I’d like to welcome Mary Welk, to Beat Book Babes.
We collaborated on a couple of anthologies, Hearts
& Daggers and Hot Crimes, Cool
Chicks. Mary is an award winning author as well as an editor.
Mary V. Welk writes the Readers Choice Award-winning “Rhodes
to Murder” mystery novel series featuring ER nurse Caroline Rhodes and history
professor Carl Atwater. Her short
stories have appeared in Dark Things II: Cat Crimes; Hot Crimes, Cool Chicks;
Chicago Blues; Mayhem in the Midlands;
and Blondes in Trouble & Other Tangled Tales. Mary can be found on Facebook
and at www.marywelk.com.
NO TRICKS IN YOUR E-BOOKS, ONLY TREATS
Booksellers will assure you that scary stories are
all the rage in October. After all, Halloween is right around the corner, and what
better way is there to celebrate All Hallows’ Eve than by curling up on the
couch with a blood curdling ghost story, a haunting romance, or a spooky
mystery?
I’ve chosen three e-books for my holiday reading
pleasure: DARK HOUSE by Karina Halle; SCARY MARY by S. A. Hunter; and THE
GRAVEYARD BOOK by Neil Gaiman.
I look forward to reading all three of these on my
Kindle, my only hope being, there’ll be no tricks in the e-books, only treats.
What I mean by “no tricks” is this: please don’t let
me find a host of proofreading errors in the story, or poor formatting of the
manuscript.
I recently read two e-books by established authors
whose previous work I’d read in print format. The print books were well edited.
The e-books were not. I finished one of the e-books because the story was
compelling enough to overlook the few proofreading mistakes: spaces before
ending periods; spaces deleted between words (ex: ‘of ten thousand’ became
‘often thousand’); an occasional missing word.
The second book had so many formatting problems that
I quit reading after the third chapter, although I did skim the rest of the
book just to see if the formatting ever improved. It didn’t. The main problem concerned
the page setup. Some paragraph first lines were indented by 0.3 inches, others
by 0.5 inches, and many by 1inch. Seeing continual changes in the paragraph
indentation was extremely distracting. Then there was the problem of misspelled
and incorrectly capitalized words. The names of the four seasons are never
capitalized; the same holds true for names of flowers. A tulip is a tulip, not
a Tulip.
Okay, you may think I’m being overly picky here, and
that’s your right. But as a freelance editor, it’s my job to correct such
mistakes in manuscripts before they’re published, and I can’t stop myself from
noticing them in published books I’m reading. In this day and age of fierce
competition in the publishing business, it’s imperative that writers do a thorough
self-editing job that includes use of the pilcrow—that backward P on the
toolbar—to show paragraph marks and other hidden formatting symbols. It’s
equally important to follow that up with professional proofreading and
formatting.
I love a book that’s a treat to read on my Kindle. I
enjoy reading debut novels by new authors, and I’ve found several authors I now
follow because their first books were so good. What I hate to see is a good
story from a first time author dismissed by readers due to unnecessary
mistakes.
If I could give only two pieces of advice to new
writers, they would be this: learn how to self-edit your work, and invest in
professional services to make your book the best it can be.
I’d like to thank the Book Beat Babes for having me
here today. I wish you all much success with your novels and your new website.
Oh, and one last thing. I almost forgot to tell
everyone that I’ve contributed a novel to the annual Halloween booklist. THE
SCARECROW MURDERS is a mystery set in a rural university town during Halloween
Homecoming Days. It features my series sleuths, ER nurse Caroline Rhodes and
history professor Carl Atwater, along with a cast of colorful (and sometimes
odd) characters who do their best to cause mischief and mayhem in little
Rhineburg, Illinois.
Hi Mary, I feel your pain. After spending several hours a day (gotta stop that) on a computer, my great treat is reading in bed. Unfortunately, there is a nasty little BOOKMARK function on my Kindle, the bane of a reader turned writer who cannot read anything anymore without mentally rewriting sentences of others in my mind, and, yes, bookmarking mistakes.
ReplyDeleteLike you, if I like a book, or the author's other works, I might muddle through, but if I plan to review the book (which I will not do if I cannot give a four) I feel I owe it to the author to send them a message noting the boo-boos. Most are grateful, as I am when a sharp-eyed reader spots something in one of my books and tells me about it. I dry my tears, kick myself, and tackle the corrections.
Jinx, I've made occasional errors in my books, too. We all make one or two mistakes in every manuscript we write, and that I can easily understand when reading a book. I think it's great that you limit the books you review to those you've truly enjoyed, and also that you contact authors when you note a huge boo-boo. I know I'd appreciate it if someone pointed out an error in my book that I could fix.
ReplyDeleteI never thought of bookmarking mistakes. I'm sure I miss some, but not too many if they're there. I know nothing is perfect, but we need to get our work as perfect as possible. I hire an editor, and even after that, I check for mistakes. The ones who are careless give ebook authors a bad name.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, your scarecrow book looks cute. Great idea!
Morgan Mandel
http://www.morganmandel.com
Thanks for being with us, Mary. And I too find it difficult to get beyond a series of mistakes in a book. I always wonder, who edited this?
ReplyDeleteBest of luck with your "halloween book!"