I’ve been talking about my summer reading list and how I didn’t finish three of the books. I chose another three and today, gave up reading the first one on this new list.
Please excuse me if I now climb onto my soapbox.
I can’t say for sure if all the books on my didn’t read them list were all self published but I believe the majority of them do fit into that category.
I self publish, I teach people to self publish, I cheer and applaud indie authors. Lots of talented writers never got published when the big name publishers controlled things. Self publishing has levelled the playing field.
However, let’s not give conventional publishers and readers any excuse to say how self published books aren’t any good.
I can’t say for sure if any of these books, skipped beta readers, editors, or just someone to give them a look over but I’m guessing that’s what happened.
One book had serious head-hopping issues within the first chapter. Two had information dumps where the whole back story was presented before we even got introduced to the main character. One mystery even read more like a history book. And today, I gave up on a book with a main character so horrible that even though I knew she was fictional, I felt the need to slap her. Yes, it stirred an emotion in me but the wrong sort for your main character.
The sad thing is all these books had fantastic plots. With some TLC, I think they had great potential.
What might be the biggest downfall of self publishing is not allowing someone to look over your work so you get the vital feedback an editor usually offers.
Out of curiosity, I checked on the reviews for the book I gave up on this morning. The majority felt the same way as me, horrible main character and they quit reading because of her.
Self publishing is available to us all now but look at it as a gift. Don’t give publishers and people who don’t believe self publishing is the way to go, the opportunity to say self published books are poorly written. I believe they are every bit as good…most of the books I did finish were self published, had no such issues, and I enjoyed reading them.
Moral of the story, if you’re going to self publish have someone…doesn’t have to even be an editor, read your book and give you an honest opinion especially if this is your first story.
If you don’t owe it to yourself then you owe it to your fellow indie authors.