This week I followed Jacqueline Howett’s exchange with the book blog Big Al’s Books And Pals (Click here to read the exchange). Ms Howett sent her debut novel The Greek Seaman for review. When the review was posted she felt it was unfair. As a result she sent several ugly replies to the reviewer. Her notes were littered with spelling and grammatical errors that further discredited her argument.
Much of the criticism of Ms Howett’s novel seems to pertain to poor editing. The review noted that the story was “compelling and interesting” although it has “numerous proofing, typo, and grammar issues.” This is a common flaw with many Indie books. Recently Amanda Hocking, the current queen of Indie writers, made the decision to sign a four-book deal with St. Martin’s partially because she felt her books would be better edited by a traditional publisher. As she wrote on her blog “I have hired editors. Many, many editors…I’m clearly doing a really shitty job of picking editors…I don’t understand how there can still be errors.”
Recently I printed 25 POD review copies of my debut novel. Months before I had my novel professionally edited. I have worked with many editors as both a publisher and non-fiction writer and I felt confident that my book would be clean of grammatical errors. The problem is that as a writer it is surprisingly difficult to see these sorts of problems. I gave several copies of my book to knowledgeable friends and the rest I sent to reviewers. I waited patiently for a reply and then a friend pointed out that the book had many proofing errors. I then gave a copy of the book to another friend who is also an accomplished writer. She told me she loved the story but the book needed a complete rewrite. I was stunned but when she showed me some of the problems I had to agree. I decided to postpone the release date and work on a rewrite. Although I wish I could get back the twenty copies I sent to various magazines and newspapers I know I dodged a bullet. I was a week away from ordering thousands of copies of my book and I was saved much embarrassment.
Writers need to remember that it is the quality of the book that is of paramount importance. Books usually require several rewrites and edits to reach their potential. We need to work with the best editors we can find and be open to the prospect that our books may need additional work. Hopefully Ms Howett learned a valuable lesson this week.
