You won’t be kept at arm’s length. You’ll know your proofreader’s name.

While there is clearly a role to be played by the proofreading giants for whom numbers, anonymity and turnover are the name of the game, the beauty of today’s connected world means that there is still a niche for personalised service providers.

I am not an online cube farm. (Image: iStock)

Let me treat you for who you are and your work for what it is: you are a unique person with a unique story, and this is the most important document you’ve ever created.

Our story

Each of us has a unique story of how we got to be where we are, written by those who came before us.

Given that I live on an island, it’s not surprising that each strand of my story involved an arrival on a boat:

A great canoe migration from Hawaiki in the 1200s;

A sailor who changed his name to conceal the fact he was Danish and who became one of the first European settlers in New Zealand;

The Slain’s Castle landing in 1845 carrying a British soldier of the 58th Regiment of Foot;

A ship bringing a nine-year-old Niuean girl on her way to boarding school in 1917.

(Image: iStock)

Nothing we can do will change our story. It was what it was.

Our story has an effect on who we are, whether we know it or not.

I believe it is important to know your own story to better understand yourself. It is not a matter of pride or embarrassment; it is simply a matter of knowing.

What is your story?

Keeping it personal

An online business such as mine could easily be designed for anonymity and impersonal interaction. But my business is not designed that way.

I am going to fight hard to keep things personal. To see each of my clients as a contributing writer to the story that they’ve been given.

My job for you might have an identifying number, but you won’t be referred to as ‘Client No. X’.

We’ll communicate on a first-name basis.

Hopefully, we’ll have a few minutes to chat in between doing business.

And for the period that I am communicating with you and working on your document, I will be your personal professional proofreader, helping you to perfect the part of your story that you are currently writing.