I’m not talking about a person’s looks, I’m talking about the looks of a product or website.

I’m talking about production values.

Frequent typos on a blog.

A self-published book with clip art or stock art instead of original art.

A typo in the chapter title of a book.

A website with one of the graphics off center.

Grammatical errors on a sales page.

Am I just a total snob?

Whenever I see any of these errors, it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. My opinion of the author goes down. WAY down.

To me, it signifies a complete lack of effort and lack of concern. The creator didn’t care enough to make it look good. The author didn’t care enough to proofread. If they were really serious about their work, they would have made the extra effort to make it look good.

We put a lot of effort into making our products look good. Our manifesto looks nicer than most e-books I’ve seen. The Usual Error doesn’t look like a self-published book.

But speaking of the usual error…

Am I making the usual error?

In my mind, if you care about something, you’ll make the effort to make it look good. Therefore, if it doesn’t look good, you must not care about it.

But there are some pretty darn popular bloggers whose blogs are riddled with typos. There are some pretty darn popular self-published books with low production values.

What gives?

Maybe I’m in the minority? Maybe it’s only me and the other snobs who care about whether it looks good, and everyone else is happy to overlook a few flaws if the content is great?

How about you?

Does it make no difference to you?

Does it bother you?

Or does it block you? Does it stop you from reading it, clicking it, buying it, or recommending it?

What’s your opinion?