The Lost Art of Editing

I warned you I might include rants on my blog.  Hey, here’s one now!

Disclaimer: I’m not perfect and don’t claim to be but I do my best to publish with the least amount of errors possible.

I’m not going to mention names in this rant.  I don’t want to embarrass anyone.  But please, if anything I mention here gives you pause to examine your own blog or social media posts, print or online articles, self-published books, etc., then this rant will not have been in vain.

I read the blogs of several published authors, who also regularly feature other published authors.  As it says in my disclaimer above, I’m not perfect but, for the love books, folks, at least reread your post before hitting publish!  Have some quality control and self-respect!  There really is no excuse for missing words, sentences that clearly had editing attempts that weren’t completely finished and gross misspellings.  Please take your blog posts as seriously as your book publishing.  It all reflects back to you.

Social media posts are just as bad.  I know, I know, a lot of times we’re just throwing something on our Facebook or Instagram in a rush, but it takes two seconds to compare there, they’re and their!

There is literally no excuse for this next one.  Anything that goes out on the internet that calls itself a news portal or business website needs to have a dedicated editor/webmaster to make sure there are as few errors as possible.  Newspapers may be able to wriggle out of minor factual errors to get out an important news story, but repeating entire paragraphs, HTML coding not meant to be seen and other thoughtless errors are not acceptable.  Call me picky, but if a business website that wants me as a customer can’t be bothered to edit their copy, they don’t get my business.  I’m not talking about a simple, little spelling mistake, I’m talking about many spelling mistakes, links that go nowhere, descriptions that don’t make sense.  I just called up a website that bothered me with issues like this, that I’d decided not to order from a while ago.   My thought is that if you’re sloppy with the initial impression you present to a potential customer, why should I expect a good transaction with you?  I’m happy to report they’ve upgraded to a much better style and professional look, with way fewer errors.  Unfortunately, they’ve discontinued the product I liked.  Oh, well, Bravo to them anyway!

I’ve also read a couple of self-published books lately that could have really benefited from a professional edit.  From sentences that don’t make sense to rambling without a point and awkwardly flipping character POV, I’m not sure why these authors don’t have enough pride in their work to get it right.  I really wanted to self-publish a Christmas story on Amazon this year but I see now that I just won’t have time to finish it with the quality I’d want to have.  Please, folks, don’t rush your work if you want to be taken seriously.

I suppose my big question is this—why do we overlook bad quality?  Why do we accept such easily corrected content?  It makes me sad to think our standards are slipping because we simply can’t be bothered—lord knows, contacting just the most egregious offenders would be a full-time job!  I know there are writers whose fans actually do give specific feedback on errors in their books, citing page and paragraph, and Bravo to them.

I guess I just have to rededicate myself to doing my best and hope I’m not caught out in too many errors myself!

Current Reads and Watches

What I’m reading now (paper): Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

What I’m reading now (Kindle): Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins

What I’m binge watching: Just finished Only Murders in the Building, interspersed with the final season of Good Witch.