I have been reading a book recently that has clearly never been anywhere near an editor, or a beta reader or even Grammarly.
The formatting is wrong – it’s double spaced after every paragraph.
There are multiple spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes – even some of the tenses used are wrong.
There are four main characters, three of them have names starting with the letter M. This is fiction, the author could have called them anything, but instead, the reader can barely follow the story as the characters have similar names.
There is a half decent story buried in here with a lot of research put into it, but it’s not showcased well, with flat characters and basic, sometimes repetitive dialogue.
To me, this showcases the bad side of indie publishing. I paid more for this than my book is currently listed as and I spent £6,000 on Refraction before publishing, to make sure it was the very best it could be. In hindsight, I spent £5,500 too much and some people don’t even have £500 to spend on their novel. I get it, it’s not easy funding your own projects. I had to borrow the money as I had none. But your book is an item for sale and the purchaser should be able to buy a product with the confidence that it is actually finished. The book I’ve been reading is more like a first draft.
There are three reviews on the book’s Amazon page, all of them are five stars. No one in their right mind would give this book five stars, which means these are likely left by close friends and family of the author.
I chose this book because the blurb sounded good and I like reading and helping out other indie authors. I don’t know the writer at all, so I don’t feel comfortable seeking him out and telling him this in person, but I also don’t feel like sharing my honest review. The one or two stars I would leave would hurt and possibly stay with him for a long time. I received a three-star review soon after publishing Refraction – the reviewer didn’t agree with the way I told my story, which is subjective at best – but it stung and hurt my sales in the early stages.
The issues I have with this book are different. I would never hinder someone’s artistic choices or say I would have written it differently, because this is someone else’s art and vision. My issues with this book are fundamental mistakes which make the story difficult to read – things that a professional editor would be able to clear up. The formatting is a simple fix, the errors are likely to be a result of word blindness, they could suggest to change the character names to make it easier for the reader to follow and maybe even a few suggestions to make the dialogue more natural sounding and realistic.
As it stands, it’s pretty unreadable. So, I’ve deleted the book after reading 67%. Much more than I should have read. My review is already written, I wrote it a week ago, but I don’t want to be “that guy”. I don’t want to be the one that crushes this debut author’s dreams. As an indie writer, I know how that feels. I really wish someone close to him would be more honest instead of singing the praises of something that needs a lot of work, but we know our friends and family rarely do that.
But should this job really fall on the reader to speak up in their review? I wouldn’t have minded as much pre-publishing, but now I know how it feels, I don’t want to cause anyone that pain. I have battled with should I/shouldn’t I leave a review for over a week. On the one hand, someone needs to tell him about the mistakes he’s made, but on the other, why should I have to be the bearer of bad news?
I don’t believe that we as the reader should ever be put into this position. You as the writer know that a book needs to be edited. Even if you can’t afford a professional editor, find some friends who can beta read it for you and tell them to be honest. This isn’t about changing your story, your vision or your art, this is about making it readable. Making sure there are no errors, that your characters don’t all have similar sounding names that can confuse the reader and that something as simple as correctly formatting your text isn’t overlooked.
This is why I believe the whole system should have a better filter before self-publishing, to make sure these simple errors don’t get through; otherwise, indie publishing will continue to carry a burden of shame. If anyone can publish anything of any quality and attach a price tag to it, how is the prospective reader ever to know what’s good and what’s not? They might as well just stick to buying traditionally published books. At least then they know the book will be at least edited well, regardless of the quality of story inside.
There are so many amazing indie writers who do spend the time needed to review their work. Who do find beta readers and even if they can’t afford an editor they will spend weeks scouring every line of their book until it is ready. Some of the best books I’ve read are indie books and yet many of them only get a handful of readers a year.
If you can’t afford an editor, can’t do this yourself and can’t find anyone to help you, there are so many free resources online for you to learn. Spend the time reviewing your work before publishing. And if all else fails, don’t charge people for something that you know isn’t sale-ready.
Postscript:
I know this is a contentious issue for some people. There are those who don’t believe there should be any restrictions on what is published, their argument being, you don’t give a painter rules on how to paint. But this isn’t about a painting – this isn’t even about the art/vision of the story – this is a book and books do have rules. Spelling, grammar, formatting and punctuation are the foundations of our written language. They are the standardised basis for us all to learn, speak, read and write the same language. You can’t mess with that, otherwise we’d never be able to communicate with each other.