There is a piece by well-known horror writer JA Konrath in today's Huffington Post (
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ja-kon..._b_764516.html) in which he repeats the common mantra: "Publishers -- who needs 'em?"
He is boasting in his article that he and three co-authors (all big names in their own right) are about to release a self-published Kindle-only ebook, independent of their usual agents and publishers.
One of his claims is that with eighty published works between them, this professional writing team of four is perfectly capable of editing each other's work.
So I downloaded the opening chapters of the book (a free taster from Amazon) to take a look at the result.
On the first page alone, I found:
*A glaring continuity error in the opening lines where a Mr Moorecook answers the door to a FedEx delivery man. They have obviously never met before because Moorecook doesn't know how to sign for a parcel. Yet he calls the casual caller 'Robert' ... with no introduction or mention of a name tag.
*A typo in the middle of the page where the plural 'nurses' is erroneously applied to a single nurse.
*Ambiguous wording in the last paragraph that makes it laughable; with a woman seemingly taking a shower whilst sitting next to Moorecook on a couch.
I didn't bother reading past the first page.
Yup: editors -- who needs em?
Well certainly Mr Konrath and his three co-authors do.
Neil