Friday, April 20, 2012

And another Indie rant

Today, I did something, I shouldn't have done: I contacted an Indie author and informed her that her novel contains errors in dialogue punctuation, which disturbs my reading experience. I was only 4% in and thought she might want to know, since she praised her editor's precision skills and the polished book. Well, I found about twelve (more or less) errors in the opening, one already in the prologue.
Her writing was good, but I'm very particular with dialogue attributes. I contemplated for a while if I should get in touch with her or not. I did, anonymously, because I know many can't take this sort of criticism and will shoot back. She replied to my comment on her blog and gave me her e-mail address, asking me to point out where the errors are. I e-mailed her, saying that I was trying to help, as it would be a shame if someone would vote her writing down because of the errors.

Her response irritated me even more than the actual errors. First she said that grammar check didn't pick up on the upper case in the dialogue tags, and then she said something that made me furious: that most readers won't know or be bothered.
And a minute later, she asked for my titles. Here we go, I thought. I didn't even write a review, which I could've done, and then leave it open for others to read.
A reason I don't review anymore is exactly such a response. Doesn't matter what state my books are in, though I certainly hope they're almost perfect now, pointing out that my book might contain errors won't eliminate hers, right? Those, who have told me about my errors, know that I was most grateful for pointing them out and I went through several stages of correcting.
To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised, if she now searches for my books, just to pick out some errors.
Yeah, Indies, and you wonder why readers don't review your books anymore or silently delete them from their Kindles, not even considering giving your other books a go.

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