Many of you are familiar with my reviewing practices. I rarely do negative and if I sense it going that way I change lanes giving it the review of silence. There are two works I finished reading yesterday and when I went to post something about them this morning I found that one of them had tons (in this reality 100+ = tons) of reviews putting it in a really undeserved bask of glory. The story was underdeveloped to the point where the read would likely need to start smacking a tin cup against the bars to escape from the protagonist’s brain. This one I gave a 3(?) because I still believe it is worthy to reward someone who has taken a leap and written. I limited my posting to Amazon US and Good Reads.
The second work I went to review I found I could not in good conscience give it any buzz. At the steep cost of $.99 for an estimated 20 pages this…thing was full of grammatical eff-ups, the science fiction was developed in a substance induced coma with no anchor to get the reader grounded and it never developed. It is being marketed as a series and I’ve noticed this author has ‘started’ a couple of series. I’m not sure which shell the pea is under leading me to another action. I’ve removed all other unread-works by this author from my collection due to the idiocy that I view my time as valuable. If any of these were physical books I would return them but ‘returning’ eBooks is…theft so I will not be doing that.
What is the common thread? The second work had almost a hundred reviews painting a much rosier picture of the situation and it had over 400 ratings. These tools are supposed to be helping consumers spend their money, disposable or not, where their interests may be satisfied. The first work also had a severely distorted picture painted by numbers and ratings though it had more substance for basis.
The common thread that I wish to point out is that getting a bunch of questionable reviews to boost your sales is a dead-end and a betrayal of any potential fan base that might have taken you seriously. My advice is don’t do it.
I haven’t reached a level of sales or froth worthy of putting my advice on a pedestal. At this rate if it happens it might likely be postmortem. As an author I’m looking for fans to share my written visions and peers to find something they liked about what I’ve done. I would much rather endure some bashing than know that I’ve misled readers to turn a buck.
Summing up. Normally there would be a review of a read here but I felt this would be more appropriate for today. Not to worry, I literally have hundreds remaining in my ‘To Be Read’ pile and am moving along.
I’m also going to try something a bit new here.
(Cue Entry Music!!!) ‘A POLL’
I’m leaving it open for a week. We’ll see if the number of responses merit a future blog posting. Feel invited to share this as it is likely the only way to get semi-objective in our world views. (Now that is pompous)
Angus48's Blog 