Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
You're partially correct.
Baen is the only publisher from whom I buy books "sight unseen", knowing nothing about them. I buy every one of their "monthly bundles" not knowing what's in it. Ie I trust Baen to deliver me a good package of four new books every month, which may be authors I'm familiar with, or they may be authors entirely new to me. I know that other people do the same with specialist imprints like Harlequin.
Other traditional publishers I buy from because I'm familiar with the author, or the book, or because it's been recommended to me. However, with a traditional publisher I can be confident that the book will be reasonably well-edited, and free from egregious errors of spelling and/or grammar. I don't have that same confidence with self-published books.
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Now, this is precisely what I don't understand.
You only buy books where "[you are] familiar with the author, or the book, or because it's been recommended to me".
I consider Baen to be the aforementioned trusted recommendations.
Given that, I can assume, I hope, that any book which was
recommended to you has been reasonably well-edited, and is free from egregious spelling/grammar errors.
Likewise with any book which you are already familiar with (wait, this only covers repurchases
) or with the author...
If someone recommends an indie-published book to you, and you trust that person's recommendations, will you really reject it because
other indie books that you weren't recommended haven't been edited?
If you have already read books by that author (because someone recommended their indie book and you liked it), do you have a legitimate fear that the next book won't be edited?
Or do you have a list of people whose recommendations you trust who will recommend absolute garbage that hasn't been near an editor, and if so, on what grounds do you trust their recommendations?
It seems to me that you are making an illogical split between "unedited books
that would never be recommended to me" and "edited books
that have been recommended to me", by automatically assigning all indie books to the former on the basis that tradpub books belong exclusively to the latter.