For the Risk-Inclined

Without a doubt the biggest 'mistake' I made from a sales and reception standpoint was including characters with a 'space hick' speech pattern in the first chapter. I'm sure that I've lost a bunch of readers right off the bat and have received poor ratings for this point alone. Even though it makes up less than 7% of the entire book, it's a big ask for readers to trust that this type of thing will pay off, especially for an author they don't know. I'm positive that pretty much anyone you ask would advise against taking such a risk, including me in most cases.

The question you have to ask yourself about something like this is, how important is whatever crazy thing you want to try? In my case, I had a few major reasons why I included it - to immediately set up the type of story this is going to be, a way to create the illusion of an alien language, and as a way to differentiate between superficially similar characters. I'm happy with my decision, as I think the book would have suffered without it, and that's the main point. If you can do without, it's probably wise to eliminate anything that could be a hurdle for a new reader. On the other hand, I'm all about serving the story, so if your wild idea is important to the story, I would be reluctant to sacrifice it for something like 'commercial viability.' I used a lot of quotes in this post, but I stand by them.