Another trait that exposes those who want others to suffer for their self-inflicted Dunning-Kruger Effect is claiming status they obviously cannot qualify for.
Example:
Every now and then, I see a self-pub book cover with “Author So-and-so”. Invariably, at least so far, such books have proven to be unreadable well within the first page of text. Sometimes the first paragraph or the first sentence or even the dedication (if one exists) is so badly written that I almost feel a wee bit of pity for the po’ baby that refers to himself (or herself) as “Author So-and-so,” because the chance that such folk will ever even become moderately competent wordsmiths is somewhere zero and -1,000–and that’s often an optimistic estimation.
Sad. I just wanna know who encouraged them to write without becoming at least literate enough to be fluent in English.
Oh, another clue to incompetent self-pub writers is that they frequently include a forward or dedication that makes much of the extensive editing their “work” has undergone. Almost invariably, that indicates that the book is FULL of misused words, indicating that both the writer and any editors are the next thing to illiterate, inexcusably execrable grammar (in narrative, not even dialog), unbelievable continuity errors, etc.
And they (and their so-called “editors”) never see all the “Oopsies” because they are not really literate enough to know the differences. Not one of them.
And yet they think of themselves as and proudly proclaim themselves to be “authors”.
