"This book is awful."
This isn't the first time my oldest daughter has texted me about some book she got from Amazon, but this time she'd taken a screenshot of pages from the book. Glancing over it, I felt sorry for the author. It was horrible. Passive writing. Characters so dull, I'd rather watch paint peel. Just bad writing.
What's equally bad is that someone is getting paid for it.
You may think me a book snob but hear me out. How many times have you bought an e-book only to wish you'd saved your money? Or maybe you've left a review that reads something like 'I loved the premise but I just couldn't stomach the bad grammar and misused words enough to finish the book.' Then you've got to remember Amazon has changed the rules on returning books so you can't return them even if you want to.
That's part of why I'm here. I'm a life-long reader but also a writer of over thirty books and novellas that have been traditionally published. I've judged writing contests for over twenty years so I recognize a piece of bad writing when I see it. And there's a lot of it out there.
There also a lot of good writing too, books that deserve notice but aren't getting any. You may wonder why some of the great books you've read aren't getting published the old fashion way so here's the honest to goodness truth--Getting a traditional publisher to buy your book is like finding a needle in a haystack. Only there's a hundred haystacks to search and there might not even be a needle there. Most publishing houses only have 12-24 slots open a year (unless you're Harlequin. They have 144 slots in Christian line.) When you compare that to the tens of thousands of submissions these publishers get each year, the chances of getting noticed are infinitesimal.
I get why writers want to independently publish their books. It's easy to pop your book up on Amazon and start making money the next day. Yet, that shouldn't mean we should published something that's half-baked. That way of doing things is a sure fire way of alienating readers. I know--I've done it myself.
As Christians, we're called to a higher standard which means we should take the time and effort to publish our best work. To do less is to short sale ourselves and Christ.
And that, my friends is why I'm writing this blog.
