Horror Aficionados discussion

I'm not sure if this is the right part of this group to discuss this and if it is not, then the admins are sure to point me in the right direction.
Anyway, here goes.
I placed the first book of my zombie trilogy for free over the last few days on the Amazon Kindle in an effort to bring the attention of readers to my works and also get reviews.
I had two previously and both had been positive and indeed got fan mail from other readers. I had told friends and family not to post their reviews for I wanted those on Amazon to be fair and honest.
Now I have just received a negative review, that's fine, it is to be expected but what had surprised me was the comments about the grammar in my book, all negative.
Up until now now one has pulled me up on this and I'd thought that it was OK, the sentence structures were fine to my mind and if there was any lack of grammar then it was down to my writing the speeches of the characters, exactly as they would talk, there I chucked the grammar rules out of the window.
I don't know, perhaps I am too close to my work to see the woods for the trees. So could I therefore ask you to have a gander at the look -inside for my book and tell me if the reviewer is right?
This is not a plug, I am genuinely in need for people to give me constructive criticism and point out to me where I have gone wrong. Armed with your responses I will then go over the book with a fine tooth-comb and correct everything.
This work I have to do myself since I cannot afford a proofreader at this present moment in time.
Your responses will be gratefully received.

Regards

Steven,

whats the link to your book?

Have you ask for beta readers who are picky about grammar?

Here is the link, I didn't want to put it up for fear as being seen to plug it far too much, I'd done a lot of that over the last few days!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E63NM0W

As for asking picky grammar readers, no I haven't asked anyone of that ilk, I did request constructive criticism before in an effort to improve my works but this is the first time anyone has ever picked up on that aspect of my book. Hence my request to the rest of you :-)

My grammar is far from perfect but I'll take a look at it next week. I can point any errors that I spot, but I would recommend a beta reader.

Take a look at this group, it could help.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/unrea...

Thanks for the response, I have posted the same there as I have here. I will now await the replies!

No problem

:)

I understand that when people's expectations in terms of self published work and grammar vary hugely. Some people just do not care about grammar as long as they get into the writing and the story, for others it will make them put the book down.

I think the internet is full of bad self published books with terrible grammar and I know if I am picking up a self published book and in the first couple of paragraphs I see multiple grammatical issues I am likely to put the book down and not pick it up again, partly because the grammar mistakes take me out of the story and partly I think well if the grammar is bad do I really think everything else with the story will be good if I persist? I think that the difference is bigger with free books people will take more convincing that a book is worth reading if it is free than if they have paid for it and grammar will be one of the first things they pick up on whilst if they had paid for it they wont be paying so much attention to this.

Where as with published books I tend to be a bit more forgiving at first and assume that if the grammar is bad it is deliberately so or that there must be much else to the story for it to have found a publisher. Note though that this only will get me reading an extra couple of paragraphs before deciding whether the book is for me or not.

I dont think you can ever take reviews of your work too seriously or personally. I mean, take Dan Brown, I picked up Da Vinci code, read a couple of paragraphs and thought that the grammar and the writing in general were terrible and had no interest in reading further - and that book did more than a little well and any writer would be pleased with the success that got.

I would say with grammar though that if there are problems with grammar in your books then why not fix them? its not like it takes a lot of time and it will make your books appeal to more readers and ultimately better grammar can only make a better book. If people have problem with story problems, or character problems in a book these are a much harder fix.

Personally I have no interest in reading many zombie novels and as much as I do I have a long list of contenders for the limited number of books that I will read of this type. There is a big readership and always will be for this type of book though.

I read through some of the preview available on your book—not as thoroughly as a proofreader would, though— and I didn't see too many commas in the wrong place, but I did see several run on sentences that could have used some commas.

The comment about you thinking hillbillies only lived in the south is interesting. I am turned off by lazy stereotyping in books and movies. Since I haven't read your book, I am only going by what the reviewer posted. For all I know it's not even true. But please stay away from stereotypes in your stories. Just the two cents of a reader.

Hi tressa, the person picked up on a line in the book where a character says, "I thought those type of idiots lived in the south?" or something like that, I haven't gone back to check it yet. It was a bit of a throwaway line in respect of the character and I didn't make too great an issue of the would be rapists' origins.
Even so , I will go back and erase that part!

Oh, I wouldn't change a thing in my book to please someone else. So don't take it out! Like I said, I haven't read it so I was just going by her comment. I live in the south and wouldn't be offended by some throwaway line like that. I've made comments like that about other parts of the country/world, lol. I thought maybe there was a big chunk of the book about southern hillbillies, and we southerners get tired of hillbilly stereotypes claiming our great, charming culture. :-)

Hi Steven -- I just took a look. I used to teach writing, so I am a little bit of a grammar geek. I'd say there is one very persistent problem, which is the run-on sentences Tressa mentioned above. There are a lot of them.

It seems like, instead of the incorrect commas that are causing your run-ons, you want to be using semi-colons more; semi-colons are marks used to separate yet connect two related thoughts which are themselves full grammatical sentences. (See what I did there? That's how to use them.)

That was really the most prevalent distraction . . . best of luck with the series!

Thanks for the feedback!
The books are selling (not in great numbers-yet) so maybe the grammar isn't an issue for many of those who've read the first book.
It is for me however, so I will be going over the books for the next month or so to iron them out.
I think, if I'm honest, that I placed a little too much trust in Word's spelling and grammar checker, plus being a bit careless myself!
A pity really for I'd planned to finish work on my sixth book (not a zombie one) so the toil that needs to be done on this series will delay things for a while :-)

Well I got the freebie (thx again btw!) and already heard it's a really good read. If this means a lot to you I guess I'll contribute as well :))) maybe I'm not the most competent person in the world for this job, especially with English not being my mother tongue...but years of practice and everyday use will help as well as reading all these books only in English all the time on my Kindle, of course. I was as well a TA at a private university where all classes were in English and usually had the best grades in all my English classes (I'm a language freak, I love learning new languages!). So I humbly hope to enjoy reading it and helping out a bit ;)

Hi Steven,

I'm just about half way through the book, the main area of concern is the very, very long run-on sentences.

Hi, thanks for your feedback guys. I have since edited the work in an attempt to get rid of the problems. The new edition went up on Amazon this morning and I think that they will put that on your kindle automatically. I cannot be sure but I think Amazon do that as par for the course.
I have also eliminated spelling errors, tightened the sentences up and changed several descriptions. I have also added a passage or two in order to make some things clearer.

There will always be room for improvement and if you get the new version, be sure to take a look and see if it's OK.
I will be going over the other two books and hopefully sorting them out in the next week or so.
Thanking you one and all!

Hi Steven

I wait for the automatic update to come through before I go any further :)