Monday, July 16, 2012
Searching for the next great writer.........
You know what I hate? I hate bad books. Books that are trite, poorly edited and for E-Books poorly formatted. I honestly WANT to give E-pubbers a chance, I want independent authors to succeed and do well. I really want them to end up with contracts with publishing companies. I want to find new authors that just blow me away with their work. Sadly, that has not happened at all. I spend countless hours reading free or 99 cent books on my NOOK hoping to find the next hot author. All I have found are absolute messes. Plot lines are thin or nonexistent, dialogue is hackneyed and unbelievable. Locations are not researched and characters basically cookie cutter flat. Don't get me wrong, I applaud (sort of) these efforts at self-pubbing and avoiding the great miasma of the traditional publishing houses but if you want to succeed, please oh please edit your books, fact check and do not resort to "Oh, it's a serial killer so I don't have to tie everything together." A poorly written book is a poorly written book.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I totally agree. Finding readers is difficult enough without having to convince them that YOUR self-published book is not like the self-published messes they gave up on.
ReplyDeletePeg, you hit the nail on the head. There are many excellent self-pubbed books out there I am certain but there are too many people that just throw crap together and hope it sticks. It makes it difficult for authors who are truly dedicated to their craft.
ReplyDeleteThese bad writers have, in addition, been clogging up the slush piles and agent-query piles for so many years that talented people simply couldn't get through. Now there's no filter at all except word-of-mouth and reviews. It's enough to make you cry.
ReplyDeleteMy mystery NICE WORK by Denise Weeks won the Oak Tree Press First Mystery Novel Contest in 2011 and is coming out at the end of this month. I have advance copies in the form of the same PDF that's being used to build the trade paperbacks at the printer. Would you be at all willing to take a chance on it, or on another of my books, for possible review?
I've written a number of YA/fantasy novels, but this will be my first published mystery. I don't know how to get the word out about it, because it's a traditional mystery that's a bit edgy, and it has finaled in the St. Martin's contest more than once. (They felt it was too long at 366 pages for a genre mystery, but we think readers will like a story that goes to its organic length.)
If you'd like a copy of any of my books written as Denise Weeks or as Shalanna Collins, just let me know by replying to this comment or e-mailing me at dlweeks at tx dot rr dot com anytime. The disk is always spinning.
I would love to read your book! Or any of them, for that matter.
DeleteOkay--I don't have an e-mail address for you (there isn't one that I could find on your profile), so e-mail me at dlweeks at tx dot rr dot com and I'll attach back a couple of PDFs, which is the easier way. Paper books should be available for NICE WORK within a couple of weeks at Amazon, but it's easier to read the PDF. . . .
Deletedaphneanne2230@yahoo.com is my email. Let's give it a go.
Delete