Today I realize that my tolerance for mechanical errors is eroding quickly.
What I gleaned about the story: A young woman crosses the street and enters a shop.
Find this book on Amazon.
Analysis: A number of missing commas on the first few pages really distracted me. When I have to back up and start a sentence again, to get the phrase parsing right, immersion breaks.
Analysis: I counted two or three cases of words being accidentally left out. And in the space of about three pages, that’s too many. Especially the first three pages.
Analysis: This should not be hyphenated. And even if it were supposed to be, the spacing issue within the phrase creates ambiguity about what is being compacted and why. In addition to this example, there were two or three other cases of erroneous hyphenation as well. Collectively, they earned the final WTF.
Note: I have to confess that I am becoming increasingly sensitive to the mechanical editing issues I’m seeing in a large proportion of the IOD candidates. I actually breathe a sigh of relief if I can make it through the first page without tripping over a jarring editorial gaffe, and if I make it to page ten without one, that book will probably go all the way. Those who have been following the series may have noticed that my comments about these issues are getting shorter and more terse. I guess I’m just having trouble finding new ways to talk about the same half dozen issues. And for anyone interested in the nitty-gritty stats, I commented on this particular trend in this recent article on common issues I’ve noticed among the first 50 reviews.
You are 100% on the mark. The editing effort was poor, even shoddy. That’s on me. I also discovered conversion changes that altered the layout. Rather than engage in another unacceptable result, I had better qualified folks do the job right.
Hopefully someday you can run across these stories and discover if they strike your fancy rather than eliciting a jarring note.
Thank you and continued success!