Sharon's Journal/Blog

Self-Publishing - Don't rely on someone editing for you.

Friday, May 30, 2007

Reading a newsletter today regarding self-publishing reminded me of a something that happened last year. I received an e-mail from someone who claimed to be a great author and just came out with his recent "best seller," a gripping mystery. He was giving me the opportunity to purchase it at a discounted price before it came out in the bookstores. At the time, I was working in a law office and not pursuing my writing career; and I had not visited WDC so I wasn't informed. I was naive, so I purchased his book. As I read the first couple pages, I was amazed by all the grammatical and spelling errors, but I read on. The story was very weak, but I couldn't get past all the errors. I finally ditched the book and immediately replied to the author's e-mail. I told him about all the errors and he replied saying that he had relied on his publishing company's editor to catch all his mistakes. I wondered. Having read the newsletter today, I think that he probably had the book self published and the company he went through probably wanted him to pay extra for editing. His marketing idea was great and he probably made sales from it; but he lost this reader and many more, I'm sure, because he didn't have it edited, or at least proofed.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if anyone decides to self-publish, my suggestion would be, "Don't rely on the publishing company to fix your errors." It should be the author's responsibility to do it, unless, of course, they pay additional monies for editing and proofing.
Sharon