9.Grammar

produce credible work

Bad grammar is always spotted, particularly by readers, and it can make your book look shoddy. Avoid it as much as possible, of course, but accept that your book may well be published with some bad grammar in it. This can include errors involving syntax, which to you may be acceptable if you like your words arranged in a certain way, but may be unacceptable to others. Syntactic rules are important. For example, 'I decided not to go' is correct and sounds better than 'I decided to not go', but sometimes authors do arrange their words in an unconventional way - a bit like poets - and manage not to look ignorant. However, misspellings in particular must be avoided at all costs, as they are not well tolerated.

Proofread as much as possible – you’ll be amazed how many corrections you’ll pick up every time you re-read a piece of work.