How Imprtoant is Proofrding? LOL
If that was annoying to read, then I've made my point. Don't annoy your readers with bad writing.
Whether you're typing your book, voice to texting it, dictating it to a stenographer, or writing it by hand on lined paper, you are bound to make a mistake here or there (and a little bit everywhere.)
But a good editor knows that editing is not just about grammar or catching those double spaces. Editing and proofreading involve bringing excellence and fine tuning to your story arcs, organizing your thoughts, building a strong table of contents, adjusting your word choices and sentence structures to fit your target audience's reading level, etc.. These steps are all just as important as proofreading when it comes to creating the best possible product version of your manuscript.
A good publisher will always provide you with honest feedback about your work (even if it stings a little to have to rewrite your favorite part to make it easier to digest for your readers.) The last thing you want as an author is for your book to be hard to read or filled with formatting or grammar distractions and for your friends to give you a bewildered high five as they say 'good job on that book' but actually have no clue what it was about!
Don't worry if you're not the best speller or you don't own your very own copy of Strunke and White's 'Element's of Style.' You don't have to know how or when to use a semicolon or colon or dash, or know what the proper use of a gerund is to get published. Publishers know that every writer has different skills and you can lean on your editor and proofreader for this. Your publisher (who provides these services) is your ally and should help polish your work into the best product it can be so you can be proud of what you're presenting to people and be confident that the message you have to give them will be received as you intended it.
