Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
If by "elitist literary sense" you mean "written using correct spelling, grammar and punctuation" then I agree that this is something that the majority of independent authors lack.
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Spot-on. I have a high tolerance for SPAG errors, and I can get overwhelmed by them.
The majority of BPH-published authors have no great command over commas-vs-semicolons and erratic spelling; the editors take care of those details. The majority of self-published authors have, at best, "creative" approaches to grammar.
Eggcorns are common. And while many of them tell good stories anyway, many are also afflicted with wandering plotlines and flat characters and lack of a cohesive ending.
I love the self-publishing explosion, but I don't blame anyone for not wanting to pick through the random quality levels available to try to find the good stuff. There's some incredible, high-quality works being released--but those are definitely not the majority of what's available.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cfrizz
Please the BPH throw together their ebooks and there are just as many errors & poor quality as any self published work and for far more money. If they did a better job of quality control with their ebooks, I might have less objections.
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I strongly disagree. BPH-released books don't have
miscapitalized words and missing punctuation in the descriptions. Those are both from the current first page of free books at Smashwords; it's not at all a rare set of errors. No BPH would allow the first page of a story to be
cluttered with ampersands and numbers. They don't allow the second paragraph to be a
314-word wall of text. Oh look--
advertising thinly disguised as a book, apparently written by someone whose native language is not English. ("It is fast and easily to search")
I *love* the self-publishing explosion... but I don't try to hide the problems with it. We have lot more wannabe authors (and scam artists taking advantage of a new platform) than we have curators and reviewers able to say what's worth reading.
And I don't mean "by high standards of award-winning literature." I mean that most people don't enjoy wading through page after page of choppy dialogue with grammar that makes the meanings unclear, ellipses with four or seven or fifteen dots, and random capitalization of words the author thought were important--while leaving "I" uncapitalized a lot because "the character identifying himself has low self-esteem."
I am thrilled these books all exist and are open for consideration and that people who love a particular topic can find
amazing books that would never get through a publisher because they're too niche-focused. (I *love* that book. Have printed out six copies & given them to friends, who love it. But if you weren't a tabletop RPG'er in the 80's, it's probably not very interesting.)