I’ll have to read more of your blog then, lol!

ok, thank you. Duh, lacy. I didn’t even think of the updated versions…

Thanks for reminding me about Happy Potter, Lacy. I’m Australian, and J.K. Rowling’s use of the old English reporting verb order really had me shuddering at the time. I recall writing a blog post about, ‘said Harry, and Harry said.’

And as for updating, changing or modifying ebooks, this is one great advantage of electronic publishing. An ebook file can always be updated to a new version. I’ve done this many times to my own books.

First, this reminds me of when Harry Potter came out, and I had a couple friends who were bothered by J.K. Rowling’s writing. (Oh, I’m US American, by the way.) And it was kinda funny to me because they simply thought it was poor writing on the author’s behalf. Given, this was when I was sixteen/seventeen. Still, when they were told it was British English, they were more open to the books (and why they couldn’t understand). Though, one friend still didn’t enjoy it (I think mainly because of the different phrasing of British VS American).

However, I don’t think people should jump on the throats of authors (or proofreaders) for “bad English” when they don’t get what English it is (American, British, etc). I have seen a lot of Americans (I don’t interact much with any other English speaker in person) who simply assume that everyone who speaks English speaks it “their” way. I don’t assume it’s because they’re dumb, just not well taught in other country’s English (I mean, after all, our schools only teach us that one English).

When I review a book, the only time I note errors is when it obviously looks as if the book simply had no editor beyond spell check (as few books on Amazon by indie authors seem to do). I even read a book by an author who boldly said that she only self proofed. Suffice to say, she needed at least a friend or anyone to go through her works!

I didn’t know that when the files are changed to the ebook format that it’ll be sold in, that it would change or delete the things you mentioned. It makes me wonder–because I haven’t had anything published–are the authors, publishers, or whoever able to then make editions to the ebook? Or is it a done deal at that point?

I am disabled and I beta-read, give reviews just for the love of the books and to stock my library. Would I like to make income from it, sure, but since my income is so low and I can’t physically go to the library for books, this allows me to have books of all kinds available to read which I could not afford to do otherwise. Without books, life would have very little meaning for me.

As a reader, reading British or Australian “English” can take me out of a story, you are correct, but only if I can’t figure out in context what the word means. Before the advent of the Kindle when reading physical copies I would post to Yahoo Groups asking people from the area where the book was set to “translate” for me. Its how I met Kealan Burke, and a few other people: I’m interested in people and only recently realized Mr. Burke is himself an author. It just never came up in conversation.

I thing that reading books outside one’s comfort zone, depending on how the reader chooses to react, can be a great experience. I choose to further my education and meet new people. I find it sad that a lot of fellow Americans will moan and while to the author rather than take the time to learn something new, somehow that is becoming representative of us/US and it saddens me.

If anyone who is not US based would like ideas on how to contact retired teachers for the purpose of proof reading I can offer some suggestions and you can email me at: sewcraftyme at gmail dot com I’ll respond as I am able.

Ila in Maine