> raw book manuscripts are about as appetizing as a raw animal carcass, they take a lot of work to make them appealing Yes and no. I've read perfectly good man

> raw book manuscripts are about as appetizing as a raw animal carcass, they take a lot of work to make them appealing Yes and no. I've read perfectly good manuscripts (because their authors did put a lot of work on them) before they went through the pipe of traditional publishing. And then I re-read them at the other end. They weren't any better, just shorter and more mainstream. Also, they didn't sell well at all, no matter how trad-published they were, because, guess what, neither the author nor the trad-publisher were very good at marketing in this day and age :/ .