Quote:
Originally Posted by Hatgirl
Got to disagree with you there. I recently read a badly edited and badly formatted independent book. If I hadn't promised someone I'd read it I would have ditched it after the first 2 chapters for one of the innumerable excellent books I have on my reader. It's a shame. it was an interesting plot with interesting characters, it just needed someone to go through it with a red pen and someone else to see how the formatting actually looked on an ereader.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I'm afraid that, personally speaking, I'm NOT willing to do that. That's why I spend months proof-reading the classics, and posting them here, because minor details like typos and bad punctuation REALLY annoy me.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I have to disagree, I'm afraid, Marc. No matter how good a story is, poor grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes will distract me from it to such an extent that I can't read it. I take the view that if the author can't be bothered to get such things right, why should I take the time to read his or her book?
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Yep, I'm with these ideas. I expect *any* book - self-pubbed, free, whatever- to be pretty well-edited with very few mistakes. Even if there is not a monetary investment, it is a time investment. I am choosing to spend my very valuable time experiencing someone else's creation. I find it very difficult to look past bad editing. Language is a fluid, beautiful thing, when done correctly. When riddled with errors, it hurts my brain. (I can, however, look past so-so formatting, providing it doesn't interfere with my interpretation--no strange page or line breaks when it isn't a true break in the paragraphs).