Over the spring and summer this year, I read quite a few books. Most of them brilliant, I have decided that if I get too bored I don’t continue right away. I still give the book a second chance later on, because sometimes it’s not the book but my mindset, the weather, distractions or not being keen on the genre or style at a given moment. I read in my three languages from traditional as well as self-published authors, and I stumbled across mistakes of all nature.
A character being named by the wrong name, a typo, a paragraph being written twice, a character’s age varying greatly, sentences left unfinished at the end of a page etc.
The paragraph written twice was actually in a traditional-published book. I won’t give any names now, but I am sure seen the level of fame the author (not an author by profession) has should warrant an army of high profile editors.
Now, these are books, not articles in an online newspaper or blog posts. How many times do I come across articles where in the comments someone is pointing out that there has been a miss hyphenation, a comma used incorrectly, a spelling mistake, a bad declination? I just hope that they don’t read books, because mistakes are often times not detected by the most concise editors… Thank God those negative commenters (often putting a mistake or two into their comment) tend to stay away from blog posts, bloggers don’t have editors, posts are written on a whim, not necessarily reread.
My question is, should I note down the mistakes I see in a book? I feel the need to protect good works from all those people who scream “horrible author”, “incompetent editor” when coming across them instead of enjoying the story, and then approach the writer about them?
So dear authors, how would you feel if someone who loved your book tells you that they came across a few errors?
While you are here check out this year’s advent calendar plans.
© Solveig Werner 2017. All rights reserved.
Solveig Werner 
I won’t bite, seriously!