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Originally Posted by mr ploppy
What you see with most of what you call indie writers is the raw text straight from their mind with no interference or correction. I do a lot of proof reading, and I'm not exaggerating when I say no writer, whether pro- or self-published that I have read for writes perfect prose. Their spelling and grammar is all over the place because all they care about is the story. Everything else is the copy editor and proof reader's job.
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I must respectfully disagree. Although I work in IT, I write for a living; I spend all day writing design documents, reports, specifications, etc, for business clients. Once you "know" how to write using correct grammar and spelling - and it's simply a matter of practice - that's how you write. I never have to stop and think whether to use "it's" or "its" - my brain knows how to write the right word without conscious thought. Anyone whose "spelling and grammar is all over the place" just hasn't put enough work into their writing to reach a point where they get it right
without having to go back and correct it. To say that it's "a job for the proof-reader" is just a cop-out.
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But don't pretend this sloppiness is restricted to "indie" writers who either can't afford or don't think they need a decent copy editor. I've got plenty of lists of mistakes that made it into pro-published books too. Some by very famous names. Like with the self publishers, it's all down to cutting costs.
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I'm not pretending any such thing, as I've made very clear in my earlier posts in this thread. Certainly professionally-published books have errors. But they have far, far fewer errors than the average indie book. That's not to say that there aren't good indie authors - of course there are.