[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I really don't care if ebooks get published without "proper" editing. Makes no difference to me. In this day and age of samples and refunds, no one is being forced to settle for junk. I've said it many times; no reader has ever been consoled by the fact that a book they paid for and didn't like at all was at least competently proofed and edited.

You are right, of course. Nothing forces you to read a crappily-edited book. Nothing forces you to finish a crappily-prepared meal, either, or to live in a shoddily-built home.

But what's the value of your time, Diap? Nothing? Is it so wrong to want someone who expects to be paid for their work, to try to perform that work competently?

I freely admit it--it gets up my nose, as a reader. (n.b.: to be clear, my business does NOT provide editing services. I have no horse in this race, no economic interest or financial bias. While my experience is obviously formed through the thousands of as-yet-unpublished books that I've seen, my reaction is that of a reader, and naught more.)

I see this discussion all the time at the Kindle forums. And I invariably see this comment:

"Well, I can't afford an editor now. As my book sells, I'll eventually be able to pay for an editor. The people who buy my book need to know that it's my first book, that I'm a new author, and understand that. I'm still learning. They won't mind, right?"

This is for work that they are selling. Now, let's apply that same logic to a slightly different scenario--my business. Let's say that you, the author, hire us to do the layout and formatting on your book. You get it back, and it doesn't look good. In fact, in places, it's pretty crappy. And I smile, and I say to you:

"Oh, that's Jane. She just started with us. She's new to formatting, and she's just learning. You don't mind, right?"

Oh, yeah, right. I can see that going over like the proverbial lead balloon. Sure, Author X might 'understand' it, (based on a decade of experience, trust me, they'd be irate, not understanding AT ALL), but you can bet your booty that s/he'd damn sure expect us to bloody fix it, and pronto, no questions asked, no additional monies paid.

Right?

So, seriously, what's the difference? I do NOT understand this attitude, that somehow, books, as a commercial product, are exempt from the same sort of standards that we expect for every other type of commercial product.

We seem to be expected to make this exception, an exemption, just because someone invested their "emotions" in creating their book. So what? I could get up tomorrow and decide that in my soul, I'm a fashion designer. I could sketch out a dress--hell, it might even be a great design--and then sew it. Now, trust me when I tell you, this is a woman who failed Home Ec, TWICE, because I could not sew. Not a lick. Never had an interest, hated it, thought I was being harangued in some sexist way, and managed to fail it twice. (Made up for it in cooking, with which I had mad skills--both men and women have to eat, y'know?).

So, I make a dress. Really? You think that just because I poured my heart and soul into it, some schmuck should buy it and wear it? Poor woman? Or guy, for that matter? I should be able to sell it, for what I think it's worth, even though I never bothered to learn to sew, or, for that matter, construct clothing? Does it somehow affect the usability, wearability or viewability of that garment, just because I poured my heart and soul into it? When the front of the dress falls off, because my sewing skills are dreck, is that okay, because "I'm just learning?" On this dress that I sold, for money?

HELL no.

And to top it off, this excuse, that someone doesn't have the money, has NOTHING to do with it. They just don't care. OR, they just need that instant gratification--whichever.

Any author can join a writing group and critique group. They can join Critters and learn about critiquing while getting their own work critiqued. They can SWAP proofing. It's how it was done for decades, hell, a century, before the advent of self-publishing. People were in writing groups, they read each other's stuff, they critiqued, they swapped and traded proofing, etc. The cheap way, and, BTW, the way that lots of people learned, truly, how to write--as you learn more critiquing other people's work, oftentimes, than you do writing your own.

Yet, even though we live in a day and age in which it's easier than ever to find a writing group, a critique group--you don't even have to leave home--fewer and fewer 'writers' do it. WHY?

That's my objection. Sure, you probably can't barter out for a developmental edit. But for the love of heaven, you can at least manage to trade proofreading, at a minimum, to spare us the homonym errors and the usual typos. It's not building the Great Wall of China.

That's my $.02. It's not impossible to do. (And yes--I have people check my stuff, my non-fic and how-to stuff all the time. When I was still trying to write fiction, yes, I belonged to a critique group and got my ass handed to me all the time. Sure, it's not all fun and games. So? When Red Smith said that "[w]riting is easy. You just open a vein and bleed," he didn't only mean the writing part. That's what being critiqued, edited, and learning is about, too.)

My $.02, for what it's worth.

Hitch