A Reader’s Plight

Everyone is talking about some new book. According to everyone, it’s be best thing ever. It’s so awesome. It’s so cool.

“You should read it,” they say every time they see you, varied sometimes with “Have you read it yet?”

And then you finally break down and borrow/buy this fabled best-book-ever, either to shut them up or out of curiosity as to what the fudge the hype is about. And then you open the book and start to read.

And the book is utter crap.

I mean, awful. No decent reader in their right mind would say this book is good. The sentences are clunky, the narration is all over the place, and the dialog feels like it was ripped off from an episode of some TLC drama.

What is wrong with those people that kept telling you to read it?

It’s because those people don’t read like you do. No, you read all the time. You’ve always got a book in your purse, on your nightstand, or sitting beside the bathtub. You’ve read hundreds of books in the past few years. Maybe more. You’ve got a Goodreads list a mile long. Those people don’t even have a Goodreads account.

Or, similar situation, you get a book because the Goodreads reviews were all 4-5 stars, but then the book is so awful you can’t even finish the first chapter. You give it a 1 star, because that’s what it deserves.

Has this happened to you? This has happened to me. I’m cautious when it comes to a new book, which is why I love the library. Free books for me? Yes, please.

For indie books, it’s different. I read one once that had about nine or ten good reviews (4-5 starts) and then the book was horribly written. I mean, 50 Shades was better written that this book. And I gave it one star. I didn’t feel bad about it – should have paid for the professional editor. I was very disappointed. That’s when I learned that Goodreads reviews can lie.

That is also why it’s so hard to have success as an indie author, because of authors like the one above who seemed to just chuck out a story without caring to see if it was readable or not.

Conclusion: indie books are a crap-shoot, and being an indie author is hard.