How Do You NOT Read Your Reviews?

I’m back on the subject of book reviews again. However, it’s not how to deal with a bad one or how to write a good one. Instead, it’s in regards to a piece of mail I got from a reader calling me a liar. 

Well, not really a liar.  More like they questioned my ability to not read my own reviews.

As you all know, I am a strong supporter of authors choosing to not read their own reviews because I think it saves us all a lot of heartache. If you’re any kind of writer, then you already feel like your work is shit most of the time anyway, so you don’t really need people kicking you while you’re already kicking yourself.

For example, last night, I read ‘The Apology’. What a piece of shit that was! What the fuck was I thinking? I was actually so pissed off at my own writing that I made it permanently free on Smashwords. Fuck, I should be paying people to read it.

Anyway, as you can see, I can be a bit hard on myself. That is why I avoid my reviews as much as possible and only check in every six months or so.

But I got an email from another indie last night, and he mainly wanted to know how I avoid doing this. To be honest, I’m sure it’s very hard to resist In fact, it’s probably entirely impossible to resist. Back when I first started, I used to check my reviews upwards of 10 times a day.  

But then I found an entirely accidental way to avoid my reviews.

As you all know, I like to drink. Sometimes, I will seriously tie one on and jump on the internet. Sometimes, I’ll get into ridiculous fights with idiots. Sometimes, I’ll profess my undying love to someone I don’t like that much just because I’m lonely. Sometimes I’ll post pictures of my boobs. Other times, I’ll just quietly look at porn. But the worst times are the times I go to Amazon.

Because when I’m shitfaced and lacking impulse control, there is nothing I like more than going on Amazon and buying a lot of shit I don’t need. Any purchase seems like a great idea 6 beers in. It’s why I have magic hair grow cream, DIY tattoo removal kits, healing stones in a variety of shapes and sizes, off-market lead based lipstick, tarot cards, clip in extensions in ‘riveting red’ and a box of surgical scalpels.

After a particularly heavy bender, I realized that my alcohol addiction was turning into an online shopping addiction as well. So I did what I always do in my hour of need. I turned to Jesus and prayed for help.

Just kidding.  I actually turned to science and wrote a computer program.

Yahoo used to have this kick ass program for email users. In order to prevent flame wars, you could install an app that would force you to do some kind of complicated math problem before your message would be sent. The idea was to stop and force people to think things over.

I took my inspiration from that. Using a combination of parental control codes, CAPTCHA codes, and an IF factor formula, I wrote my very own Essa proof program. Yup, I actually wrote a program so smart, even I couldn’t solve it.

Ok, to be entirely honest, it’s not that smart. It’s actually surprisingly simple. The idea is clever, but the coding is not. A first year programmer could do it.

Anyway, the essence of the program is this. Once Essa types www.amazon.com into her search bar, a parental control box pops up. She must enter her username and her password.

And then, she must complete 5 complex long division problems in something that looks like a CAPTCHA box.

This is where the prevention comes in. See, I’m pretty smart when sober, but I still suck at long division. The time it takes me to complete 5 long division problems, complete with decimals, is about 10 minutes each. So, in order to get on Amazon, I must complete 50 minutes worth of math homework. If I get even one single problem wrong, and I usually do, I must do 5 new randomly selected problems. On a good day, while sober as a stone, I can sign on to Amazon in about 3 hours.

However, when I’ve been drinking, the task is 100% impossible.

This has completely prevented my drunken spending on Amazon, and at the same time, has completely prevented me from seeing my own reviews.  I don’t care how obsessed you are, if you have to spend three hours doing math to get onto a basic site, it better be for a damn good reason.  

So, to the reader that emailed me the other night, yes I can resist the temptation to check my Amazon reviews. The answer is as simple as a basic equation;

Essa’s desire to read her reviews < Essa’s desire to do long division