Claude Bouchard Books
Crime Thrillers and other Stuff...
Ramble On
If You Can't Write, Don't
Posted by bigceebee on October 24, 2011 at 9:10 AM
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Yesterday, Derek Haines, a friend in Switzerland, posted a piece on his blog entitled “Who’s Killing the Ebook Revolution?” The link to the post can be found below. Two sentences in particular stood out for me as follows:
- The ebook revolution is dying under the deluge of rubbish that is being passed off as books.
- I see so many terrific new and enthusiastic authors (and a lot of really terrible writers as well) appearing with their fabulous new books everyday.
The key elements of these sentences are in bold…
As an indie writer and Ereader owner, my choice of reading material in recent years has shifted much more towards new self-pub and small press authors. Some, including John Locke, Luke Romyn, Gary Ponzo and Robert Bidinotto, delivered what any reader should expect in a novel; a great, entertaining story, well thought out and written and free of typos, spelling mistakes, wrong words and other annoying/distracting errors.
Others, however… *insert your favourite blasphemy here*... Others have taken advantage of the ease technology has provided us with to make our work available to the world but have done so with complete disregard and disrespect of book lovers. Who cares if it’s the wrong word? It sounds the same. So what if a lot of that pesky punctuation is missing or misused? These people are not writers and they make me angry by pretending they are. They disappoint me because, as a reader, they sold me a defective product. They annoy me because they produce the deluge of rubbish that is being passed off as books which Derek referred to and clutter up the market to the detriment of talented writers.
I’ve never built a nuclear reactor and never will because I don’t have the knowledge required to do so. The same reasoning should be applied to writing such that if you can’t write, don’t.
http://www.derekhaines.ch/vandal/2011/10/who-is-killing-the-ebook-revolution/?mid=50
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7 Comments
I wrote a post some time ago about an old guy who wrote his life story, and for some reason, it became a very popular book. This was around 1975. First of all, he could hardly read and write and scribbled out his story at his kitchen table with a pencil because he made so many mistakes. But he had his book published by a very, very small publisher in Fremantle in Western Australia. A precursor to Vanity Presses and self-publishing. In other words he got a bloody editor!
So to cut it short here, if you have a great story but don't know the difference between 'their, there and they're', get an editor, or at least someone with some solid writing skills and then have your story published.
It's a bit like x-facter where nobody told those poor souls they can't keep a tone.
On the other hand, there are some really great new talents, one just has to find them.
in real life, when i am not lounding by the swimmy pool, and sipping sweet tea with the twin masseuses, i am an editor. so i skip some steps when it comes to blogging and satire... i admit it. and i pay the price, because some people are put off by my raw style.
great thoughts to be found here, thanks for posting.
the tea kettle whistleth....
i tweet at @Samuel_Clemons
You are correct, I don't have an editor or even a third eye check my blog posts. However, I rarely type and click, so I usually have a week or two to go back over my writing. And yes, correct some clanging mistakes. But the beauty of blogging is that even when an error does get through, there is still the possibility to edit it and republish, thus removing the embarrassment.
This process is also possible with ebooks. Even with the best efforts of an editor, some errors can get through. But ebooks give an author an opportunity to improve the product. This is really one of the advantages of ebooks, but I wonder how many authors bother. It is also possible with POD if one wants to make the effort.
E&OE; !
Sir Samuel Zeus Clemons says...
i think we are all writers. twitter, rather than think of itself for instance as a social media site, calls itself a "microblogging" site. we can extrapolate from that what we want. now, take into account the fact that new media is taking over from old media, with venerable institutions like the NYT going out of print and into "internet" publishing; huffypuffy post being sold for $100 million U.S. dollars when it is nothing more than a blog, and a whole new media is born every day it seems like. we have to be sure we are not discouraging the new writers, or those who want to try or those who have clearly not found their way.. now, i am a BIG believer in editing... editing for clarity, editing for brevity, even short blog posts should probably be read by somebody, ANYBODY!! before we click "submit" ... so i ask, not being a wise guy, here Claude, did you OR Derek Vandel have someone edit your blog posts? probably not. nor do I most of the time.... should we ? Probably. now just migrate that process over to writing longer articles, short stories, and God forbid full feature eBooks, and we begin to see why some people cut corners. they are in such a rush to get their work out there, they don't take the time to get an editor.
in real life, when i am not lounding by the swimmy pool, and sipping sweet tea with the twin masseuses, i am an editor. so i skip some steps when it comes to blogging and satire... i admit it. and i pay the price, because some people are put off by my raw style.
great thoughts to be found here, thanks for posting.
the tea kettle whistleth....
i tweet at @Samuel_Clemons
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