‘There will be no more professional writers in the future’

[ficbot]

Harry, I have downloaded some of your books and I appreciate the work you out into them. Have you checked out any of the Project Gutenberg titles from the Distributed Proofreaders team? Those allegedly get three passes by three sets of eyes per page. If you have seen them, has their quality been good?

This whole discussion reminds me of what they were saying about television years ago. In the old days, everyone watched the big 3 networks and there was water cooler discussion at work the next day based on what people had seen. Now, with the proliferation of specialty channels, I could spend all my TV time on stuff nobody else at work cares about---for instance, I enjoy a lot of the sci-fi stuff and that has its own channel now, and my boyfriend enjoys animated shows, and that has its own channel, and my boss enjoys sports programs and so on. We all could have watched TV last night and seen completely different things. And that's *good* for business because it is allowing programming that might not have found an audience on the big 3 networks to find an audience through appropriate venues. The big 3 might consider 20 million viewers to be success; the biggest Canadian hit of all time was Canadian Idol and it had about 2.5 million---that was huge here. Different markets, different audiences, different distribution channel. Where is the harm?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by ficbot

This whole discussion reminds me of what they were saying about television years ago. In the old days, everyone watched the big 3 networks and there was water cooler discussion at work the next day based on what people had seen. Now, with the proliferation of specialty channels, I could spend all my TV time on stuff nobody else at work cares about---for instance, I enjoy a lot of the sci-fi stuff and that has its own channel now, and my boyfriend enjoys animated shows, and that has its own channel, and my boss enjoys sports programs and so on. We all could have watched TV last night and seen completely different things. And that's *good* for business because it is allowing programming that might not have found an audience on the big 3 networks to find an audience through appropriate venues. The big 3 might consider 20 million viewers to be success; the biggest Canadian hit of all time was Canadian Idol and it had about 2.5 million---that was huge here. Different markets, different audiences, different distribution channel. Where is the harm?

Exactly.
TV viewership has declined for the old-school Gatekeepers, the OTA broadcasters, and it has exploded for the Sat-casters. The specialty channels allow people to find stuff *they* like, not just what some NY glasstower exec thinks is harmless enough to bring in big generic audiences. Instead, targetted programming brings in targetted ads (for the ad-supported channels) or subscription fees or the ad-less ones.
We, the viewers get to have it *our* way and the content creators have distribution channels they never would've had if the networks hadn't been disintermediated. (How else could have foodies gotten *two* entire cooking networks to choose from? )
Even the broadcast networks have been smart enough to adapt and use their resources more effectively, launching their own alternative networks, so everybody wins.
And now things are getting even better with IP-TV sneaking in and disintermediating the Cablecos and SatCos. A la carte channel watching may finally be an option to consider besides the traditional bundle packages or even single-show subscriptions.
Tech disruptions only kill dinosaurs; adaptable business survive them just fine.

Good point there, Ficbot.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by ficbot

This whole discussion reminds me of what they were saying about television years ago. In the old days, everyone watched the big 3 networks and there was water cooler discussion at work the next day based on what people had seen. Now, with the proliferation of specialty channels, I could spend all my TV time on stuff nobody else at work cares about---for instance, I enjoy a lot of the sci-fi stuff and that has its own channel now, and my boyfriend enjoys animated shows, and that has its own channel, and my boss enjoys sports programs and so on. We all could have watched TV last night and seen completely different things. And that's *good* for business because it is allowing programming that might not have found an audience on the big 3 networks to find an audience through appropriate venues. The big 3 might consider 20 million viewers to be success; the biggest Canadian hit of all time was Canadian Idol and it had about 2.5 million---that was huge here. Different markets, different audiences, different distribution channel. Where is the harm?

Loss of shared culture.

[Kumabjorn]

Seems like a shallow society if our shared culture was Cheers, Friends, General Hospital and East Enders.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Seems like a shallow society if our shared culture was Cheers, Friends, General Hospital and East Enders.

Have the offerings today improved, or just proliferated and fragmented?

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Seems like a shallow society if our shared culture was Cheers, Friends, General Hospital and East Enders.

Seems like you're too young to know what was meant... those programs came out years after the number of channels had started multiplying... and shared culture in relation to the original comment doesn't mean that was the only share just that it was a very common part of life... and with a limited number of channels there was not a soap only domination of any of them...

[Kumabjorn]

Just goes to show how far behind the curve we are in Sweden.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by MikeOxlittle

What about Cormac McCarthy?

He doesn't bother with much punctuation because he doesn't like ' mucking up the page with unnecessary marks. "

Does that ruin Blood Meridian, The Road, NCFOM for some of you?

There are other aspects of The Road book that are much more ruinous *for me* than the lack of punctuation. The missing punctuation is just a cherry on the top.

English is my third language, so I guess I can forgive more stuff that is not quite grammatically correct than natural speakers. Even so, *some* indie books are atrocious.

Intentional errors very much ruined my experience when I was trying to read Forrest Gump. The book was practically impossible to read for me with the command of English I had at the time. I still own part two - Gump & Co - in paper. Unread ;-)

[QuantumIguana]

The era of everyone watching the same three TV networks was a historical blip. Cities are lucky to have even one newspaper of their own, not that long ago, there were several newspapers in each city. Their were often multiple foreign-language newspapers for each ethnic group. There were a lot of regional record labels, rather than some big national labels giving offering the same stuff to the whole country.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Loss of shared culture.

Shared culture that relies on restricting choices in food and entertainment not only is not worth preserving, it is proper to work to change it.

[LuvReadin]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Totally different scenario. There's a difference between writing dialogue which is an accurate reflection of the way that people speak, and not knowing how to write using accurate and correct punctuation, spelling and grammar. If the author can't be bothered to get those simple things right, I can't be bothered to read the book.

Precisely. Why should I waste my precious time wading through a morass of mis-spellings and poor grammar just to read what may (or more likely may not) be a half-decent story, when there are far more books out there for which I don't have to make this unnecessary effort? If a writer wants their book read, they need to make that effort. I mark down books in my reviews for poor spelling and grammar - it shows me that the writer doesn't care about their writing, their reputation or their readers.

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

... lots are not being careless, or too thrifty to hire an editor, they just do not know any better and are truly puzzled as to what the fuss is about.

Stinginess maybe, thrift, no. It's a false economy for an author or publisher to skimp on editing or proofreading, and it's coming back to bite some of them on the bum now.

Originally Posted by bigjantailor

At least look at writing and writer and say, ‘is this a person I should come down on because they had the ability and resources to make it perfect or is it someone who is a neophyte, who needs guidance.’ Truly, not easy to do but if you do that I'll read more stuff by haters of bad grammar.

Sorry, there's no excuse for this. Even with the current abysmal standard of education, people know whether their spelling and grammar is up to scratch or not. If it isn't (and TBH, even if it is), then they should get their work edited. I have the greatest sympathy for anyone with a disability such as dyslexia, but even the best writers will benefit from working with a good editor. As others have said, if a writer is expecting readers to pay for their product, they owe it to those readers to make sure it's as good as possible.

Originally Posted by Catlady

What this guy says about copyeditors and how mss. are assigned is completely off the wall.

And he's nuts if he thinks a copyeditor gets $10,000 for a single assignment.

Indeed. At $5 per 1000 words, that's a very long book!

Originally Posted by Fbone

I've seen editors charge between $6-8 per page for copy editing. Dean is saying that they should charge $1.25/page but that seems too low. I suppose there is going to be variations perhaps for skill and experience. Would you risk your career using the cheapest and possibly an unskilled editor? I always thought the minimal qualification was B.A. English.

There is no minimum qualification, of any kind. Anyone can call themselves a 'copyeditor' or 'proofreader'. it makes it difficult to find good editors. Cost is one possible guideline - the more in demand the editor (or whoever) is, the more they can charge. However, this depends far more on the particular area of publishing than the editor's skill; fiction editing is one of the lowest-paid disciplines. Qualifications such as a BA in English are pointless, IMO - it's much more important that they have qualifications recognised by the industry. Membership of a good trade organisation may be a useful pointer, but as many have no membership exams, this also isn't foolproof. Hence, the best indicator is often personal recommendation. Most editors will also be willing to do an editing test or a few sample pages, but they'll generally expect to be paid for this - there are far too many scams around with people trying to get their 'sample' chapters done for nothing.

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

What about the ones I posted the mistakes from in the errors in ebooks thread, would you say those had ever gone near an editor ]None of those were self published, and several of them were from large corporation publishers.

Possibly - many of the large publishers have been slashing their editing budgets, or sending the work out to editors whose first language isn't English (which can be OK if the author is a native speaker but is a recipe for disaster if they're not). Or as Catlady said, a proofread was needed as well.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

The era of everyone watching the same three TV networks was a historical blip. Cities are lucky to have even one newspaper of their own, not that long ago, there were several newspapers in each city. Their were often multiple foreign-language newspapers for each ethnic group. There were a lot of regional record labels, rather than some big national labels giving offering the same stuff to the whole country.

And this sort of fragmentation is exactly why TV with its three networks was a unifying factor in the culture.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by LuvReadin

Indeed. At $5 per 1000 words, that's a very long book!

Oh, it's only 8,000 pages.

[QuantumIguana]

This idea that we used to have a unified culture, but now we've been "balkanized" is a myth. If anything, we're more homoginized than ever. Today, I can travel to another city, and barely notice the difference. What's the point in traveling if things are going to be the same? There was a blip in time where people all watched the same TV shows and all listened to the same music. But it wasn only a blip, and couldn't - and in my opinion shouldn't - last.

We don't all read them same books, after all. TV shows require an audience of millions. Books don't. If people complain that having many channels contributes to balkanization, then what of books, which are even more diverse than the number of cable channels?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ficbot

Harry, I have downloaded some of your books and I appreciate the work you out into them. Have you checked out any of the Project Gutenberg titles from the Distributed Proofreaders team? Those allegedly get three passes by three sets of eyes per page. If you have seen them, has their quality been good?

Yes, they seem pretty reasonable.

One of the problems with PG, though, is that the best-known classics tended to be the ones that were produced first, long before DP, and hence they are full of errors. As I mentioned, I'd estimate that I corrected over 3000 errors in "Our Mutual Friend" (most of which were things like missing commas, but a fair number were more serious).

The worst one I've done based on a PG text was "The Old Curiosity Shop" in which there were two places where a complete double page of text had been missed out - whoever scanned the book must have turned two pages by mistake. That's something that DP may very well NOT have picked up, because in both cases they were long passages of dialogue where it just so happened that the text still made sense even with the pages omitted.