Best-sellers and Blunders

I admit I'm not perfect. I'll stand at the top of a bell tower and - wait, wrong reference. I will stand at the top of the world and proclaim my mistakes are many and perfections are few. But, when it comes to writing, I like to think of myself as knowledgeable. And while none of my writings have ever appeared on the New York Times Best Seller's List - the day will come...posthumorous evidently - one of my biggest pet peeve's is when grammatical errors abound a published work.
Last month, I read a book - for the author's sake I will keep the name of the novel and her name out of it - that was a 'New York Times Best Selling Novel'. The book gave me hope. It wasn't inspiring. It wasn't even a good plot. But it did give me hope - that one day I, too, can make the best-seller's list.
Sentence structure and spelling apparently were not a top priority when getting this 'work of art' to the publisher. The author switched from old-school vernacular to the modern slang as of 2007. Some words were used out of context and more than once the author confused YOUR with YOU'RE.
There's a difference between THEIR and THERE. Throw in THEY'RE and you've got one confused author...and reader. There were three points in the book where the same word was typed twice. Too many times a period existed where a question mark should have been placed.
Yes, I am that crazy, neurotic reader who loves to find typos in local newspapers. If I find one in USA Today I'm in heaven. I can only imagine how many typographical errors the New York Times has in its top-rated paper. I don't subscribe, so I wouldn't know.
However, if their listing of best novels is any indication, the New York Times could very well be inundated with grammar fit for a kindergarten student. Even 5 year-olds learn the difference between YOUR books and YOU'RE a kindergartener who writes better than some authors on the New York Times Best Sellers list.
Spellcheck doesn't always help people. Refer to the two examples above. In addition, there's 'hare' vs. 'hair', 'write' vs. 'right', 'leek' vs. 'leak' and 'mane' vs.'main'. It can be confusing and everyone makes a mistake now and then. But for the love of John Grisham, check your writing before you submit it to your agent. Then fire your agent - not only for overlooking all your errors, but for taking it to the lowest of the low publishing company who also don't care about proper grammar.
You are a writer. A PUBLISHED author. Show some respect for yourself and for the people that shelled out $13.95 for your poorly-written piece of literature. Perhaps you should take some lessons from the poor guy who wrote the summary of your book for the inside flap. That was good writing - he got me to buy the damn thing.
I digress.
Everyone has their own writing style. Some authors are witty. Some write in poetic prose. Some write in the same manner as they speak. Some are creative. Others are factual. But this author...she dragged the integrity of the profession through the mud. There is no excuse for 86 blatant spelling errors and even more grammatical ones in a book that was approximately 180 pages.
"All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" was a New York Times Best-Selling novel by Robert Fulghum. Perhaps the no-named author of the no-named book I read last month should pick it up. I bet THERE'S a lesson to be learned.