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Originally Posted by petrucci
Well, the beauty of e-books and crowd sourcing is that once an error has been found and reported, it can be fixed and the book can be republished.
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Yes, but technically, it shouldn't be - unless the errors are very small (in which case, why would you bother?), then that's now a new edition. This distinction would be very clear if it were a print book, but obviously is less so for an e-book, particularly if it's self-published, as most people outside the publishing industry wouldn't have a clue about editions. It does seem likely that the distinction between different editions is likely to become very blurred.
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Originally Posted by Catlady
Correct grammar and punctuation aren't just little niceties; they make the story understandable. You're right that readers don't see it when it's there, but when it's not, not only does the story look sloppy, but the reader has to guess at meanings and attempt to decipher sentences by filling in missing words and punctuation. Grammar is the structure that supports the story, and without it, the story collapses.
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A very succinct description, and how true!
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Originally Posted by teh603
I dunno, I've found that only the worst grammar mistakes can really break a story apart. Split infinitives, dangling participles, lie/lay, its/it's, hanged/hung, starting with a conjunction, and the like are relatively minor annoyances that don't really hurt a story.
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Depends on your bugbears, I suppose. A lot of these woudn't be a problem for me (and as mentioned below, some of these aren't really mistakes either) but its/it's really grates on me, as does 'should of'.
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Originally Posted by RHWright
It comes down to this for me: if you expect to be paid like a professional, put out a professional quality product.
[snip]
What counts are the results. And, sorry, as a consumer with $$ in my pocket, I find that spelling errors, typos, and gross grammar errors (its/it's, your/you're, there/their/they're) are signs of sloppiness and lack of attention to detail that I do not expect from a professional.
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My feelings exactly - if you're going to sell a product, you owe it to the customer to make it the best that it can be.
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Originally Posted by DarkScribe
To some they might not be regarded as errors, but to most erudite people they most definitely are regarded as errors. I regard them as errors, and so do most of the professionals I work with - even American professionals.
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Perhaps 'especially' rather than 'even' - I certainly find that American publishers are far more likely than British publishers to clamp down on split infiinitives. My personal feeling is that this is because British publishers are more familiar with the classic languages, and therefore accept that the fact that justt because people believe a 'cherished superstition' (good phrase, that, BTW!) is no reason to follow it if there isn't a firm basis for it, which in those cases, there isn't. There's no point forcing a perfectly rounded sentence into a square box labelled 'correct grammar' just because someone whose own knowledge of grammar is incomplete thinks that this is the way it should be written.