I usually don’t show my book reviews in my posts. But I found this review on Goodreads for Guardian Vampire and I think it points out what’s wrong with a lot of indie published books. Here is an excerpt (the review was much longer, but I just wanted to show the pertinent parts).
“Whenever I buy a PubIt! ebook, the quality is going to be hit or miss. Guardian Vampire surprised me in a way no other PubIt! ebook has ever done before: it was well edited both in grammar and content. This is rarer than you might imagine.
I read this little 192 page novella in one night of insomnia. It was quick, action packed, and enjoyable. So I’m surprised it doesn’t have higher rating especially when compared to othe PubIt! ebooks like ****** which made me want to rip my hair out with the lack of content editing and flat characters.”
I blanked out the name of the book the reader mentioned out of respect for a fellow author. But this just shows what people are expecting out of indie authors. That’s why it’s so important to have good editing. I know that people have found a typo or two in some of my books, but I agree with the author of this review. There are very few indie books I’ve read that had good editing. A lot of them have so many typos that I can’t believe more of them weren’t caught. Professional indies like Zoe Winters, Susan Bischoff, and Kait Nolan (I know I’m leaving some awesome authors out, but I’m just giving three examples of authors with well edited books) always make sure their books are as good as they can be before putting them out there. But I’ve found that this is a rare exception. I know not everyone can afford a good editor at the beginning, but if you have several sets of eyes on your book, the chances of bad grammar, typos, and incorrect punctuation get slimmer and slimmer. So let other people read your books before you publish them. Have both beta readers and proofreaders. That will help you put out a better product. If there’s a typo or two, it’s not the end of the world. But when there’s 20 (or about 50, like a couple I’ve read), that’s just not good.
I know the reviewer mentioned editing for “grammar and content”, but I know she probably also has experience with typos and bad punctuation in indie books (I have). So this post really encompasses all of it.
lauralynnelliott.com 
I honestly believe that the biggest thing holding a lot of writers back from improving and putting out quality content is simply a lack of good, critical feedback. Yes there are bazillions of writers who aren’t ready to grow and can’t accept a thoughtful critique. Yes there are lots of writers willing to critique who aren’t mature enough to separate their own style preferences and egos and probably do more harm than good. Still, the problem of lack of feedback remains.
We’ve all stumbled on a piece of writing that was absolute crap and found a thread of oh, that’s great! and I really like this! Can’t wait to read more! following it. I don’t think that’s all differences in taste; I think that’s a lot of being polite and blowing rainbows up people’s butts. And more common than that is just no feedback at all.
I know I’m VERY uncomfortable with the idea of giving honest feedback to people with whom I don’t have any kind of personal relationship–I’ll only hurt the ones I love.
I put a note on my blog a little while back that I was interested in knowing who indies had used for content editing and what their experience was. I’ve had absolutely no response to that question.
It’s definitely a problem. As much as we indies think we can do everything ourselves and hire whatever people we need to work with, I think most indies are lost when it comes to finding good editing help and they’re not getting it. Most of the time when you see someone saying they got a paid editor’s eyes on the project, I think they mean proofreading.
Thanks for the shout-out, btw!
Susan you are probably the closest to a.perfectionist than anyone.I.know. lol. (Forgive the stupid periods in this post. I’m trying to use my cell phone since my computer is whacked.) I think your standards are uber high. Whether or not the good reviews on what you think is crap are differences in taste…I don’t know. I’m much more forgiving than some authors. And the casual reader is usually more forgiving than other authors. But I think most people are really bothered by typos and bad grammar. That bothers me the most. And glaring plot holes. 🙂
I probably didn’t make this clear, but I wasn’t really talking about reviews of self-published books. I rarely have occasion to read those unless someone points one out to me. I’ve seen a lot of amateur writing in other places where I’ve seen a lack of feedback, lack of feedback that seems helpful, etc.
And I know that in my own experience helpful feedback has been tremendously difficult to find. I’ve had that feeling of knowing something’s not quite right and wanting someone to confirm that for me and put their finger on what it is and how I might make it better. Because we all know that sometimes it’s very hard to see things in our own work.
Maybe I am uber picky (okay, we actually know there’s no maybe), but…typos and bad grammar–that’s just a Not Good given. But other things I see are things like…clunky prose like using the same sentence structure over and over, confused or disordered thinking, beating the reader over the head with a point they got across pages ago, not seeing the best place to start a story, following a character to document minutia (and then she cooked the egg, and then she ate the egg, and then she washed the dish while thinking about the night before when x happened, and then she brushed her teeth, taking a hard look at herself in the mirror and having these thoughts which led to the conclusion that…)
I mean, obviously, this is why I don’t talk much about things I’ve read, because I know I read this way.
I think Claire and Amy are absolutely right, that for a lot of us it’s not that we don’t want the help, it’s that we don’t know whom to ask. Anyone CAN call themselves an editor, and as a community we don’t seem to have a lot of good word of mouth experience to pass around to each other about this job.
I see what you’re talking about. I think you and Kait are VERY lucky to have found each other. It’s really hard to find people who want to give honest feedback. And not many people are GOOD at it.
I think it’s a good idea to find people we don’t know that well to edit. It would be very hard for me to read a book by someone I really like and say, “Sorry, but this sucks so badly that it needs to totally be redone. I don’t mind saying “Man, you have lots of typos, let’s fix these”, but when you start talking about their story…that’s really touchy. Authors have different levels of skill, and not all of them are going to be great. You just have to put out books that readers like. That’s the main goal. But when they’re really bad…. And again, everything is so subjective with reading and writing. It’s the obvious things that really make a book suck. And some of those things are the things you mentioned.
LOL, about eating the egg. I’m such a foodie that I like to put stuff about people eating in my books. I don’t go into the detail about each step of the meal, but I need to tone it down a little. I used to read the Archie McNally books by Lawrence Sanders and he was always talking about the food in the books, and my mouth would always be watering. :0)
I read a lot of indie books and even I get frustrated by lack of editing sometimes. It’s not just the typos and grammar issues, even plot holes and the general structure could be tweaked to make a better, cohesive story. The thing is, a lot of readers don’t seem to care at all so I’m not sure if it’s me being super picky. I’ve read a lot of extremely badly edited work that has rabid fans while other, beautifully written stories can’t get a look in. I’ve been putting it down to taste but sometimes I wonder. 🙂
As for myself, I cannot get a beta reader to save my life. SRSLY. I honestly don’t know where my stuff stands in the way of bad to well edited. I hope it isn’t an example of the worst indie books out there because I put a lot of time into weeding out those freaking typos. 😀
I paid T.L. Haddix for a critique on Thirst – I felt like it was worth it, she was spot on with her comments but it wasn’t proofread by anyone other than myself. For Taunt, I’ve booked a slot with Red Adept so we’ll see how that goes. I have a lot of respect for anyone who can honestly evaluate a book and I’m constantly looking for that kind of feedback. It’s great to see writers get lots of praise but in the end it’s the criticism we learn from. The problem with paying for editing is that those of us who need it the most can’t tell if it’s good or bad anyway. 🙂 I think the biggest problem (aside from people being afraid to tell us big ego writers the truth) is that it’s hard to find a lot of people who have the time to invest in us. Not all of us have lots of friends and fans. 😀
I’ve read your work and thoroughly enjoyed it. So yours isn’t a bad example. Lol. I don’t mind beta reading for people and even helping with proofing. But I’m far too forgiving to be a good crit partner. If I’m really into a story I don’t care about little things. Keep me entertained and don’t have a bunch of typos and bad grammar and I’m going to be happy.
Part of the problem with paying for editing services is that anyone can hang out a shingle and call him/herself an editor. It’s not like there are any specific requirements to be an editor. I’ve had the best luck with using fellow writers whose work I respect as critique partners and then doing line edits myself. But I’m a really good self-editor. I hope that doesn’t sound arrogant… I’ve edited professionally for business copy, and I have a whole bag of tricks I use for catching typos and grammar issues.
I used beta readers and critique partners for Ravenmarked and Silver Thaw, but I did final line edits, proofing, and copy edits on my own. So far, no one has said “dude, you need an editor,” so I guess that’s good. 🙂
I agree with you that people expect at least a certain level of competency with language when they read indie books. Oddly, I honestly don’t think the average reader’s expectation is as high as another writer’s or reviewer’s expectation is. I don’t mean that to sound snarky… I think readers are right. 🙂 But I also don’t think that’s an excuse to put out unedited stuff…
I hope that all made sense… I need more coffee…
Amy, first I want to say that I loved Silver Thaw. I love your writing style. Your book was well edited, too.
I’ll be honest…I do my line editing too. But I do let other people read and some are good at catching errors. Weirdly enough my mom is a great proofreader. But I do the final edits. I’ve always been a decent proofreader. Not perfect but good, I think. So I’m not suggesting you have to pay an editor. I’ve seen badly edited books that people have paid editors for. I just think there should be enough people reading it that errors get caught.
Was it you that told me you use text to speech to edit?
Yeah, I think I did post that here one day… I’ve found it really helpful. The computer doesn’t skim over words or errors that I’ll miss if I’m reading aloud. It does pronounce names funny, though… 🙂 I follow along while I listen so I can mark the places where I hear something wrong.
I do agree with you on having other eyes look at it–I just think it’s funny that there’s kind of this attitude that unless you’ve had your work “professionally edited,” it’s going to be riddled with typos and grammatical errors. That’s not necessarily the case. I’ve had “editors” look at my work who have missed glaring issues that I caught.
Thank you for the compliment! People seem to have really enjoyed Silver Thaw. It was really kind of my experimental foray into self-publishing, so it’s pleasantly surprising that so many people have enjoyed it. 🙂
Amy
I don’t agree with the attitude that a work has to be “professionally edited” either. I’m a much better editor than some of the editors who people paid to do it. That’s evident by the glaring typos I see in books where the author said, “But I paid a lot of money to have this edited!”
A funny plot hole in one of my books that I may have mentioned before, but still cracks me up. I had some people read Haunted Lake, and then I gave it a last look. I’m always the last editor because I don’t completely trust anyone else and it’s my responsibility. Anyway, the problem was that earlier in the book, the MC’s house had burned, but she had been able to have it repaired enough to sell. Later in the book, she visited the site where her house used to be. The house went from repairable to burned to the ground. And NO ONE caught that!
LOL! It’s amazing the things that manage to get past people!
When it comes down to it, whether someone is professional or experienced or not, it’s still our responsibility to check it again. We’re the only ones invested enough to really care and we’re more likely to go that extra step because it’s our name on the cover.
As Amy said, anyone can now call themselves an editor and a lot of indies have trouble finding someone reliable who knows their stuff. In saying that, it’s never a good idea to completely rely on another person so even if we all hire editors, it’s still worth putting the time into learning more about editing ourselves, I think.
Oh, and Claire–I completely agree with you! It is absolutely my responsibility to be the last person who touches my manuscript before I hit “publish.” 🙂
Oh my, Lauralynn–that is funny!
I know I had one scene in Ravenmarked where I totally switched POV right in the middle of the scene, and none of my early beta readers caught it. I caught it after some distance. I think it may have been because it was a fast-moving scene, but still… You just don’t do that–switch POV like that! 🙂 I thought, “Just pick one, for the love of Pete!”
Since I’m writing a story in first person for the first time, I found myself switching to third person in one scene. LOL
Lauralynn, I can’t believe you didn’t mention me, since you edited all my stuff, and very well. I think better than many professional published books I’ve read. I haven’t read far enough in Haunted Lake to get to the empty lot where a house just sold oops but everything else I’ve read is good, I am enjoying it very much. I guess I need to work on the content because I know the grammar and typos are fixed; you cover that well for me! But I’m not getting any feedback on the stories. Biggest reason I’m rewriting the first Jim Benjamin story. I read it again and realized there is so much more that I need to put in the story. But you’ve been great for me so don’t see yourself short on your editing. Thanks for all your help all of the time.
The reason I didn’t mention you was BECAUSE I edit your books. LOL. It’s that tooting your own horn thing. And I’ve thought about going back and reading again and checking to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I’ll definitely do that before we publish the print version of The Last Cabbandeum.
Jon, I fixed that plot problem with the burned house before I published it, so there shouldn’t be a problem with it now. :0)
You SHOOD toot your own horn every once in a while; you’re that good! By the way I sent you an e-mail. Love ya, sis!