Poorly-Edited Books

I love my Kindle. Don't get me wrong. I think that it (and similar devices) are the future of the publishing industry.

That said, however, the fact that any monkey with a keyboard can publish a book for the Kindle (allow me to plug my other blog, which is available on Kindle) has unfortunately hurt its potential.

Take, for example, Starstrikers. It includes such gems as:

Wending his way over dead defenders and crater holes, Sloan dove head first into the canon pit. He gave Centar a brief wave and then manned the twin-tube canon.

Of course, "Canon" is very different from "Cannon." For the record: The author used the correct word throughout most of the rest of the book.

You should not use your spell-checker instead of an editor.

I like Military Sci-Fi (MilSF). I even enjoy cheesy MilSF. This ... it was a poorly-edited collection of cliches mashed together with a helping of cheese that wanted to be gritty.

Throw the editing on top, and you have the trifecta.

When I bought the book, it was only $0.99. And it was overpriced at that. Now, to take advantage of Amazon's royalty scheme, it's gone up a bit. And it's made me wary of other self-published books that can be found in the Kindle store.

That's right, self-publishers: One badly-edited book that you had nothing to do with may have just cost you money.