With the rise of self-publishing models and authors willingly enjoying this new revolution in publishing sector, we, the critics, should be dealing with many occasions that bring to us semi-edited, poorly edited or even unedited manuscripts in spite of ‘several layers of editing’ promised by money-hungry self-publishing companies around the world – and this is the hour of realisation for many that traditional publishing companies do bring books in fewer numbers but those books, obviously, are wonderfully edited and we will not have to grind our teeth against each other over those silly mistakes made by the author and ‘left’ unchecked by the editor.
Well, coming back to the point that I raised in my headline, editorial part or process in the whole publishing adventure is a very important thing and authors must take it seriously. The editorial team does not only look at commas and semicolons but also the flow of the storyline, loopholes in the plot and the novel or any book in any genre as a whole. Authors get insight into their writing, their jobs well done and their jobs ruined. An editor who is wise will not only rescue an author from silly embarrassments but will also help them realise if the manuscript needs drastic corrections in order to make it publishable. However, self-publishing companies do not even have standard editors and there is no chance that they will spend so much time with one title… this is the reality and one has to accept it.
Rapidly rising numbers of self-published books are not only a concern for the readers because they will have to read poorly edited books but also for the publishing companies themselves as they continue losing their reputation. Moreover, the authors also lose the respect of the readers who are a little careful about the editorial roles in the books. Imagine reading a book by a first-time author, self-published, by the way, and finding a lot of issues in the book and that also of minor levels. What will you do? You might throw away the title at the earliest opportunity you will get and all the hard work done by the author might vanish instantly because the editor could not be careful enough to make the book readable.
My simple advice to the authors, who are willing to self-publish a book, is that they should keep in mind the editorial part in the process of publishing a book is very very important and one has to take care of it in all the possible ways. If you don’t take care of it, you will lose your readers rather quickly!
By Rishi for Intellectual Reader