Sometimes a book is so disappointing that you just have to put it down. The folks over at goodreads wanted to find out the commonest causes of readers abandoning ship. While their infographic on “The Psychology of Abandonment” doesn’t represent a scientific study (i.e., don’t take it too seriously and don’t generalize beyond their results), it’s certainly interesting.

Nearly 3% of their readers table books with bad editing. Another ~19% do so because of weak writing. That’s more than 1/5 readers leaving for easily preventable causes!

Editing should be invisible. When it’s done right, you don’t notice it at all. But when it’s bad, people can tell. Just one more reason that all writers need editors.