Don’t get me wrong, I think that self-publishing is a great thing. We get to read great articles, blogs, essays, diaries and books that would be overlooked by traditional publishing, but we also get poorly edited articles with improper word usage and errors that distract one from the magic of the message.
Traditional publishing has a chain of people that read, edit, reread, re-edit, approve and publish every word that goes out to the public. With the advent of online publishing, blogs, and user contributed stories we have entered a time where I must ask, “Is the message more important than the style and errors?”
I guess I should admit for the record that I’ve never had anything published by traditional media. My writings all fall into the category of self-published.
I consider myself a “voracious” reader. I’ve always got scores of books on my cellphone and tablet waiting for me to finish one and start another, often I read several at one time. I stopped buying paper based books about fifteen years ago; I stopped buying individual music in favor of a subscription streaming service twenty years ago.
Lately, I’ve gotten into writing for online sources like here at Daily Kos. I’ll admit that as spelling and grammar go I’m no Nazi, I’m probably along the lines of the Nun with a ruler in her hands waiting to *thwack* the knuckles of writing offenders. Because I’m somewhat critical of writing errors, I read my stories three times to check for errors, I make sure spell checking is always on, and I use a premium grammar checking program to cut down on the possibility of mistakes.
I know that errors do make it into my published stories; I'll admit. I’m certainly not perfect, but once I publish an article, I immediately read it from the public's view, carefully, as though it were my first reading and I edit the error out as quickly as possible hoping that no one else got to read it before I fixed it.
One thing I do like about the blog style is that it can be more casual. Old World Literature Style is great, but a Saturday morning rant doesn't need to sound like Charles Dickens.
I'll also admit that I'm a vocabulary Nazi. One of my favorite joys growing up was delving into a dictionary, spending hours reading definitions and looking up ever more words whose meanings eluded me from the previous definition.
I love a witty turn of phrase and get a little thrill of having to look up a word that escaped my knowledge, even at my age. It makes me want to read MORE by that author. I want challenging stories to read. I want news that has substance to it, instead of just facts. I want articles to INSPIRE me and others. Sadly very few reach these lofty expectations.
I absolutely love reading a good book, but with self-publishing it seems like the editors have all disappeared. Ten or more books on recent New York Times Best Sellers List are there because the millions of fanboys and fangirls have bought their hero’s book. YouTubers that write a book are rocketing onto the Best Sellers List. I’m certainly not saying that any of those books are a bad read. I haven’t read them yet. I’ll get around to them eventually in my reading queue. My point is with millions of dedicated subscribers waiting to purchase your work; maybe the bar is set a bit too low. Maybe we need some new categories in the “people’s choice” of literature. The sheer volume of sales doesn’t always mean great literature; it means loyal fans. Once again, I want to say I’m not picking on YouTube creators. I’m a fan and subscriber to many of these new author’s channels, and I’m also going to read many of their books.
I’m happy for the inspiring YouTube creators and pleased that they 've been able to leverage this market. Entrepreneurs are the rare novelty of the world, and the Universe selects for novelty. We can see this by how much the world has changed over millions of years. A stagnant world that doesn’t change is uninspiring. Novel creators on YouTube, DAILY Kos, and other sites that promote user created material are changing the world.
I’m also a fan of science fiction and have read MOST of the great works in the categories of Science Fiction and Fantasy. I’ve also begun reading new authors works. They are great reads chock full of wrong words because the spelling error turned out to also be a real word or one of my favorites, the improper use of “your” and “you’re”, “there” “their” and “they’re”.
My discomfort with writing errors certainly isn't a reason for anyone to stop writing. Writing is like a muscle, the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. I've got a plethora of articles under my name here at DK. A few of them have gained considerable traction from the sites reader base, and even editors. Many of them have a nice comment base, and a few serve a niche market and have few readers and commenters.
I write because I must write, but seeing people say they enjoy my reading is inspiring to me. I live in Southern California on Social Security Disability; I'm disabled. Writing keeps my mind sharp. Looking for errors and fixing them keeps my problem-solving skills exercised. Finding errors in others work makes me cringe. I want to dispatch my house-brownie-shoe-repair-elf to fix all the spelling and grammar errors in other people’s work.
In the end, I’m just a 57-year-old guy in a nun’s habit with a ruler in my hand waiting to *thwack* a few hands.
(NOTE: I tried to write this from a balanced standpoint. Mostly I miss the quality of the editorial process in helping to provide us with error-free writing. In the end, I think the message is the important part when it comes to ideas, but for inspiration I like a polished, masterful work.
Also, I’m sure that everyone is going to go over my style and grammar with a fine toothed comb. I’m sure someone will find an error.)