Recently I read the first book in a series, that I thought had a fantastic story, but the writing wasn't very good. In some places the sentence structure was confusing, adverbs were placed in front of the verbs, (Thank you Gene Roddenberry) and the author used some vocabulary words incorrectly. I'd like to finish the series, but I'm not sure I want to have to deal with the writing problems on almost every page to find out how the series ends.

If I'd read this book at any other time, I would have chalked it up to inexperienced writing and the lack of good editing. But I'm in the process of getting my novel, The Space Between Time, ready for publication. I'm sensitive about how bad writing affects the reader. I don't want my book to turn off a potential fan because I didn't care to take the time to make it the very best it could be.

I know that my novel will contain mistakes. Even the most fantastic books published by one of the big publishing companies, contain errors. But, I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure my book has the fewest errors possible. I have to, because I'm self-publishing. I have a great responsibility to all the other self-published authors to maintain high standards. Those who don't hurt all of us who choose to self-publish, by fulfilling the claims that we've published the book ourselves because a "real" publisher wouldn't touch our book. For the most part this isn't true. We just want to keep a larger part of the profits from book sales.

Since reading the above mentioned book, I've been mulling over whether or not to write a review. I can't in good conscience skip the problems I found, but on the other hand, I don't want to hurt sales of the book. That's why I've decided to write my concerns in a private message to the author. If someone had a problem with my writing, I'd want to know so I could improve. I think there is a way to give constructive criticism without being mean about it.

The first chapters of my manuscript are with the editor now. I'm excited to see what changes I need to make. Maybe I'm strange, but I welcome constructive criticism so I can improve. I hope, if you read my book when it's published, you'll contact me with any concerns about the mechanics of my writing.

Thanks for reading.