Quote:
Originally Posted by VydorScope
The book might have been massively profitable, but they could not even get their foot in the door to get that recognition.
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Good point. So we really have three classes of indie books, so to speak.
1) Those with a small, specific audience that could not be profitably published by a traditional publishing company
2) Those that could have been (or already have been) published with a traditional publisher, but were published independently by the author for financial reasons
3) Those that have a large potential audience but were unable -- for various reasons -- to gain a place at a major publishing house
I'd claim that rigorous editing and proofreading are critical for classes (2) and (3) and for most of class (1). Having listened to a number of readers online, it is clear that the audiences for some books are unconcerned with matters of grammatical consistancy. If the author is aiming to please one of these small audiences, then editing may indeed be an unwise use of resources.
For most indie books, however, I'd say editing is critical.