Do you you read indie e-books? What will convince you to check out indie books?

[DreamWriter]

Originally Posted by Just4kix

Do readers care about the quality of the writing?

An interesting article

[url]Shortened URL deleted - MODERATOR]

I don't follow links unless they show exactly where they're going, so I didn't read the article, but I certainly do care about the quality of the writing.

[Nyssa]

Yes, I read indie authors, but not becuase they're"indie"; I read them becuase they're available and look like something I want to read. I never, actually pay attention to who has published what. It never really crosses my mind to care. If I like the author I'll look for books by that author. I like fantasy novels the most, so I look for them. I want to try romance novels , so I've looked for those. Plus, with all of the genre-specific threads around I now have a bunch of reference points for just about anything else that crosses my mind, but at no time do I ever wonder whose doing the publishing.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by DreamWriter

I don't follow links unless they show exactly where they're going, so I didn't read the article, but I certainly do care about the quality of the writing.

Any link could contain a redirect instead of going where it appears to be going. But in this case, the actual URL is http://www.selfpublishingreview.com/...atter-anymore/

Excerpt:

So gatekeepers are good because they separate the wheat from the chaff, etc. etc. There is a major point missing from this argument: readers don’t care. Bad, “unpublishable” books are finding an audience. I cannot claim to have read many of the books on the Kindle self-published bestseller list, but without a doubt there are many books that some people would find totally inept, but are finding an audience with many honest 5-star reviews.
...
At the risk of sounding like a snob: non-sophisticated readers will not care if writing is non-sophisticated, and there are a lot more non-sophisticated readers than sophisticated ones.

[Anke Wehner]

I don't know... I had to read "great literature" at school, and found most of it aggravating and/or boring. That rather puts me off the whole "you need professionals to tell you which books are good" mindset.

I guess that makes me a non-sophisticated reader.

There's a huge can of worms there regarding "what makes a good book?" The way I see it, there aren't really any objective standards for that, because each reader will have different criteria for what makes a book enjoyable.

And regarding copy-editing and formatting, well.
In the last indie book I read I noticed 3 typos/spelling mistakes on ~300 pages, and there were about that many instances of entirely blank pages before a new chapter (which I'm pretty sure stem from having to compromise a bit for the multi-format conversion on Smashwords).
In the last professionally published ebook I read I spotted 5 typos/spelling mistakes on ~200 pages, and it had the quotes at the chapter beginnings formatted with far too wide margins.
The second to last professionally published ebook had superfluous spaces around punctuation where they didn't belong every couple of pages, and a handful of linebreaks where they didn't belong, or linebreaks that were missing when in a dialogue scene speakers switched. (That book was as-bought from Kobo, not converted in any way.)

Oh, and the two "professional" books had generic graphics for covers.

So, yeah, I don't get the impression traditional publishers do better on the last cleanup than an indie author who's serious about it.

[VegasWriter]

My favorite categories: mystery and indie ... getting both in one shot is doubly impressive.

I rarely go to the movies but I'm inclined to rent or view indie films because, like indie books, that's where I find the most interesting and most creative people.

Thanks for the thread.

[Just4kix]

The problem is that with the popular use of sms speak there are now readers who don't even recognise a spelling mistake, let alone a grammar error.

[Sweetpea]

I buy books if I like the description of it. I've no idea if it's indie or not.

[Russell Brooks]

Originally Posted by Just4kix

Do readers care about the quality of the writing?

An interesting article

[url][Shortened URL deleted - MODERATOR]

I remember that article. I read it a few days ago. Several good points are brought up.

[Russell Brooks]

I'm Indie. When I sent ARCs of my first novel to the first batch of book bloggers, I accidentally sent a copy that was full of typos and grammatical errors without realizing it. Some of the bloggers let me know this. I immediately stopped sending out copies and emailed the bloggers I had sent ARCs to, asking them to stop reading it immediately due to the problem.

I immediately got two new editors to go over it and return it to me before sending out the edited version. Most of the bloggers forgave me and accepted the revised edition. I lost some bloggers. Then there were a few bloggers that read the book without noticing the problems. I don't know if they did, but they certainly didn't complain about them in their reviews. Furthermore they gave my story 4 or 5 stars, which still surprised me.

[Frida Fantastic]

I've been looking at this old thread. It's weird! I've only been on mobileread for a month? It feels longer.

It's funny to see how my desire for more indie book vetting led me to begin a personal review blog, even though I said before that I preferred a website with multiple reviewers. That still hasn't changed X_X Although there's now new review blogs with *gasp* exactly 7 reviewers, exactly what I thought was the ideal number, but they deal with different genres.

http://goodbookalert.blogspot.com/

[Russell Brooks]

Originally Posted by bashfulbanshee

I've been looking at this old thread. It's weird! I've only been on mobileread for a month? It feels longer.

It's funny to see how my desire for more indie book vetting led me to begin a personal review blog, even though I said before that I preferred a website with multiple reviewers. That still hasn't changed X_X Although there's now new review blogs with *gasp* exactly 7 reviewers, exactly what I thought was the ideal number, but they deal with different genres.

http://goodbookalert.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the heads up, Bashfulbanshee. I'm still looking for reviewers in both Canada and in Europe.

[Frida Fantastic]

Not sure if I've already mentioned it on mobileread, but I've been curating a list of bloggers who primarily review indie SF/F here: http://indiesfreviewers.wordpress.com/

I've added a new SF/F group blog called Sift Book Reviews http://siftbookreviews.blogspot.com/

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by bashfulbanshee

Sift Book Reviews

Excellent name choice for the site.

We all sift through books, but now I'm considering writing something (unrelated to that) which could be called a "sift book" -- in which a mimetic character sifts through points of view rapidly in a crisis before settling on one -- which would change the style of the first-person narration accordingly and allow for fun pyrotechnics. It could also be a book that involved massive historical and stylistic Frankensteins at every possible level. I'll credit you for inspiring it whenever I finish.

[NedC]

Just come across another newish review blog, specialising in fiction published independently in the UK (though not all the authors are British, I notice): All Metaphor Malachi http://allmetaphor.com/.

The owner claims to buy all the books he/she reviews - a plus, surely? Sounds a bit grumpy, though.

[Russell Brooks]

Worth checking out.