There is no substitute for good editing!

I read a book a night or two ago that I think you might have liked. I won’t tell you the name of it, but I will tell you the genre: it was ‘hard’ science fiction.
There was much to like about it! The science behind the book was solid. Great twists and turns, great conflict, great heroes, even a terrible villain and a desperate race against time made the story exciting!
What it didn’t have, unfortunately, was good editing!
Oh, such a shame!
Awkward, scrambled grammar, run-on sentences, mislaid words, and misappropriated spellings–so many technical writing issues–repeatedly jerked me out of the story. If only the author and the publisher had invested in a professional editor, these issues would have been dealt with well before the book was published! I found myself skipping whole paragraphs and sections because I couldn’t make any sense of them!
There are books–a very few books, fortunately– (we’ve all heard of them) that are roaring successes in spite of, and possibly because of, their horrible writing! This book doesn’t fall into that category. The kind of terrible writing that might be excusable or even become an asset in, for instance, a certain kind of romance novel, isn’t going to be excused by readers of science fiction, let alone hard sci-fi.
And yet, the story had the makings of a great sci-fi classic.

If it had only been properly edited…

I could almost see this book becoming a movie. Unfortunately, I doubt this story will ever truly receive its due acclaim, unless and until an editor is paid to thoroughly edit it!

While the writing was just about strong enough to carry the story in spite of the technical difficulties, I wondered if most readers would be willing to continue reading past the snarled meanings to reach the triumphant ending?

Science fiction is held to a very high technical standard of writing!

I hope the authors realize their book needs work. I hope the publisher receives enough solid feedback to realize that an investment must be made, and insists on having the book edited properly.
I’m considering ways to get in touch with them. I don’t really want to give the book a bad review that it will never shake, particularly if the publisher can be persuaded to put a little effort into improving it.
For my friends who are writers, and for myself, I hope we take this lesson to heart!
Good editing makes a book more readable! A few mistakes are one thing: no book is ever going to achieve absolute perfection of text! But we need to take care to keep the mistakes to the smallest minimum we can achieve.
To that end, if you’d like my help, feel free to contact me!
I charge a reasonable fee for my editing services, and I’m a fast reader and a thorough editor. Please don’t let your book go before it’s ready like the one I’ve used here as an example!
There is no substitute for good editing! Contact me before publishing your book.