Quote:
Originally Posted by Cinisajoy
[...]Let me ask you this.
Would you read a book that had an average of one error per sentence?[...]
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Probably not. I wouldn't even get so far as downloading it, since such a volume of errors is generally visible in the blurb. But the distinction between user generated errors and machine generated errors is not what makes the difference to me, it's the volume.
I do agree that machine errors, by their nature, are often less distracting - easier for your brain to autocorrect - but at a rate of one per sentence I would quickly tire of bothering.
The difficulty I have with some of these conversations is how they automatically turn to how bad independent publishing can get - and, yes, I know a lot of it is effectively illiterate. But independently published books run the full gamut from appalling to brilliant (okay, so it is weighted heavily to the former rather than the latter). There are a lot of independently published books where the English is at least basically literate. This doesn't mean they are good, there is a lot else can go wrong, but with these conversations always turn to the blatant error situations we end up overlooking the more subtle problems, and those are the things that interest me more. (Blatant errors are easily found and fixed with an editor or other suitable help.)
On the subject of whether beta readers pick up wrong words: it depends. Probably "waste" vs "waist" would get picked up. But I know from experience that "laugher" vs "laughter" got past everyone. My fingers sometimes miss the "r" on "your" (I blame the keyboard
), and "you" vs "your" is not something everyone sees. I have found it quite astonishing what people will and will not see - myself included - because when you do finally see the errors they seem so glaring that you wonder how they got past the first read-over.