[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Peto

Hi there, lots of interesting thoughts I will take into account. As usual, I will try to answer where I can.

The "Pro" issue. I am not hiding behind an amateur pose, I think a Pro is somebody who lives from doing something. I published a book and am trying to sell it. If that makes me a pro for you, a pro I am. However, I simply think considering myself a professional writer because I published a book is just a joke. I am not that presumptuous. If you sell your car you are a professional car salesman? If you make a table and sell it you are a professional carpenter? I don't think so, but if you do, it's ok by me. No argument there.

So...your definition of a professional is what the person you're buying something from thinks they are? In secret? No offense, but...no. Look at it like this, perhaps: you come to my shop, asking for commercial formatting. I assign John to convert your book. When it's done, and we give it to you to review, you ask me why there are so many conversion mistakes, and my response is, "well, he's not really a professional converter. He's just a hobbyist. But--you don't mind, do you?"

You would be rightfully furious. After all--I'm selling a service. Do you expect that I'm selling the Amateur Hour service? Or do you expect that I'm giving you proper professional/commercial service? You are, after all, paying, are you not? If I were to charge some lesser amount, would you think "oh, right, of course, they're AMATEURS, not professionals," or would you think that you got lucky on the pricing?

Reviewers and so. Most of the reviews of the IR people will show on their own blogs, Amazon, and Goodreads by default. But it takes a t least a couple of months.

Well, in the experience of my clients, FWIW, reviews anyplace but Amazon might as well be written on the walls of privies. My experience on this is that I was a paid book reviewer, in the early 90's, before the advent of this tsunami of self-publishing, and those reviews, today, have almost no value, because the "hive mind" of amateur reviews, on Amazon, are what make and break a book.

Covers. I think covers just need to draw attention. If you ask me, they are normally too flashy and oversaturated, but if you want to draw attention with a 1" x 0.5" cover in Amazon you need to do like the rest. At that size, almost no text shows correctly and images need to be simple and recognizable. When you click on the book you can read everything and see the details, for what they are worth. Beyond that, the importance people seem to be giving here to the cover seems to me disproportionate as a reader. A bad cover will not draw your attention, but rejecting a book because you don't like the cover seems preposterous to the reader in me.

Before I was doing this professionally, I once told a Book Shepherd that only an IDIOT would think tht covers sold books. She was DAFT! The books sold books--of course. right? I'm here to tell you that I was 100% dead WRONG. Great covers sell books. Great covers will sell very mediocre books, far beyond the sales that they deserve. Medicore covers will SINK books that deserve better sales--and I can PROVE IT.

I have a client with 3 different series out there, all trade-pubbed. The first came to us to be backlist-published in eBooks. These books are a series, same characters, in order. You'd expect that book 1 would sell X, and then the next 5 would sell roughly the same, right?

NOT at all. His first book sells well; then his 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th. What about his 2nd? His second book has a dark, somewhat mediocre cover. And it doesn't sell HALF of what the others do. HALF. The bestselling? Book 3. Which has the best cover? Wait for it--book 3.

Don't tell yourself that great writing will overcome a crap cover. It won't.

As a guy who wrote a book and is trying to sell it, I need the flashiest cover I can manage, of course. As a reader, the cover drags my attention or not. If it does, I do not give it any further consideration. I will then judge the blurb and other readers' opinions. I have read quite a few crappy books with wonderful covers. Like everybody here, I guess. What I have never done is reject a book that seems appealing to me in blurb and reviews because the cover is crappy. Judging the book by the cover and all that...

Those wonderful books/crappy covers are PROBABLY not self-pubbed, out there competing with now 5-million other self-pubbed books. It's your book, do what you want.

BUT, FWIW, you should read this: http://www.creativindie.com/8-cover-...-buying-books/ . Then read it again. And again, until you believe it. If it wouldn't get me in trouble with my clients, I could show you book after book where a mediocre cover tanked a damn decent book, and where a really great cover made a VERY mediocre, at best, book sell damn well.

About getting what you pay for and "paying like a pro". I pay what I can afford. That's the long and short of it. If that's not enough for some, I'm afraid there is nothing I can do about it. Fortunately, not everybody sees things the same way.

Well, it's how you see it and you're assuming that "not everybody" sees things that way. I see, read, and hear this same argument day in and day out. {shrug}. And then, typically, the authors that are serious about becoming working writers will find a way to pay for those things that they need, like editing.

Commas. There are people who agree with you, there are others who oppose, and most of the people don't really care. What style etiquete tells you about these optional commas is to pick a pattern and to be consistent. That's what I did. Some will like it and some won't. Cannot please everybody, but to do things right, consistency is what matters here. Beyond this, it is a matter of taste, a purely subjective matter.

Not really. Commas, and the proper use thereof, aren't subjective. If you want to argue the Oxford comma, for lists, fine. We can argue that. Other than the Oxford comma, the use of commas is correct or incorrect. It's absolutely, positively, not "subjective."

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/matt

Well, I own over 4,000 books, all read, and never--not once--have I seen "matt" used in lieu of matte, and, before you say it, probably a thousand of them are UK-pubbed books.

The rest of these three paragraphs talk about style. Nothing to agree or disagree about because you are right. However, I think different, and I am also right. It's a matter of taste, and one cannot please everybody, and most important, I happen to like it better my way. It is funny because I have been told I describe too little by people who have actually read the whole book. The fast pace of the story has also been praised by readers.

Fine. Good luck to you. And anyone--ANYONE--that tells you that you don't use enough descriptives didn't read anything you wrote.

About that sentence you mention, you are right, that's one hell of a dense sentence. Guilty as charged. It is a very graphic description that gives you the image you should keep of the general landscape throughout most the novel. It's vivid and meaningful if you read on. But the sentence is definitely baroque. Specially if you isolate it. I am sure you can fin more examples, but I do not agree it affects the overall rhythm.

BUT, it's not an isolated example. The entire first few pages are like that. To anyone who reads, it SCREAMS "first book! First book!" It's NOT style. It's experience. You don't have enough experience to gently feed the descriptions in, through other means, through actions, through dialogue, through beats. So you're dumping them in, sentence after sentence after sentence.

But you know what? Ignore me. You asked for comments, and so far, you've effectively told me (and Cins) that I'm wrong about every single thing I've said, telling me that a) you don't have the money to do better, so, tough; b) you're not a professional, so, we have no right to expect professional work; c) the mistakes I've pointed out to you are "stylistic." Oh, and right--I'm all wrong about the cover, too. But, don't feel alone. 99% of the authors who post on the KDP forums, asking "why isn't my book selling," or "how can I make my book better" all turn right around and argue about every single comment, too. It's why I should know better than to make the effort.

Versions... you mean you would never buy a second edition of a paper book? Or you would not accept a new edition with corrected typos? Or that you would reject the option of an alternative illustrated edition? It's your right to do so, but I am reading books since I was six, and as a reader, I do not agree with you at all.

Do you really think that ANYONE would buy a second edition of a book of fiction to get the "corrected" version? For one thing, Amazon will blow that right out of the water--they'll tell you to FIX the first one, and then push that to your buyers. They won't let you charge to fix what should have been fixed in the first place. Secondly, HELL NO, I wouldn't buy a second version of a fiction book, to get FIXES. That's absurd. Comparing fixing mistakes to a Second Illustrated Edition of Book X is apples/oranges.

With regard to non-fiction, later editions are usually adding material of substance, or updates due to legal changes, and so on. They're not issued to fix typos, grammar and punctuation issues.

When the publishers of Annie Lamott's Bird by Bird found a ton of mistakes in her eBook, do you think that they issued a second, fixed version, and charged for it? They most certainly did not. They fixed the damn thing, as it ought to have been, and sent every single purchaser the fixed version. You really think you can do what Annie Lamott cannot?

I do not get this paragraph... "And don't assume that your paying readers are your critique group, or that they'd be amused to find out that version 5 exists because the version that they PAID FOR and already read is crappy. How would you feel about that, if it were you?"

Who are my critique group if not those who have read the book? And these are not necessarily paying readers, since I had the novel for free in Amazon for 5 days. But they are actual readers, and with all due respect, their opinion means much more than that of anyone who has spent some time reading diagonally. Wouldn't you agree? As for reading a book and finding later new editions have been released, it has often happened to me and does not bother me in the least. It is you who freely and without argumentation asumes the previous version was crappy. I, as a reader, don't. In fact, I would be actually offended if I get a second edition and find the same typos as in the first one.

I'm sorry, but if you genuinely think that it's appropriate for you to expect your PAID readers to be your critique group, so that yu can fix what should have been right, in the first place, when they kerplunked down their money, we'll never see eye to eye. I can't even imagine receiving a book to review, with a request for payment. That's hilarious. Why do you think that publishers--like HarperCollins, RandomHouse, etc. send out FREE ARCs? It's not to waste money, that's for damned sure.

About the critique groups, I'll keep that in mind for new writings, If they come, but I have the idea, maybe prejudiced, that most of these groups are for patting each other on the back. I poked my head in some and ran like the wind...

Then you went to/visited some hare-brained writer's group, NOT a critique group. Trust me, they are absolutely not for patting each other on the back. Of course, given that many of today's writers seem unable to take any critique at all, perhaps this is what is occurring to honest critique groups.

This is a self-published work, a one-man-project. You cannot expect an industrial product. That's not what I offer. That's not what I want to offer. And I couldn't offer it if I wanted to. There will be typos, the style will not be aseptic, but it is a honest effort without commercial subterfuge. I understand not everybody will like that. I did not write the story I thought people would want to buy, I wrote the story I wanted to read. I like this story, I like the characters, and people who have read it so far seem to like them too. That's good enough for me. Hopefully, if I keep on writing, I'll do it better.

Well, then, that's what you've written. There's really no point in further discussion, because you're simply going to ignore what I say. Nothing new in that.

Hitch