Because Indie Legacy Published Books Are Full of Typos
Indie authors have permanently scarred psyches. They know their books are going to be scrutinized for errors, typos, grammar mistakes, and the most obscure misinterpretations of the English language possible…all to be held up in the air by some rabid indie-critic who will declare triumphantly in their review that the pseudo book is crap, amateurish and they couldn’t get past the endless errors enough to enjoy whatever story might have existed within the pathetic covers – don’t waste your money.
It is often the top reason readers will cite for not trying indie authors.
While there are a number of really bad examples out there, sometimes the withering scorn is unjust – the odd error is hardly the damning trademark of an amateur. In 2011 a New York publisher was forced to withdraw an ebook from sale because of complaints about the amount of errors throughout the book. I wish I could remember the title.
And to prove that errors are not the sole province of indie authors, recently it was reported that legacy authors publishing their out of print backlist independently were finding during the editing process before indie publishing, that their formally professionally published legacy books are riddled with grammatical errors, typos, and more….
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Tracy Cooper-Posey © 1999 - 2013 
I think it’s sad that Indie books are scrutinized so much. J.K. Rowling has made mistakes in her books, but her story is so good that she is the most famous author in the world! A book is more than grammar- it’s about a story. An indie book can have amazing grammar and still be boring and horrible as sin.
Hi Brenda:
I believe indie books are held to a higher standard, but only because of a mistaken belief that legacy books were at that higher standard to begin with. What many of these eagle-eyes are starting to discover, now their eyes have been opened, is that the legacy books as just as “riddled” with errors and typos as the indie books they have been lambasting for the last few years.
But I don’t think it’s an excuse for indie authors to relax their standards. We (indie authors) should all continue to strive for the high bar nevertheless, because that’s the professional thing to do.
I agree that the number of errors or lack of them has nothing to do with the quality of the story, yet reader-reviewers will rate a book poorly because of what they perceive to be as too many errors — one of my own books was deflated from five stars to four for being “unedited” in one reviewer’s eyes, and having too many errors (I’ve since found four typos in the entire manuscript) — which means that their enjoyment of the story was marred. So while we’re in the story-telling business, we’re also apparently in the entertainment business, and anything that breaks the story spell will be held against us.
It’s fair warning for the future. :)