How much do tpyos bother the average reader?

[Brian W. Foster]

Yes, I did that deliberately. Like I tell my wife all the time - I think I'm funny; that's the important thing!

I've seen this advice given to indie authors many, many times:

You probably should hire a proofreader.

Wait. That's not quite right. Usually, it's more like this:

It is absolutely freaking critical that you hire a proofreader!!!

Yeah. That's it.

The reasons given:

- Reviews will mention typos and dissuade other readers.
- Typos make you appear unprofessional.

In my experience, there are a lot of writers and authors out there who want for there to be a "correct" way to do things. In my further experience, I'm not so sure that there is a "correct" way to do things as much as there are ways to do things that work for individuals. That being the case, I tend to be skeptical when I hear advice that seems to come from a place that amounts to, "Because that's just the 'correct' way to do it!"

So what say you: do typos* negatively impact sales? Or do readers not really care all that much?

*For the sake of reasonable discussion, let's assume that "typos" is defined as some reasonable amount of errors that slipped through an author's proofreading pass. Things like "form" instead of "from," not serious grammar/tense/POV/plot/etc. issues. No more than three or four per chapter.

 

[Vertigo]

Every time I hit one it pulls me out of the story and if there are loads I will say so, angrily, in my review of the book. I consider it to be lazy and indicative of lack of respect for the reader. It does depend to some extent on how people read though; I read slowly almost as though I were reading out loud (though not quite that slow!) and consequently I don't tend to "see what I expect to see." I think speed readers will be much less likely to spot typos as they don't read each individual word in quite the same way.

 

[The Ace]

Typos make me want to kill something.

 

[Venusian Broon]

So what say you: do typos* negatively impact sales? Or do readers not really care all that much?

I don't know if typos negatively impact sales in a strict statistical sense, and I do think there are other factors that make a good read...

...however to generalise purely on my own reaction to them. If I read a book that I perceived had a higher than usual typo count, then I'm pretty sure it is going to impact my view pretty negatively. I find them annoying, so if there are significantly high levels - three or four a chapter would probably irritate me no end - then I'm not likely to follow up that author's further output. Might sound a bit harsh, but there are a lot of books in this world. And not a lot of time.

 

[The Judge]

Well, as a reader I hate typos. The more I see, the more I think the author and/or editor has been careless. And once I start thinking that, I'm about ready to give up on a book, because if the writer couldn't be bothered to correct stupid mistakes, what else has slipped the net because of a lack of care?

So to me, most definitely it shows a lack of professionalism. And that means I'm much less likely to buy a second book by that author.

I'd also point out that editors don't just look for spelling mistakes and typos, they should be checking for continuity errors and other problems. And if someone thinks her story is completely free of all of them, too, well, she's likely got another think coming.

As for whether there are "correct" ways to do things, I certainly believe there are recommended ways that are shown to work in most walks of life, writing included. If someone wants to ignore recommendations, that's up to him, and if there are legitimate reasons to do so, or he thinks that something else works better, fair enough. But it's always struck me as rather arrogant to ignore advice from people who have experience just on the basis that one doesn't like hearing what has been said.

 

[Cathbad]

You can find very few books of novel length without a typo or two. It becomes a problem when there are several.

Years ago, I reviewed the much heralded Book 1 of the Dragonlance (Weis and Hickman) series for a university newspaper. Being a serious fan of Dungeons and Dragons, I wanted to give this book a good review! But I just couldn't. This was the worst edited novel of all times! In a 20 page span, I found 23! typos! The number of errors in the book (not just typos) made it a very difficult read!

This was an extreme case, of course, but too many typos can ruin a good read for me.

 

[Ragandar]

It's odd. Typos really trip me up whilst I'm reading, kind of like a train that is hurtling along and suddenly stops dead in its tracks and derails.
Generally, when I come across one, I find myself putting the book away for a bit. I just do, every time.

It does not, however, impact my desire to buy a next book in the series. If it was a good book, that is. Lots of mistakes in a novel might be the final nail in the coffin, maybe, but it will never form the basis for me not buying another book from the same author/publisher/whatever.

 

[Brian W. Foster]

As for whether there are "correct" ways to do things, I certainly believe there are recommended ways that are shown to work in most walks of life, writing included. If someone wants to ignore recommendations, that's up to him, and if there are legitimate reasons to do so, or he thinks that something else works better, fair enough. But it's always struck me as rather arrogant to ignore advice from people who have experience just on the basis that one doesn't like hearing what has been said.

The context of the question is, "What is the best use of an indie author's time?"

Chris Fox, who sales a heckava lot more books than I've ever dreamed about, wrote about his take on the 80/20 principal. His observation is that the kind of readers that are buying indie published SF/F books aren't all that concerned with some of the quality issues that writers and editors often discuss. (Hard to place all this in proper context and still be brief, but he's talking to experienced authors who understand the craft of writing fiction. His point isn't, "Quality doesn't matter at all." It's, "Most indie readers judge quality by a far different standard than authors/editors.")

If you disagree with that viewpoint, I can understand that. Reasonable people differ in their opinions. Honestly though, I took your response to be kind of insulting. Just because someone disagrees with the way you think something should be done doesn't make them "arrogant" or possessing the sole reasoning of not liking what they're hearing.

What's more important to an indie author's success: putting out more books that meet minimum quality standards or trying to make each book vastly exceed minimum quality standards? It's a fair question, and one that we, if we're going to consider ourselves serious business people, should be thinking about.

I'd also point out that editors don't just look for spelling mistakes and typos, they should be checking for continuity errors and other problems. And if someone thinks her story is completely free of all of them, too, well, she's likely got another think coming.

And I'd like to point out that "proofreaders" (the word "editor" does not appear in my original post), pretty much by definition, are looking for mostly spelling mistakes and typos.

 

[Gonk the Insane]

Or do readers not really care all that much?

Some almost certainly don't care, others may not notice (catching them can be pernicious if you've got the right letters in the wrong order), but I'm with @Vertigo et al: I'll notice, and the very act of noticing will pull me out of the story. Not only that, but I'm reasonably confident that plenty of other folks often seen in the Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation, etc forums feel much the same. If you're in doubt, check out this thread that shows how even little mistakes can infuriate others: An article to put grammar nazis in their place

Speaking for myself, if I read a book that is littered with typos then the likelihood of me picking up another book by the same author is almost zero. Most books - including those released by traditional publishers - have one or two mistakes in there somewhere, but when there are more than a smattering of mistakes, I start to get a little irritated. After all, if I bought a painting, I wouldn't expect the artist to accidentally leave a patch of blank canvas in one corner. If I buy anything, I expect a minimum level of quality and, while others might feel differently, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that in a book, whether it's published by one of the Big 6 (it's still 6, right?), a small press, or someone self-publishing. And for me, that quality includes a reasonable standard of spelling. True, not everyone is great at spelling, but there are various solutions to that.

The question posed in the thread title's a tricky one. For starters, what's an average reader like? I look at it from a different point of view: if I'm putting my name out there (even if it's a pen-name), don't I want my book to be as good as possible? Don't I want to give it the best chance possible of getting good reviews? True, maybe only one review in a few dozen (wild guess there) might slate the spelling or give it a lower star-rating but that's something fixable (unlike the "I didn't like it because the corner of the paperback was dog-eared when it arrived" or other such reviews). There's also the long-term perspective: will people read further books by the same author? From the responses to this thread, it seems like a number of us have little patience for persistent typos and such and are unlikely to invest further after one disappointment.

Some readers are more forgiving than others. For example, I read a book a while back by a Chrons author and while I enjoyed the book the kindle formatting was terrible, absolutely awful. Because I enjoyed the book I read another and found similar terrible formatting with acres of white space. I enjoyed that book too, but not enough to pay for another badly formatted kindle. Not the author's fault at all, but I still won't read another book by that publisher.

 

[VinceK]

I'm halfway through a bestseller written by a legendary author (you know who your are) and so far I've found one typo. I don't hold the author responsible, and neither has it affected my enjoyment. As @Cathbad said, it is only when the typos exceed the reader's acceptable limit that it becomes a problem.

 

[Phyrebrat]

As an indie author you are the brand. Do you want to be a brand that is associated with simple-to-eradicate errors, or one that is associated with excellence?

It's a no-brainer as far as I can see. Why go to all the effort that writing a good story takes just to get slack on typos.

I also wouldn't buy a Rolls* if it had one or two 'little' scratches.

pH
*I actually wouldn't buy a Rolls at all, TBH. But a white 1977 S1 Lotus Esprit takes too long to write... Oh dammit

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Chris Fox, who sales a heckava lot more books than I've ever dreamed about, wrote about his take on the 80/20 principal. His observation is that the kind of readers that are buying indie published SF/F books aren't all that concerned with some of the quality issues that writers and editors often discuss. (Hard to place all this in proper context and still be brief, but he's talking to experienced authors who understand the craft of writing fiction. His point isn't, "Quality doesn't matter at all." It's, "Most indie readers judge quality by a far different standard than authors/editors.")

I can't tell you how many readers of my indie book tell me with great relief what a pleasure it is to read something not error strewn. There are a significant number of readers who will not touch an indie book for fear of it and who will judge it more harshly when they find errors.

If you disagree with that viewpoint, I can understand that. Reasonable people differ in their opinions. Honestly though, I took your response to be kind of insulting. Just because someone disagrees with the way you think something should be done doesn't make them "arrogant" or possessing the sole reasoning of not liking what they're hearing.

And yet here you are being insulted because someone disagreed with your reasoning... What's reasonable with that?

What's more important to an indie author's success: putting out more books that meet minimum quality standards or trying to make each book vastly exceed minimum quality standards? It's a fair question, and one that we, if we're going to consider ourselves serious business people, should be thinking about.

Putting out the best book you can in the time allowed. The indie model of toss a book out and move on is changing. The readers are coming to expect more professionalism. Novellas are filling a market gap, though - perhaps it's not always neccesary to put out a full length novel every six months. But, personally, if it has my name on it, it will be polished, edited and copyedited. No shortcuts. It has my name on it.

And I'd like to point out that "proofreaders" (the word "editor" does not appear in my original post), pretty much by definition, are looking for mostly spelling mistakes and typos.

A copyeditor is the bare minimum - a proofer comes after that stage. Always. (Most copy editors these days will cover both. There's no point in your spelling being right if you have continuity bloopers every five minutes.

 

[Brian W. Foster]

Do you want to be a brand that is associated with simple-to-eradicate errors, or one that is associated with excellence?

Easy to eradicate. Not easy to find

 

[Brian W. Foster]

And yet here you are being insulted because someone disagreed with your reasoning... What's reasonable with that?

Someone disagreeing with my reasoning is fine. I took issue with someone making erroneous assumptions about my reasoning.

The indie model of toss a book out and move on is changing. The readers are coming to expect more professionalism.

Is it? Chris wrote one of his books in 21 days (of something like that) literally from start to finished product published. He sold in excess of 10,000 copies.

To tell the truth, I tried to read that book and found that it wasn't for me. The vast majority of his reviews, however, were positive. People didn't just like it; they lined up to buy the sequels.

In contrast, I spent hours going back through a manuscript after an editor pointed out that I'd gotten in the happen of starting sentences with the ambiguous "it was." Basically, I'm not sure that my thinking on this thing (insisting on quality) is in my best interests. I'm beginning to think that readers simply don't give a crap about a lot of the craft stuff that I've learned. Or about typos. Or almost anything else.

Is slow and quality really the best financial course to take? There are a lot of indie authors right now, in 2016, putting out lots of books fast that are selling.

A copyeditor is the bare minimum - a proofer comes after that stage. Always. (Most copy editors these days will cover both. There's no point in your spelling being right if you have continuity bloopers every five minutes.

The point was that the original post did not mention copyediting at all. The post specifically was about proofreading. Not understanding where the comment about editing was relevant to the discussion, but if people want to attack strawmen ...

 

[Jo Zebedee]

The comment about editing was relevant because to many people a proofreader is a copyeditor - see my post above. Once you put a question out you don't get to say what does or does not get drawn into it - provided the relevance is clear, which I think editing falls under.

Anyhow, you missed most of the point of my post. If you are happy to sell something sub-quality with your name on it, good luck to you. For every self publisher who gets lucky doing that another thousand sell their twenty copies and that's it. But, for me, it's about pride. I don't want to wince when I pick my book up and see it full of errors. I don't want to build a career based on stuff I know could be better (perhaps I should also point out I'm not a perfectionalist and that I've released four books in 18 months - or will have by next month - after only five years of writing, so I am, mostly, in the write-quick-and-release school.) for me, it's about pride and about increasing my odds of success - and, for sure, errors reduce it. That's why the majority of self released books do not do well. That's why anyone really trying to make a living as a writer - including the vast majority of self published pros - do not cut that corner. not after the first gamut of reviews citing rubbish editing.

What makes a writer is a career, normally. That means a reputation and readership that grows over time. For the vast, vast majority of writers that will only happen if the books are good, the plots tight, the writing reasonably error free and the idea a good one. Of course, we can all cite the examples where that wasn't the case - but they will always be the minority.

 

[millymollymo]

A) I read professionally to review. I review books, I do not discriminate about how the book happened to be published.
B) I read for fun.

Consider if you will: Reviews increase your sales, your visibility and your route to market. Reviewing your book in a positive way also reflects on me.
It makes me a little more picky about what I cover.

Since I started A my expectations for B have increased ten fold. My spare time is limited, just like everyone's. If I invest in characters I want to go the whole journey with them.

Also:
I write for fun on forums, you know like this one and strangely enough professionally too. C) I get paid to write for companies websites, marketing media and such.

D) And then there's the fiction branch of writing which I love.

I like to think I know the difference between social conversation and professional product.
I'd lose my contracts if C wasn't proofed/edited/examined with detail. I've no hope of securing a contract for D without being proofed/edited/examined.
I know D won't be covered on review sites if it's full of lazy errors. (see A)


As I see it therefore, you aren't doing yourself any favours sending incomplete work out into the world.

What you are doing is making it easier for those who go the extra mile to stand out in the slush of words around them. You (general, not personal) are making it easier for the reader to make the decision not to use Kindle Unlimited and buy a book instead.
You (general, not personal) are improving the need for book retailers, librarians and indie stores who "read and recommend" - vetting the work that is out there and directing readers to books.

Typos have their place in the world, just not inside a book.

 

[Overread]

For me 1 or two scattered through a long story are fine; heck I might not even spot them in otherwise good story telling. However if your work is rife with mistakes and errors to the point where it distracts from the reading and it glares out even at the average reader then even a good story will fall apart. Like others have said above, when I encounter one its a jab that drags the reader out of the world and if that happens too many times then the reader can't get into your world; can't get into your story.

So yes its important; if you want a quality product that you've put many many hours into and you want to take it further then you need proof-readers; you need to have your work checked again and again before publication; because once its out there its out there.

 

[Brian W. Foster]

The comment about editing was relevant because to many people a proofreader is a copyeditor

If one says, "Hey, I'm going to have a copy editor look at this manuscript," I can understand how that phrase might incorporate both editing and proofreading. If one says, "Hey, I'm going to have a proofreader look at this manuscript," to me, that doesn't in any way convey copy editing. Proofreading is pretty much defined as reading the manuscript over for typos. Copy editing is a whole different thing.

But, for me, it's about pride.

And I have absolutely no problem with that. Going the "pride" route is every bit as valid a choice as going the commercial route.

Truthfully, though, I can do all types of things "just because I want to." I could choose to make up a brand new language and write only in that language. That would be a completely valid choice. Doubt I'd sell many books, though.

At the moment, I'm interested in the question, "What's best for selling books?"

and, for sure, errors reduce it. That's why the majority of self released books do not do well.

That's a pretty definitive statement. If you count complete lack of regard for what the market wants as an "error," I think you're right. If we're talking about "errors" in terms of typos and minor craft issues, I'm not sure I agree.

That means a reputation and readership that grows over time. For the vast, vast majority of writers that will only happen if the books are good, the plots tight, the writing reasonably error free and the idea a good one.

For most authors, that first sentence, I think, is right on the money.

I'm not as sure about the continuation.

The best written, grammatically correct book with a tight plot can easily fail to find a readership. A "poorly" written one that delivers what the reader wants, I think, has a better chance of succeeding. The trick is to figure out what readers really want. I think that, perhaps, we're not helping ourselves financially by insisting that readers really want us to adhere to all the little craft issues.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think you're convinced by your own argument and don't, actually, want to hear what everyone else in the thread feels - that it's to the detriment of a book and an author to release a product that could be made better by some polish.

You also didn't seem to pick up my comment that, these days, copy editing and proofing are done at the same step, by the same person - it's one of the consequences of the current publishing industry. Ergo when you say proofer, I see copy editor because there is, often, no differentiation anymore. (Because, um, a copy editor reads a mss for errors....)

So, since you seem to want me to essentially say that your story will be better and sell better for being less polished and less concerned with errors-craft (because that double negative is in place - why would a less error-ridden book ever be any worse if it still has the plot, the storytelling and the voice that appeals, presumably in both versions) and since I think that's terrible advice for any aspiring writer, or indeed any professional one, I'll bow out.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Copy editing and proofreading are all in the same package, to me. You don't want one without the other.

But yes, I suppose, statistically speaking, slinging tons of junk at the target is more likely to get a bulls-eye than one single arrow. Unless, of course, the arrow is well-polished and shot by a professional.