[gmw]

For obvious* reasons I would hope that you never had to make any changes to any of my books. But, while I can't speak for all authors, I don't really care what you do with a file on your computer (just as long as you don't change a few words and then try to pass it all off as your own work). You can edit the covers and put moustaches on the faces (could be difficult, there are no faces on any of my covers, but you can put some on if want); you can change all the occurrences of any word to something else that suits you; you can run Google translate and turn it into French. I really don't mind. Seriously, I do not mind at all.

The next is a bit controversial, and you may find not all authors react well, but if it was my books you had trouble with then I would like you to write to me and tell me what was wrong. I reserve the right to ignore you, but I would like to know what was upsetting any of my readers.


As to formatting troubles. There are two types. There are (for want of a better phrase) real problems and then there are preferences. I've hit real problems in several trad-pub ebooks (stylesheets not linked or just plain wrong and that sort of thing). And as you've found, many Indies get their styles wrong or simply fail to use styles properly through lack of understanding. In other cases some people prefer extra spacing between paragraphs, some prefer particular fonts, and so on: there is no pleasing everyone, so I think it's great that some people are happy to edit the epubs to match their own tastes.


Curiously enough, I've hit the poor word choice in in trad-pubs too, particularly YA, but of course you see it more in poorly edited Indy publications. As regards excessive repetition, there are tools out there that authors can use to help them identify and avoid or reduce the problem - they just need to realise they're doing it. (Which is where my second paragraph comes from.)


Off topic: I am curious about the "Billionaire" romance stuff - I've see quite a lot of these lately, but never read one. Isn't it overly cynical to suggest people are looking for romance specifically with billionaires? Or are these tales told in jest? Or maybe it's no different to the old fairytale of marrying a prince.


* Are they obvious? Hmm... maybe not. My first reason is that I would prefer to be thought of as a professional (I am asking people to pay for my novels) - if my work needs fixing after purchase then I am not doing my job. My second reason is that I don't want to annoy any of my readers, they're too hard to find to risk putting them off.