Quote:
Originally Posted by tompe
What? No, quality is not only a subjective thing. Spelling mistakes in a book makes it have less quality and especially bad quality with respect to correct spelling. This is totally objective.
A finely edited book probably have high quality with respect to the book and how the text is presented.
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Writing is an art and a science, and like all sciences there are technical details that are clearly defined. How many misspellings a book contains or how many grammatical errors occur are certainly measurable technical errors.
However, the fact that technical errors can and do exist does not invalid the statement that book quality is subjective. As an example, a poorly edited, grammatically incorrect sci-fi novel possesses infinitely more "quality" to me than the best-edited KKK manual in the world.
I am not all hot and bothered about the grammatically incorrect books on Smashwords. If the author is truly unskilled, the technical errors will occur early enough in the book that very little of my time is wasted and I can move on to greener pastures. I'm more concerned about the quality of the book content - and in that regard, I do not think the publishers are effective gatekeepers because they are too busy trying to push out the next big thing than to make or suggest meaningful edits. (Not that this strategy doesn't work for them, but that's another post entirely.)