In a word. Yes.
Whiskey Delta has been racking up its share of reviews lately. Unfortunately for me, the majority of them have been rather punitive of late. Despite the release of the 2nd edition, a thoroughly cleansed and updated version of the story, the book continues to get slammed because of what I can only assume are the weaknesses to be found in the first edition.
In total, six people have added their reviews of the book in recent weeks, and four of those six gave it two stars out of five. And, as usual, three of those four had the same things to say, just worded differently:
Good story, bad editing.
You ever hear something so many times it lost all meaning to you? Or so many times that you swore the next person who said it would receive a thorough thrashing? Well, that’s kind of how I feel about these. But don’t take my word for it, here’s what they had to say:
Proofread!:
There is actually a decent story here, but it gets lost due to a strong need of proofreading. Needs more than just computer spell checking.
–William Boyles
Good story, awful editing:
This is a solid zombie story – the story gets 3 or 4 stars – but give us a break with the sloppy editing. At least pretend to care about the finished product. The punctuation mistakes, grammatical errors, and spelling mistakes make parts of the book unreadable and confusing. You have seen this complaint several times in the reviews – how hard is it to go through the book, clean it up, and re-post it? The author and publisher should be embarrassed by the condition of the editing. It is the worst I have ever seen in a purchased work.
–Justins Are Cool
Good story, horrible editing:
The story itself is good enough to keep you engaged but the editing made it a chore to finish. Misspelled words, missing words, bad grammar all through out took so much away from this book.
–Jackie L. Willis Jr. “waterboyjlw”
Ah, and check out this gem. This is the only thoroughly bad review Whiskey Delta has picked up since it was published. And for some reason, this person gave it the same rating as all those above who thought the story was good but the editing was bad. That seem right to you?
boring:
boring and poorly written. Story didn’t flow and there was no cohesive story line. I guess what can I expect for a couple bucks.
–Gil L Nicholas
In truth, this wouldn’t bother me so much if these rating weren’t hurting sales, or if these early reviews weren’t weighing down the overall rating. As much as I wanted to believe that the publication of the 2nd Edition might be a fresh start, every review contributes to the overall rating. And now, the book’s overall review now stands at a middling 3.1 stars out of 5. At this rate, I’ll need at least half a dozen five star reviews just to bring it back up to something respectable.
Luckily for me, there’s been some light at the end of this tunnel. In the same stretch of time, two 4 star reviews came in. There was this one, which I can only assume was for the 1st edition, and from a person who didn’t choose to knock me a whole bunch of stars over editing issues:
good book
Great story with interesting people. Spell check was poorly done and many editing issues were present. Would like a sequel
And then there was this one, which actually sounded like it might be from the 2nd edition since editing didn’t even come up in the review. In fact, this person chose to focus on matters pertaining to the plot and story, God bless their hearts!
good read but…..
Interesting story, but how do they have so many new guys in their unit? Where are they getting the replacements??
Pro’s- The military isn’t completely useless, a strong female character, interesting story
Con’s- The story starts somewhere in the middle and ends before the story seems done.
-DawnG
So that’s where things stand for this book right now. More good news, an advance proof of Papa Zulu arrived the other day and I’m getting down to editing it. By the time it is spruced up, say in a month or so, I hope to deliver on a sequel that is clean and proper coming out of the gate!
Maybe then this bad mojo will dissipate and I can get to entertaining fantasies of becoming a successful author and writer, the kind that has money, power, and access to the depths of sleaze that these things provide! Well… I’ll settle for money and power, thank you very much! Until next time…
Stories by Williams 
Like I say, grammar is more important than most people give credit.
That sounds like bad reviewer talk to me! Who’s side are you on, dude? Security, escort this man out!!!
I’m on your side, which is why I warned you how seriously people take grammar and spelling.I wanted you to sell well!
Yeah, but you also had to slip my name to Max Brooks. Agh, I blame everybody but me! And if I become famous, I’ll be able to get away with stuff like that. Ha!
No you won’t. I hate to tell you this Matt, but I’ve been hiding a dybbuk in your closet. It looks like the shirt you see everyday but you never put on for reasons that never occur to you.
Who or what is a dybbuk?
Just the ghost of a dead person that can’t get into Heaven or Hell and ends up possessing humans in order to avoid the world in-between. Has the potential to become demonic.
I look forward to purchasing this soon and you can expect a stellar review from me. I enjoyed most of the novel as you were writing it (though became frustrated with reading it in my email and the fact that I was skipping chapters unintentionally so decided to wait and read it all at once). While I noticed editing issues, none were so glaring as to take me out of the story and certainly didn’t make the story confusing. I know some people are going to be hyper-critical but some of the reviews you’ve had seem simply malevolent. But I am sure the tides will change soon and you’ll be a success: you may just need to dumb down your style and write about vampires and BDSM.
Vers, I refuse to write Fifty Shades of Twilight!
Although… that could be the perfect opportunity for some revenge-based satire! And the one piece of crap did spawn from the other as fan fic, did it not? This could be the perfect opportunity to pile them back together and mock them both.
I shall call myself E.L. Meyer, or Stephanie James, and I shall tell a story about a very stupid girl who falls for an abusive vampire boyfriend who’s rich and enjoys BDSM, though they never seem to do any!
They most likely have the old version if they’ve read and reviewed it by now. Most people don’t rush to leave a review, in my experience. The ‘clean’ version hasn’t been out that long. Be patient, the ‘editing’ comments will calm down with time. 😉
Bad reviews must be really depressing. I’ve never got any, largely because I don’t manage to get any reviews. How do you manage it? (reading about your bad ones makes me want some too!)
How do I manage getting bad reviews? Well, I try to look forward to the next good one, tell myself the reviewers who say nothing but bad things are nobs, and that these things are just part of the process. Not much else to do really.
Sorry for the editing problems. That’s why I’m having someone help me. Can’t do it on my own. I’m the worse.
What to do with bad reviews???
Some people are never happy and will never say anything good. These people you through out and forget.
But…
There are those you can take as constructive criticism. They can be gems. Learn from them and improve your craft.
The trick is to know the difference.
Congratulations on the 2nd edition and the next upcoming novel.
Keep at it and one day you will thumb you nose at those who deserve it. ;0)