[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by James_Wilde

Hi Deborah, and welcome to MR.

As you will have gathered, very few of the comments in here address your question. You have inadvertently started a regularly recurring flame war and there is nothing you can do about that other than hop over the dross.

Editing and proof-reading will not help you one whit in connecting with readers, however useful they may be. The give-away is here:



No offence, Worldwalker, but those big sellers got their copy editing after they got the fancy publishing contracts, and it's the fancy publishing firms who were responsible for their work connecting with readers. Those big sellers are not indie-publishers. And the reference to "vanity presses" was a bit of a snide dig.

It's just possible that the lack of copy editing will lose you a sale or two if problems show up in the first few pages or in the blurb. They may play a role in helping you to sell your second and subsequent novels, but actually I think your story plays a much bigger one. Speaking for myself, and most of the readers I know, we're a lot more tolerant of grammatical errors than copy editors would have you believe. Not that we have no standards, but we're even more tolerant if we know it's an indie-production.

Having got that out of the way, pluck out the comments about blogging, getting reviews on literature sites, or in newspapers. Maybe join the library circuit - libraries and other cultural centres often have literary evenings when a writer comes and talks about their writing, and maybe has fifty or so copies to sell at a discount. How about a signing day at bookstores within commuting distance? Just don't expect your first million in the first six months. Almost everyone agrees that it's the long haul for indie-publishers.

If you have more than one genre that you write in, choosing one that is popular, like crime fiction or chick-lit might help. If it's an ebook, sci-fi and fantasy seem to go over well. I don't know whether ebook readers are nerdier than the general population.

I'm not actually the best one to answer your question since I'm not there myself yet, but it's a long pull, and it seems to me that more time goes to connecting with readers for the indie-publisher than actually writing the book which is a shame. Reminds me of when I ran my own small accountancy firm. I reckoned that nearly 40% of my time went on administration and marketing.

I hope more successful indie-publishers will come and answer your question, so I can learn, too, but I'm afraid if they have the secret, they might not be willing to let on!

I have to disagree.

Marketing is vital for getting that first sale, but it's not what connects a writer with readers.

Writers connect with readers through their words.

The big problem with grammatical and spelling errors is that they change the meaning of the words. You may have the greatest story in the world that any reader would love, but if you make too many grammatical and spelling mistakes the meaning will change so the reader won't get the benefit of your story.

Readers connect with authors based on their interpretation of the author's words, not the author's interpretation of their own words - and the more errors in spelling and grammar the greater the divergence between interpretations. It doesn't matter how great the story is if the words don't tell that story.

That's why grammar and spelling matter: They are the tools you use to convey your story to the reader - and it doesn't matter how great the story is if the reader doesn't get it.