Ryan Field's Blog, page 465

"Unhelpful Posts" on Amazon

I was going to update the post I wrote about a ridiculous comment someone left on Amazon with regard to a review someone else left. But decided to just do another quick post here.

You can read the first post here.

As I said, this comment was ridiculous, it added nothing to the discussion of the book and had nothing to do with the contents of the actual review.

And Amazon did this, which I'd never seen before:

[Customers don't think this post adds to the discussion. Show post anyway. Show all un...

The Brett Easton Ellis Firestorm Continues...

Although you will see nothing about this in the mainstream, especially with all the news going on with regard to Paul Ryan being chosen to run alongside Mitt Romney, the firestorm that Brett Easton Ellis has created continues to blossom...and with a very interesting remarks by Ellis.

In this article Ellis makes comments about Hollywood and gays:

"Hollywood is the most homophobic place in the entire world," he tweeted early Wednesday. "Why Brokeback Mountain was a hit was because it starred two...

How Bad Does "Behaving Badly" Actually Get?

I thought I'd seen it all.

Evidently, I was wrong.

While browsing through social media this evening, I saw a facebook update by book reviewer Elisa Rolle that stunned me.

In short, Elisa left a review on Amazon for a book with which I'm not familiar, and then someone with a fake name and identity left a very negative comment about Elisa's review on Amazon.

It's so ridiculous I'm not quoting it here. You can read it on Amazon here to see what I'm talking about.

For those who don't know, Elisa is...

How I Took the Sex Out of "Chase of a Dream"... And Free Legal Photo Links

I've posted about how I released two different versions of "Chase of a Dream," and now I'd like to show how I removed the sex scenes from various parts of the book without actually changing the storyline at all.

Before I start, I'd like to explain that while I'm usually building up to a sex scene in a book slowly, I keep the sex scenes exclusive to certain parts of the book. I do this on purpose for various reasons. One has to do with continuity and actual novel structure. There's always a pla...

"Chase of a Dream" and the Kindle Owner's Lending Library

I opted in for the Kindle Owner's Lending Library with "Chase of a Lifetime," because I have always believed in book lending. It's been almost impossible to do with e-books in the past and I liked the fact that Kindle was offering this feature to readers.

I also did it with "Jonah Sweet of Delancey Street," for the same reasons.

But I decided not to do it with "Chase of a Dream." And only for one reason. When you opt into this you are not allowed to distribute e-books to other web sites where e...

More on the Matt Bomer/Brett Easton Ellis 50 Shades Deal...

In a way, following what's been happening with author Brett Easton Ellis and what appears to be his obsession with who is right (or not right) for the lead role in the movie adaptation of the novel, Fifty Shades of Grey, has almost been entertaining. It seems the more Ellis tweets about the topic the more of an asshat he becomes.

To refresh everyone's memory, Brett Ellis Easton was a boy wonder author who got lucky with "Less Than Zero." It was a breakout novel in the 1980's that I read simpl...

Reality Show "3" is Now an Exclusive Web Series...

For those who don't know, I've been posting about a book and an author I recently read titled, "No More Harvard Debt." It's non-fiction, dealing with personal finance, and how one man paid of thousands of dollars in student loans.

You can check out the link here to read more about it.

The author of NMHD, Joe Mihalic, was also selected to be on a CBS TV reality show title, "3." The show has been shifted into a web series, and you can read more about it here.

The blog is good, too. He may or ma...

Goodreads.com Review Guidelines...

Someone pointed me toward what seems to be a new set of guidelines for goodreads.com reviews. At least I think they are new. But I'm not sure about that.


Bascially, from what I can see the guidelines aren't that strict and they follow what appears to be a decent standard of ethics.


I haven't seen any previous guidelines anywhere else so I have nothing to compare and no comments to make. I've always tried to be honest with the reviews I write on goodreads. I'll be posting one about John Irvin...

Why I Vet ALL Reviews Before a Purchase...

For years, Tony drove a company car. It was usually a big Chrysler that he used for work only. I had my own car, and we leased another car for the businesses we owned. After we sold the business in 2004 we stopped leasing and scaled down to just one car and Tony's company car. We tend to keep our cars for at least five years, so when we buy one we want one we love, one that is going to be dependable, and one that has a few luxuries.

In 2007 Tony went through a life change and he couldn't trav...

Why an Agent Might Reject You and Why a Publisher Might Not...

I read an interesting post at literary agent Janet Reid's blog earlier this evening. It gets into why she, as an agent, has to reject people for various reasons, one of them being "I can't sell this." You can get there from here.

Part of one sentence in the post resonated with me:

...and/or the only publishers taking on this kind of book don't pay enough for it to be profitable for us.

I wanted to elaborate on that, speaking from my own experience. Just because an agent/agency doesn't think a b...