com­put­ing, I could make my writ­ing appear as pub­lished text. And I have no doubt, these proofs (these days) were prob­a­bly set down by a computer.

That said, feel­ing that I have print­ed text in my hand is very sat­is­fy­ing. I have been work­ing on this book, The End of the World and Beyond, which is the sequel to The Unex­pect­ed Life of Oliv­er Cromwell Pitts, for more than a year. It now sits upon my desk.

Nev­er mind that I am halfway into writ­ing a new book. That book being at the moment, dif­fi­cult to write, it’s a plea­sure to turn to some­thing done. Done is easy.

And yet…

My job is to read the proofs and dis­cov­er what is wrong.

What if I come upon pages that don’t read well? Pages, para­graphs, and sen­tences that are illog­i­cal in plot, char­ac­ter, or pace?

I send a note to the pub­lish­er to change things.

So the book isn’t tru­ly, real­ly fin­ished. (I was once read­ing the proof of a book only to dis­cov­er half a chap­ter had been inad­ver­tent­ly dropped out.)

That said, to have the proofs of a book is to be giv­en a new set of eyes. My book looks, feels, reads dif­fer­ent­ly than it has before.

But mind, it is not, by any stretch, sole­ly my book. Edi­tors, copy­ed­i­tors, read­ers (includ­ing my wife) have all weighed in. Some­times heavily.

Also, a design­er has designed the look of the book, which is of vital importance.

The names of these peo­ple are almost nev­er among the proofs.

In any case, there are more months to go before read­ers read it. Recall, the proof of the pud­ding is in the eat­ing. The proof of the book is in the reading.