To ask anyone who knows about books/grammar/literary agents if this is as bad as I think?

[Thosebloodyfullstops]

I wrote a book. I worked really hard on it - research, rewrites, etc - but my one blind spot that I’ve always struggled with is punctuation in direct speech.

So my sentence might read -

‘I am going out now.’ he said.

Instead of the correct -

‘I am going out now,’ he said.

I’m so hot on all other aspects of grammar and spelling but as I say just seem to have a blind spot about this!

Amyway I asked a friend to proof read the book in exchange for me doing him a few house related and driving favours of equal time and value. He is a comms expert and former journalist and sub editor. He sent the book back to me as a word doc saying it was all proofed grammatically and spelling wise. I didn’t give it a full read through afterwards again but began to send it out to agents, the first 50 pages anyway.

Anyway yesterday I did look and there are still lots of direct speech errors like the one above.

I KNOW I should have read it again and I KNOW I should have gone through it myself. So I don’t need lots of posters coming on to tell me that. I would just like to hear opinions on how bad it is. I’ve sent to about 15 agents so far. Will they just stop reading at the first punctuation error? Would my sample be rejected on that alone if they like the rest of my book?

Ugh just wish I could send myself back in time a month and undo all of the emails I sent out!

No. If they like the book and want to take it on, it's down to the editor to pick up any mistakes before publishing.

You will ALWAYS notice your own errors. They literally leap off the page at you.

It may well put them off. As you know, agents are bombarded with subs and so if they read something with such a basic error, that might be enough for them to reject it and move on to the next sub.

But if the rest of the sub is stellar, they might not be put off. But I think they might worry about having to proof your MS before sending it to publishers.

As others have said, tis fine, don't overthink it.

It might be me...early, without coffee, but the two sentences you give as an example look the same to me. Am I missing something?

Surely if they can make money from the book they be able to polish it up first.

I think you are making more of that comma than you need to. Way more.

Second one has comma inside speech marks, which is correct here. First one has full stop.

👋 Book publisher here. A few grammatical errors won’t make the slightest difference. All books published by reputable companies are edited, proofread & checked again before they hit the shelves, and most raw manuscripts will have errors of some sort. It’s the authors’s ability to tell the story we’re interested in, not whether they understand the use of a serial comma. Don’t worry & good luck!

So it’s not consistent? You proofed it yourself before giving it to your friend, but missed a few? Can’t imagine that being an issue

I don’t think they’ll care about minor punctuation errors, if they decide to publish they’ll have an editor look at it anyway.

And I work in Comms and have an English degree and that doesn’t jump off the page at me as massively wrong anyway! 😆

Agents aren't publishers and don't have editors. That error will jump out at them,I am afraid. It would to me (I am a published author).

Thing is, OP has sent it to agents not publishers.

OP, maybe I am being too gloomy. No one else thinks the agents will care, so maybe I am wrong. Good luck with your subs, the waiting to hear is torture.

I think it really depends how good the book actually is. They'll be happy to fix it if the content is great.
I once had a useless editor change your second example to the first though :) So maybe some won't even notice?

There's a Pip and Posy book which has that error, it annoys me every time I see it. But if a pretty big children's publisher managed to not see it in a picture book that has around six words per page, I'm sure they won't mind if the rest of your book is amazing.

It takes them ages to get round to reading manuscripts so you could just write to them and say that you sent the wrong draft in error then send them the correct draft. It will make you feel better to know that they are reading a draft that you are happiest with. If you receive rejections (inevitable until you find the publisher that ‘fits’) you will be wondering if it’s because of the mistakes.

Honestly? An agent is not a publisher- some of the SPAG we see a book publishers is...interesting, and that is why copyeditors exist!

Agents are basically looking for something they can sell. A relatively minor we rror like this may be irritating, but won't be unusual.

I agree with you. The errors may annoy the first readers of the book because it may come across as unprofessional. Wishing the op the best of luck.

I just want to add that publishers may be more forgiving because the book has already been endorsed when they receive it. The agent is reading for the first time and unless the book is incredibly gripping, consistent errors will be off putting. Careful checking if the work is important. It is all part and parcel of being a professional author. When you become a literary megastar it will be less so.

Considering some of the errors I've seen lately in books I've read on my kindle, I don't think the example you've shown is such a big deal.

The last book I read said that someone's cancer was in recession amongst other things!

It depends on the agent I think. I'm a writer and seeing other people use a full stop instead of a comma in speech makes me itchy. My immediate assumption is always that they don't know how to write. I'm autistic so for me it's a hard thing to look past as it affects the way my inner voice reads the book, if that makes sense.

You'll get some agents who think like me and some who won't care I imagine.

Good luck with getting your book out there and I'm sorry your friend wasn't a very good editor. I'd go over the manuscript really carefully before you send to the next batch of agents.

If it’s a brilliant book they won’t care about poor punctuation. If it’s a terrible book they won’t care about impeccable punctuation.

I made a monumental cock-up several years ago when I sent out a manuscript with a glaring error in the very first sentence. I wrote a jokey e-mail about being so careful about fonts and headers and page numbers that I had somehow sent it out with this error and that I had been reading about agents being so busy that they were looking to reject, so I had probably done the agent a favour. It broke the ice and I ended up with that agent for a while. I think I sent the same to a couple of others without a response though, so it probably just hit the humour spot for that one. Agents aren’t a monolith and I think each might have their own individual lines in the sand. They might even decide differently depending on what kind of day they’re having.

I think the bottom line is that, if you have a really commercial idea and have sold it well, they would probably overlook it, or some of them would anyway. A tiny number of authors will end up with agents fighting over them for that reason. Most of us have to scrabble round and just find one who clicks.

Good luck, OP. Hope it goes well for you. Perseverance and picking yourself up when it doesn’t go to plan is invaluable.

It’s impossible to say, unfortunately. It depends on so many factors.
This is an incredibly easy error to fix in your last pass, just search for .” h and .” s and check them all. Or set up autocorrect to change .” he and .” she to the correct way.
Or find/write a macro that turns the error red when you type it.
Don’t worry about it. You’ve learned from it and won’t make the mistake again.

Have you heard of Reddit? There is a subreddit called r/FanFiction. There is a weekly thread where people offer exchanges of help. Usually it is not a 1:1 offer as it is usually an ongoing relationship, but the 'gift economy' means you give more help than you receive, usually based on word count.

Have you heard of FanFiction? It gets a bad rap, but there are writers of all levels of skill, from professional writers to school children who have this as a hobby. You can specify what kind of help you want, and what kind of help you need.

You can say something like:

"I have an original fiction work which is 100,000 words long. But you could help with part or all of the story. The story is complete, but I need help with grammar and punctuation. For example, a lot of my sentences are things like "Go home now." Sam said. (When the correct way of writing it is "Go home now," Sam said).

I can help people whose English is a second language proof read their story (but I would not be any help with the grammar). I can also help with Britpick, brainstorming or checking how well the story reads in general and I will offer feedback and suggestions."

You specify how long you want it to take, e.g. can they do it within one month or something like that (bear in mind, money is not allowed to be exchanged). The policy is you help for generally the amount of time it took people to help you.

You say what you don't want to read, e.g. "Stories rated teen and up only please, no sex, no horror or violence.

I can do either a 1:1 exchange for a story the same length, or if your story is shorter, a partial exchange. Over 18s only, please."

You create a gmail address, so that they don't have your real name and then paste your work into Google docs, usually each about 10,000 words long, for ease of scrolling. Depending on your book it will be about 5/10 docs long.

Don't be put off by an exchange with someone whose English is not a first language, often their grammar is perfect, but it's just their word choice which is sometimes off in their own story. Britpick is when someone (Usually American) writes something set in England, and you highlight and suggest changes for things like 'He got mad/sidewalk/he walked a block/he put on pants/he had a stack of pancakes for breakfast, etc. Things they didn't realise are not British.

Someone might offer to do it for nothing in exchange (because someone has helped them in the past, or just to keep up the spirit of support and helpfulness- gift economy).

Just like in real life, there will be chancers who only want to take without giving, flaky people who accept your help then don't fulfill their end of the bargain. Selfish schoolchildren who take your help but do a terrible job on yours. Sometimes it takes a few tries, but mostly people are lovely and passionate about their hobby.

I'm on mobile and I don't have pm, but if you're interested, or want to know more, reply here.

It would put me off, sorry. And be aware that something like under 1% of submissions get accepted anyway.