Authors, one of the most important things you owe your readers is to be unimpeachable. That’s shorthand for know what you’re talking about. If you make a mistake, you’ll lose the reader’s trust. If you lose their trust, you may find your book skittering against the walls, removing the paint.
That’s a bad thing.
And really, there’s just no excuse. You have the time to research everything that goes between the pages. Why take shortcuts?
Something that I see a lot of – and it drives me nuts – is the author insisting on calling the thingy that holds bullets to a guy a “clip.” For the love of all that’s holy; it’s NOT a “clip.” It’s a “magazine.”
Sure, it’s a small thing to you, but it’s tantamount to admitting you’re bantha fodder to a reader with a knowledge of guns. Don’t be bantha fodder. Or a nerd herder, for that matter.
