Five things you may not know about the world of publishing . . .

1. You go into a bookshop and browse the titles in the chart, then choose one because after all, it's in the bestselling section so must be good, right? It may well be, but bear in mind that publishers pay some bookshops money to have a title displayed in the chart (and indeed in special offers and beautifully laid out on tables). What you are buying into is good marketing.
2. Not all published authors can write, at all! If you've wandered into your local bookshop and picked up a new book by such and such celebrity, chances are it has been 99.9% ghostwritten by an invisible and uncredited writer. In my time, I've done this on one book which shall remain nameless, and found it a very frustrating, badly paid and unrewarding process.
3. Not all published writers can write well. Rumours abound that some of the highest-earning authors in the world are actually poor writers who scribble out ideas which are formed by a good editor. In my job as a proofreader and editor, it's astonishing how much work I have to do on material written by 'proper' journalists, copywriters and authors.
4. By a certain point, some publishers will give up on perfecting text in the rush to get it printed. Once text has been typeset, changes take time and cost money, and proofreaders may be instructed to only pick out the 'worst mistakes' and ignore the rest.
5. Some publishers don't seem to give a Dickens about the state of their text - I recently bought a best-selling book and was appalled at the amount of mistakes that jumped out at me. The odd one or two is standard - after all, no editor/proofreader is perfect - but this was up to three a page in places. Sad as I am, I began marking them up, and finally sent the corrected book to the publisher in question suggesting they may need a better proofreader. I'm still waiting to hear...