By BlueInk Staff
At BlueInk we’ve reviewed nearly 5,000 titles. This means we’ve seen it all — from a children’s picture book that discusses in detail a violent shooting death, to a novel with 69 main characters and 13 supporting players. In our continuing blog series, “Oh the Mistakes We’ve Seen!,” we talk about these and other mistakes we’ve run across and offer 3 pitfalls to avoid at all costs.
“Oh, the Mistakes We’ve Seen!” is part of a series of BlueInk Review blogs offering advice and insight into self-published writers’ most common errors, as seen in the nearly 3,000 reviews of self-published books that we have provided since our inception in 2011. Below, we have compiled excerpts from our more unfortunate reviews, each of which expose common writing blunders.
So what makes the bad review rear its dreaded, beastly head? Here are some traps you should avoid at all costs:
Using inadequate facts to back up your argument in a nonfiction book.
Let’s say, for example, that you’re having a debate about smoking. Arguing for the benefits of cigarettes, you throw out this: “My Uncle Joe smoked all his life, and he lived to be 90.” Then you mix in a fact like this: “A 1918 study proved that smoking adds 10 years to a person’s life.” And finally, you wind up with this: “People who say smoking is bad for you don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. They’re all idiots!” Read more…