There’s been some publicity recently about the lowering standards of books, about how indie writers have an overblown opinion of their abilities. Generalisations like that are rarely accurate, things are just never that simple.

There are many writers in this world. The natural geniuses, who still nevertheless need a firm hand in editing, spelling and developmental input. The ones who aren’t great at the start, but love reading good literature, who want to write too and who put in the study and hours to improve their skills. There are those who have ideas, maybe good, maybe not so good, who perhaps have enough funds to pay a ruck of line and developmental editors to make their stories shine. Some even go as far as hiring ghost writers to write their ideas for them, and who then take all the credit, but they aren’t really writers (no famous names named). There…