So, you’re a writer. Or an author. That means you do the putting words into sentences thingy and stringing those sentences into some sort of cohesive product. Yes, I read that previous sentence somewhere, once upon a time, and I borrowed it – with a little editing.

All of that means you should have basic writing skills. You should know how to spell nearly all words, or be able to look them up in a dictionary; you should know, at least approximately, where to put commas. You know, simple things.

Failing that, pick another line of work.

Too harsh? Let me show you some examples I’ve received via email or read in some self-published books or just online in general:

“I didn’t know that !” [um, a space before punctuation?]

“I’m anxious to here what you have to say about my book.” [watch your word usage]

“I’ll be interviewing author, John Smith.” [no, you’ll be interviewing author John Smith]

“Here’s an excerpt from an Author, and his Publisher says this is a great book.” [capitalize much?]

C’mon folks, these are basic sentences, nothing complicated at all. These things are taught in grade school. If you haven’t mastered spacing, homophones, commas, and capitalization, what makes you think you’re a writer? Or have a book worth reading?

Take a class, pick up a book, or for heaven’s sake, Google it! The sad thing  is this – these are not “typos,” these things tell me that you have no clue what you’re doing.

So why would anyone want to read your work?

Sure, people make mistakes – you might even find some here. But not hear. And yes, there are such things as typos, wherein one accidentally types the wrong word or misspells something. If you’re prone to making errors such as those highlighted above, please, please at least pretend that you DON’T know what you’re doing and double-check everything. Please. You’re making people’s eyes hurt.