Just read a bad book. How'd it get published??

Luzoni · Nov 4, 2012

Hopefully this is the right place to vent a little frustration.

Read a book that had a (sort of) interesting premise and a unique idea, but its execution was terrible. It was the premise and ideas that made me buy it, but I seriously regret that monetary expenditure now.

The MCs were dull, predictable, and cliched. Not to mention a fair bit of important action was completely unrealistic. MCs bickered and chit-chatted in situations that were life-threatening, for example. They even chatted in full-blown paragraphs while in near-freezing water. Apparently the author has never been in cold water, because anyone who has could have told him/her that it's rather incompatible to conversation. The intense shivering really interrupts speech and disrupts thought.

But my favorite unbelievably bad moment was when the MCs pulled out bottled water from a storage compartment. Did I mention that this book was a historical fiction set before World War 1? I seriously got to that portion and just laughed. I'm not exactly a historical scholar, but I'm pretty sure bottled water is a phenomenon that wasn't around then. I know plastic wasn't around, that's for sure.

So whenever this sort of thing happens to me, where I read a bad book, I find myself frustrated and wondering how this bad novel got through the system. This wasn't some book published through Kindle or anything like that, it was a legitimate publisher that only accepts agented fiction. It just...makes no sense.

Old Hack · Nov 4, 2012

It's really annoying, isn't it?

I have a friend who writes crime fiction which sells in huge amounts. He gets paid advances in the millions, and is a big name in the genre.

I hate his books. They're dull, ploddy, contrived, the people in them aren't at all believable, they talk like expository robot-people, and in every book there is always at least one ridiculous coincidence upon which his plot depends.

I'd be ashamed if I wrote something half as bad.

But the clue is in my second paragraph: crime fiction which sells in huge amounts. He has a huge fan base, his books sell very well indeed, and there's a market for more like him. So long as that's the case I'll continue to do the happy dance when I see these books on the shelves, because I know they earn money which their publishers use to subsidise the publication of other less well-selling writers.

None of this, of course, necessarily applies to the book you bought, but still. It explains a part of it, I hope.

Kerosene · Nov 4, 2012

Old Hack said:
I'd be ashamed if I wrote something half as bad.

*Knees to chest, crying on the floor*

Story of my life.

Really, I get that feeling too. How can some of these people push out such horrid works of fiction?

I'd be interested in knowing the books title, Luzoni. If you don't feel like openly bashing it, PM me. I'm just interested in trash.

Luzoni · Nov 4, 2012

LOL Will, yeah I'm not interested in bashing it. Someone out there supported the novel and I don't want to accidentally offend them.

I haven't used the PM system, but I may indeed try to PM you. But in all fairness, it was a unique-ish idea, clever enough that I bought it. If this was a library book I wouldn't feel quite as bad. And it had enough entertainment value that I did finish it, barely, and over 2 months.

Old Hack, it was a horror novel, but I'm suspicious that what you're saying still applies. It feels...dirty and wrong. I wouldn't want my name on this book if I was an agent or publisher, but admittedly, I bought it, and that's why it was accepted, I suppose. I feel swindled. It was the short blurb that made me want to read it, famous historical event mixed with monster. I thought it would be like "The Terror" by Dan Simmons, which, while not perfect, was quite enjoyable and was a good horror read. I actually cared about those characters, so he was doing something right! Unfortunately this bad book was nothing like that.

Old Hack · Nov 4, 2012

The point is that if there's a readership for a book, it's publishable.

We might not be part of that readership, but that doesn't mean it's a bad book: it's just not the sort of book we like.

The readers who like the books we're talking about here aren't wrong: they just have different taste to us.

So long as people are writing, publishing, buying and reading books, things are good.

firedrake · Nov 4, 2012

There's a lot of books in my genre (m/m erotic romance) that I think are dreadful. Full of exposition, chicks with dicks, poorly written. BUT they sell like crazy. It's what a lot of readers like.

It torks me off no end, but I have to accept that sometimes, readers are going to love stuff that I think is crappy and pointless. It's the nature of the publishing beast. One person's masterpiece is going to be someone else's emergency loo roll.

Pup · Nov 4, 2012

Luzoni said:
But my favorite unbelievably bad moment was when the MCs pulled out bottled water from a storage compartment. Did I mention that this book was a historical fiction set before World War 1? I seriously got to that portion and just laughed. I'm not exactly a historical scholar, but I'm pretty sure bottled water is a phenomenon that wasn't around then. I know plastic wasn't around, that's for sure.

While fully agreeing with the main point of the post, I just wanted to point out that bottled water had been around at least since the Congress Water fad of the 19th century. For example, an ad from the Oct. 3, 1840 Hartford Connecticut Courant:

Fresh Congress Water, bottled within two weeks, just received and for sale at the sign of the "Good Samaritan."

Bottled water then was generally what we'd call mineral water, either sparkling or infused with natural minerals. Fashionable watering places got the idea that they could bottle and ship their water and thus use their reputation to sell to people who couldn't travel there to take it in person. Congress Water was named for Congress Hall (hotel) in Saratoga Springs, but others followed suit.

Which actually brings up the point that if the writing is bad, suspension of disbelief fails, and when that fails, it's all downhill. The reader will distrust everything and no longer give the writer the benefit of the doubt.

Jamesaritchie · Nov 4, 2012

Good is anything the majority of the reading public likes. A book is not bad no matter who hates it, or what their reasons might be. It's bad if very few want to read it. To think otherwise is to think you have excellent taste, but the massive number of readers who like the book can't tell good from bad. The truth is usually just the opposite.

I'd have to read that book, but plastic was around before WWI, though not in the form we have now. Did it say a plastic bottle of water? Water has been sold in glass bottles for centuries.

But even a mistake like this does not automatically make a book bad. A story no one wants to read, and characters no one wants to know, makes a book bad.

No universally loved writer ha sever lived. You name the writer and it's easy to find very large numbers who hate what he writes, who believe it's horrible.

These people do not matter in the least. It's how many who love a writer's work that makes him good or bad, not how many who hate him.

shadowwalker · Nov 4, 2012

Old Hack said:
The readers who like the books we're talking about here aren't wrong: they just have different taste to us.

And sometimes it's not so much a matter of taste in general, but what someone is looking for at the moment. I've read some ghastly books over the years, but I could overlook a lot of the problems because, for example, I was looking for something that didn't take a lot of brain matter to digest, or something that I could read in a couple hours while on the plane. Not everyone is looking for great literature (or even halfway decent writing) every time they pick up a book. Sometimes it's enough just to escape our own real world for a little while.

thothguard51 · Nov 4, 2012

Bottled water has been around since before WW1, especially mineral water. Europe cultivated the first bottled water in the 1700. In the U.S., bottled water from the U.S. is thought to first have occurred in Boston around 1770 or so, from a spa, as a way for the owner to increase his income.

It would depend on where the story was set and the type of bottled water. Plastic bottles would obviously not be seen prior to the late 50's or early 60's.

veinglory · Nov 4, 2012

Bottom line: other people liked it.

benbradley · Nov 4, 2012

This isn't an easily searched subject (that I can figure out), but I've seen several of these "How the dickens did THAT horrible book get published?" threads over the years.

Luzoni said:
...
This wasn't some book published through Kindle or anything like that, it was a legitimate publisher that only accepts agented fiction. It just...makes no sense.

veinglory said:
Bottom line: other people liked it.

I suppose that would be at least two people, an agent and an acquisitions editor.

Old Hack · Nov 4, 2012

And all the other people at the agency who were involved in the decision to take the author on, and the many people at the publishing house who get to speak up when new acquisitions are decided upon.

Most of whom have years of experience in seeing what will sell, and what won't.

Luzoni · Nov 4, 2012

It wasn't just the bottled water (which I could believe if the author took a moment to note that it was in glass or in canteens or something, but did not note any such fact), it was also the characters. I had no attachment to them, they never surprised me, and there were far too many moments when I just didn't believe them.

I expect the book was indeed meant for that plane ride, or subway, or whatever. Some fast read relegated to bargain buy shelves (except it was a slow read for me because it was just...tiresome). But I've read stuff that never aimed to be literary before and enjoyed it, so I'm willing to forgive a lot, like many readers, but this strained me a little too much.

The book changed history for the sake of story (something happened that was not true to history at all) and I think that was where I really lost patience with it and it was the bottles of water that really took the fall for that larger plot element. I can be ok with a historical fiction changing history for its story, if it's done well, but I usually view historical fiction as being a challenge to present an accurate world to the time, and accurate characters, so when this larger historical inconsistency happened, my patience became nonexistent. I suppose the author was thinking more "horror" less "historical fiction." Some of that is my failure as a reader then to understand the genre properly, I guess. But as for horror, I was never scared either. I didn't care enough about any of the characters to feel frightened for them. So, to me at least, that's failure on two counts. :Shrug:

Maybe I'm being too hard on it, I don't know.

PorterStarrByrd · Nov 4, 2012

I can take about anything an author dishes out IF it is well written. Problems come with a lot of the e-books I've read. On another site from time to time an author does a free release for a couple of days, in exchange for hope that you'll write a review.

I have yet to write one because I don't want my name attached to a recommendation and the writer doesn't want what I would have to write sitting out in the open.

Most of these books have had problems a good edit could have fixed. A couple would never had made it to the presses at all, and I'm a lot more accepting than most publishing houses are. I'm beginning to think e-books are away around technical improvement or rejection.

I'm sure there are some treasures burried in the goo, but there is a lot of goo to slop through to find them.

I look at my own writing, with undetected typo's etc and realize it was nowhere as well written as I thought it was. I could easily have e-pub'd and would now look at my work with embarassment. Beta readers on AW have been a valuable tool to learn what is wrong and how to clean it up.

Most of what I have beta'd as well as what I have written' have recurring errors that I never saw and never would have, or the writers I was reading never saw or would have.

shadowwalker · Nov 4, 2012

PorterStarrByrd said:
I'm beginning to think e-books are away around technical improvement or rejection.

I'm assuming you're talking about self-published ebooks, or do you find these problems with ebooks in general?

ARoyce · Nov 4, 2012

Well, as agents and other publishing professionals say, the industry is subjective. Something in that book was worth a publisher's attention and resources. There are plenty of published books that don't appeal to me, some of which I've heard were poorly written. There are some blockbusters I've read that I found formulaic or lacking believability, but they made millions (probsbly billions by now). So the agents and publishers were right on those calls, even if I don't particularly appreciate those books.

(And, fwiw, there are readers who like alternate history. And if it's labeled as horror, I'm guessing the alternate history figures into the horror angle...). I'm not saying you should like the book or forgive it its flaws, but it does sound like you're not the demographic it's aiming for.

blacbird · Nov 4, 2012

Somebody with sufficient influence in the publishing house was able to convince the bean-counters in control of the corporate beans that it should be.

Doesn't mean every reader is going to like it, or even that the publisher's expect that. They just want to make some money, and think they can with this product.

Sometimes they are right and sometimes they are wrong, but they are right more often than wrong, or they're soon out of business.

Which has nothing whatever to do with what you write or how you should write it.

caw

Mr Flibble · Nov 5, 2012

blacbird said:
Doesn't mean every reader is going to like it, or even that the publisher's expect that.
caw

Exactly - connection with characters is a very subjective thing. I've read really well written books where I just couldn't get into the characters. That didn't make it a bad book - it made a book that wasn't for me. Clearly other people DID connect. It's not a fault with me, or necessarily with the book. It's just how these things go.

And then if you're just not that into the book, if you're like me, you start finding things to pick at that if you were enjoying the book you'd not care about (the water bottle etc)

It's just not a book for you. That's about it.

Theo81 · Nov 5, 2012

I'm currently reading a book so annoying, I'm probably going to pay the publisher's thread a visit. They're new and on paper they should be great, but this book reads like it was published in the US first and the UK house didn't bother to go through and change the language, despite it being set in the UK with UK characters (why is she eating strawberries and cheese?).

Chris P · Nov 5, 2012

Not knowing the agent and the publisher personally, it is difficult (okay, impossible) to know why certain books were taken on. I try to look for how a story worked rather than why it didn't. If it sold both to a publisher and to readers, something about it worked, and if a book didn't work at all none of us would be able to find it. Without the insider knowledge there is no way to tell. As someone who's trying to learn what gets sold and what doesn't (and then writing stuff that sells), it gets very frustrating to see people apparently getting away with something other agents and publishers say doesn't work.

I recently gave up on a book after an "oh, geez" moment where the author said something about the mother not panting and laboring during birth because the hospital's autoclave in the next room was doing it for her. :Wha:

That didn't work for me because I just can't see any metaphorical connection between women and autoclaves.

ETA: It wasn't just the autoclave metaphor that turned me off. It was taking its own sweet time getting going, and after 50 pages hadn't gotten to the main character who was narrating, was overly descriptive and overly sentimental.

Old Hack · Nov 5, 2012

Theo81 said:
I'm currently reading a book so annoying, I'm probably going to pay the publisher's thread a visit. They're new and on paper they should be great, but this book reads like it was published in the US first and the UK house didn't bother to go through and change the language, despite it being set in the UK with UK characters (why is she eating strawberries and cheese?).

Books which are sold into the US market first, and then bought here, are often not edited to turn them into British English. I wish they were, but there you go.

Torgo · Nov 5, 2012

Old Hack said:
Books which are sold into the US market first, and then bought here, are often not edited to turn them into British English. I wish they were, but there you go.

Yeah. Simultaneous global releases are often the culprit here - you get the finished files from the Americans a week before they need to go to the printer, and there's no time to do a full Anglicization. It's annoying, but unless you want to wait a few months for your book, them's the breaks. (And these days we don't want people to have to wait, and then end up getting a pirate copy from America etc.)

dawinsor · Nov 5, 2012

Sometimes books like that are explained only in writer gossip too. I heard that one book I rolled my eyes at was turned in way late and way too long. Sometimes books get yanked from the schedule then, but this one got a hasty edit and it showed, most obviously in the form a sibling who disappeared without explanation part way through the book.

Theo81 · Nov 5, 2012

Old Hack said:
Books which are sold into the US market first, and then bought here, are often not edited to turn them into British English. I wish they were, but there you go.

Torgo said:
Yeah. Simultaneous global releases are often the culprit here - you get the finished files from the Americans a week before they need to go to the printer, and there's no time to do a full Anglicization. It's annoying, but unless you want to wait a few months for your book, them's the breaks. (And these days we don't want people to have to wait, and then end up getting a pirate copy from America etc.)

According to Amazon's release dates, 6 months between the US release and the (digital first) UK release. Hardback not on UK shelves for another couple of months.

I find it disappointing. And confusing. It's highlighted that I *still* don't know what they bring you if you ask for coffee with cream in America. Is it actually single cream or just milk?

Just read a bad book. How'd it get published??

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