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My success in finding new authors is only slightly worse in self-published than it is from the major publishing houses. Granted the worst of the self-published stuff is truly terrible. Amazon has a great feature, though, that allows you to read a sample (generally a first chapter) of most books, so that if you are browsing and the description of the book sounds interesting, you can take a peek at it before buying. You can get a pretty good feel for the book in just one chapter.
I recently sampled a highly recommended book this way (from a major publishing house) that was a painful mish-mash of third and present tense, plus it was 2nd person POV. Glad I didn't buy it.
I assume you mean past and present tense, not third tense? Were the past and present tenses at least intentionally alternated by chapter? I've come across this before where past and present tense were used to distinguish between different character POV or different time periods, if there is more than one setting, separated by different chapters. I have seen this even in books from major publishers. But I once came across a self published book in which a past tense sentence was randomly thrown in the middle of a present tense chapter. Obviously an error, one that shouldn't have escaped an editor but who knows if this author even hired an editor. Needless to say, I did not finish the book. Thankfully, it was only a freebie and the error occurred in the prologue so I would have caught it in the sample anyway.
2nd person POV though - that must be awful. There's a reason no successful author uses it. I think some authors think that "different" automatically equal "good". Same kind of people who love anything indie just because it's indie.
All of this "self-published stuff is crap" talk doesn't bode well for when I finally finish my book about Artie, the monster dog.
Just keep in mind that there are many good spell checker and grammar checker programs out there (my all time favorite used to be Grammatik). And never stop proofreading - even experienced and published writers find things that slip through. One of the advantages of ebooks is that it's a lot easier to fix those things electronically, while it's a lot more difficult in print editions. I can also think of several now-successful writers who started out selling their books ini PDF format from their own websites - and I can think of one who finally managed to buy all the copyrights for her own books and sells the print editions herself now on her own website, and has an online epublisher that sells them in ebook format for all platforms.
All of this "self-published stuff is crap" talk doesn't bode well for when I finally finish my book about Artie, the monster dog.
Are you really? To which I have to say, well, first of all I know you can spell, but secondly, like you, I don't read books about dogs. Not ever since Red Fern (if that's what it was called). But thirdly, since I know Artie is alive and well (dogs in books tend to die) and I know YOU, I still might read it
Some of my favorite authors are lesser known or indie authors. But I'm not going to support an author just because they are indie. While I like the idea of supporting "the little guy", self publishing churns out far more crap than it does gems. It can be worth it when you find the gems but filtering through the crap requires a good personal vetting system and I will not hesitate to give a book a negative review regardless of who the author is or how they were published.
Amen.
I read what I like (or who I like). I'll pay full price for my favorite authors and won't even read for free if it's from authors I don't like. My reading time is darn precious as it is, why waste it by picking up crappy books just because it's indie or popular?
Location: Montreal -> CT -> MA -> Montreal -> Ottawa
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Quote:
Originally Posted by karibear
Just keep in mind that there are many good spell checker and grammar checker programs out there (my all time favorite used to be Grammatik). And never stop proofreading - even experienced and published writers find things that slip through. One of the advantages of ebooks is that it's a lot easier to fix those things electronically, while it's a lot more difficult in print editions. I can also think of several now-successful writers who started out selling their books ini PDF format from their own websites - and I can think of one who finally managed to buy all the copyrights for her own books and sells the print editions herself now on her own website, and has an online epublisher that sells them in ebook format for all platforms.
Ain't that the truth? I'm an editor -- it's what I do for a living -- and even I catch my own errors on a second or third read. It's cringe-worthy. Who knows what I'd find on a fourth read.
Quote:
Originally Posted by netwit
Are you really? To which I have to say, well, first of all I know you can spell, but secondly, like you, I don't read books about dogs. Not ever since Red Fern (if that's what it was called). But thirdly, since I know Artie is alive and well (dogs in books tend to die) and I know YOU, I still might read it
Artie is co-narrator, so he can't die. I promise you that.
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