World, Writing, Wealth discussion
All Things Writing & Publishing
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Is the dimension of poorly edited self-published books still big?
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Also language and grammar including punctuation evolve. If you read books from even 100 years ago you will notice language changes let alone going to Will S or earlier.The Greek writers have been translated into an interpretation of what the translator stated unless you can read ancient Greek or ancient Latin or hieroglyphics - therefore if I read a Homer book, how it is grammatically put on the page is already an interpretation of an interpretation of a translation mutli-times over.
Language will evolve because it always has. New words, new word use. Take the word gay and its modern meaning compared to even 1970s use.
Is it " for speech or ' for speech or nothing. Should it be "he said," or 'he said', or variations or nothing.
If a comma is a pause and a full stop a longer pause why do they have to be in positions to not cause that e.g. a list. Comma before an and in a list or not. Semi-colon before therefore followed by comma or not.
We can appear like dinosaurs if we insist on x style of grammar when that is not how language evolves, or the writer intends.
I've been having some books translated into non-English and I have to approve the text. Given my own parlous grammar how can I tell?
I found a copy of Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing. Leonard was a prolific writer of crime novels and westerns. (Get Shorty, 3:10 to Yuma) Maybe I don't agree with all of them, but you can't argue with Leonard's success.1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said"…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Philip wrote: "Also language and grammar including punctuation evolve. If you read books from even 100 years ago you will notice language changes let alone going to Will S or earlier.The Greek writers have been..."
That is where an editor can really help you. I also suggest you really think what you want to say and how you want to say it. I suggest rereading A Clockwork Orange, the British version. Language is everything in it and it works beautifully. However, I also suggest you reread Riddley Walker. Once again Language is everything and it does not work for me.
Barbara wrote: "My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. ..."That is the best piece of advice I have heard.
Papaphilly wrote: "Barbara wrote: "I also think avid readers may be the best writers...."If that were only true, I would be an incredible writer....8^)"
I would be a bestseller.
I wasn't talking about a few mistakes in grammar, punctuation, or spelling. I was talking about so many mistakes that I find them distracting. And distracting for me would be more than 1 major mistake in 5 pages. I can live with that. Otherwise, someone should have caught and corrected those errors so that I can concentrate on the plot without having to mentally correct the errors. If you want to be read, don't make work for the reader.
Scout wrote: "I wasn't talking about a few mistakes in grammar, punctuation, or spelling. I was talking about so many mistakes that I find them distracting. And distracting for me would be more than 1 major mist..."Thank you Scout. 3 mistakes in a chapter and I am annoyed. The story better be good for me to keep reading. I am more likely to do so when it is minor. Like you, when it makes me trip over what I am reading, it distracts me, and I am disenchanted as a reader.
Well it looks like I might be in the minority on this thread. As just a reader I don't have a problem much with mistakes and errors. I do read lots of indie authors too as that is about all I read. Once in awhile I will step into mainstream but I mainly read self published. The only time I have had a problem was a couple of years ago I read a book where all the sentences ran together - that drove me a little loopy as it seemed the author forgot to stick periods at the end of the sentences and that went on for about four chapters straight. It was rough, but I just stuck with it (amazing that I did actually) and read the book to the end.
With mainstream authors I have come across mistakes here and there. The only time that it would get annoying I suppose would be if the mistakes are constant chapter after chapter. I haven't come across that yet but maybe I better be careful saying that as it might happen - my luck. lol :)
But reading everyone's thoughts on this subject, I am curious though why the authors would publish a book that is filled with errors - like the author I read that had the sentences with no end - I guess the book wasn't proofed, but he went ahead and published it.
So here are a couple of curious questions to the authors on here:
What is the purpose of publishing a book filled with lots of errors?
Is it just pushing the book out on the market and hoping the reader skims over the errors?
Marie wrote: "What is the purpose of publishing a book filled with lots of errors?Is it just pushing the book out on the market and hoping the reader skims over the errors?...."
Probably just saving on the cost. My first book cost me and my co-author over a two th. pounds. I managed to reduce the costs with every subsequent one. As I'm not a native English speaker, I wouldn't dare publishing a book without an expert taking a look.
Some others just air a book for the heck of it. It doesn't cost money, so it's like a flash drive keeping it with an occasional sale as a bonus..
Nik wrote: "Some others just air a book for the heck of it. It doesn't cost money, so it's like a flash drive keeping it with an occasional sale as a bonus....."Then I take it some authors do not care one way or the other with the end result of the book nor do they care about what the reader thinks when the book is full of errors, right?
They covertly hope every reader will appreciate their genius, despite the errors :)
Nik wrote: "They covertly hope every reader will appreciate their genius, despite the errors :)"Spoken like a "true" author! 😁
KU tends to attract the bottom-of-the-barrel "authors" trying to make a quick buck. If you buy a book, you'll return it, and an author doesn't get the royalties, but if you read the book through KU and give up, the author still gets paid for the pages you read. If those "authors" can get enough people to check out the book and read a few pages before giving up in disgust, they could potentially make ok money on a book they spent a minimal amount of time writing.It's the same reason you see people collecting memes from the internet into a "book," or taking screen captures from whatever popular video game they play and throw together a "book." KU attracts the laziest of the lazy, and Amazon does little to nothing to discourage it.
Separately, erotica tends to be a category readers are forgiving of a lot of errors if the author is effective at putting them "in the mood."
Don't forget formatting errors on the system - just had an issue with a translation on Babelcube where the formatting went all over the place. Luckily I spotted it but then had to reformat the whole book and make sure I didn't mess the French grammar rules up before re-submitting. The translation was fine, but some sentences and paragraphs got split.Kindle formatting looks straightforward but sometimes it goes wrong.
Nik wrote: "They covertly hope every reader will appreciate their genius, despite the errors :)"Covertly?
Adrian wrote: "...Covertly?"The modest ones. Those not suffering from this virtue, brag about the greatness of their creation right off :)
Not touching this one...Not touching this one...NOT TOUCHING THIS ONE...8^)
Papaphilly wrote: "Not touching this one...Not touching this one...NOT TOUCHING THIS ONE...8^)"Laughed out loud.
Philip wrote: "Don't forget formatting errors on the system - just had an issue with a translation on Babelcube where the formatting went all over the place. Luckily I spotted it but then had to reformat the whol..."I have tried to explain that to a couple of authors over the years. Whatever WP they use, when converted to Kindle it results in one word, a blank line, then the next few words, more blanks in the middle of the sentence, and so on. I know in the old days of WP I had to use two spaces after a period to indicate the end of a sentence, and a hard return at the end of a line would cause a paragraph to split. I don't know if those rules still apply, but I have seen some really bad formatting on the kindle over the years.
Lizzie wrote: "Philip wrote: "Don't forget formatting errors on the system - just had an issue with a translation on Babelcube where the formatting went all over the place. Luckily I spotted it but then had to re..."Constant battle not helped by Kindle and others changing formatting rules and not using WWW standards for HTML for example. My software of choice is Scrivener which has its own challenges and was outputting to MOBI format for Kindle with no issues until Amazon dropped it in favour of ePUB. All well and good but Babel takes Word. Microsoft's idea of following any standard or agreeing with implementation is a joke. Check any word document in HTML to see all the rubbish that gets added so Microsoft can help....
My advice with Word is to use the ruler and the return key, and nothing else except the keys to write. If you use "show formatting" the goal is to have nothing but paragraph endings and the dots that indicate word spaces. That helps compilers, but you still have to choose the right form of Word for your compiler. Microsoft seems to have the objective of making it as difficult as possible to transfer your writing into something that can be read by anything other than Microsoft
Ian wrote: "My advice with Word is to use the ruler and the return key, and nothing else except the keys to write. If you use "show formatting" the goal is to have nothing but paragraph endings and the dots th..."Unfortunately Babel only accepts Word otherwise I would avoid it completely
There are actually a lot of professional editors 'let go' from traditional publishing houses whom indie authors can turn to for top notch editing and copy editing services. No need to rely on former English teachers, newspaper men, etc., good as I am sure they are on grammar and proofing. There's plenty of the real McCoy out there.
Miriam wrote: "There are actually a lot of professional editors 'let go' from traditional publishing houses whom indie authors can turn to for top notch editing and copy editing services. No need to rely on forme..."The issue is not availability. It's one of cost and return. As with other element like Audio books and cover design. Lots of people willing to take self-pub writers money. Very few prepared to co-return. Babelcube is co-royalty for translations and ACX can be but editing and covers want money and quite a lot up front.
I do my own covers. I use 3 different editing software apps. Ideally, I would hire an editor (again) but spending $1,000 on such a service with still no guarantee of any return would be foolhardy. Even when I have done so I have still received reviews complaining about editing....
Interesting, I find that even books published by huge publishing houses still have editing that was missed. I guess we are all human.
Some of the very biggest. I was stunned by the number of editing errors (both structural and typos) in Dan Brown's Inferno. It literally read as a first draft that was published as soon as saleable, rather than readable.
After following this same discussion topic within a different discussion group -Goodreads Authors/Readers - since April, 2018, I decided to try a personal experiment. Admittedly, it may not be a scientific approach or realistic methodology, but I personally found the results interesting.During the 12-month period in 2020, I randomly chose 14 books of approximately the same length. 7 were traditionally published and 7 were self-published. While reading, whenever I noticed a spelling, grammatical, punctuation, typo, or print error, I made a mark on a piece of paper.
The average number of errors (total divided by 7) noted was 112 in the self-published books and 29 in the traditionally published books. The total number of errors in the self-published book with the least amount of errors was 23. The total number in the traditionally published book with the least number of errors was 19.
Conclusion: A published author is a published author! The method of publication (traditional - self-published - vanity press) does not necessarily impact the quality of any work. It is the technical writing skillset, talent, knowledge, discipline, and personal resources of the author that usually determine if a book will be great, pretty good, or not worth reading.
Jim wrote: "After following this same discussion topic within a different discussion group -Goodreads Authors/Readers - since April, 2018, I decided to try a personal experiment. Admittedly, it may not be a sc..."An interesting experiment indeed and a great effort on your part!
With an average of 112 in s/p books with the least number being 23, I can only imagine how great the most number could be. Distracted by a few hundred errors, reading might turn into a dubious pleasure.
Good point. If you want people to follow the plot and subplots, then expecting them to mentally correct grammar, spelling and punctuation errors as they read may be too much to ask.
Scout wrote: "Good point. If you want people to follow the plot and subplots, then expecting them to mentally correct grammar, spelling and punctuation errors as they read may be too much to ask."It breaks immersion in the story.
World, Writing, Wealth
Books mentioned in this topic
A Clockwork Orange (other topics)Riddley Walker (other topics)
Absolutely true. The basic skills of storytelling are sucked in like mother's milk in the formative years of reading. And all the finer nuances are achieved as the fully formed writer deeply explores his/her genre of choice.