Dwayne’s Comments (group member since Apr 01, 2017)

Dwayne’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

Elizabeth wrote: "Mine is on countdown at the moment and sales are disappointing and I've used promo sites. Must be because of BlackFriday etc"

Please don't post links. Thanks.

Caroline wrote: "My trust issues are on high alert when a web site does this."

Trust your trust issues and stay away. Even if "legit", bottom line they're trying to squeeze more money out of you than their services are worth. The best reviews are the ones you don't ask for or pay for.

Doug wrote: "The new website ..."

Trashing your extremely long, rambling, post for the following reasons:

* Links. We don't allow those.
* You seem to be trying to sell books. Not here.
* You seem to be begging for reviews. Nope. Not allowed.
* Posted in an area meant for moderators.
* It's spam. You've posted this in numerous other places on Goodreads.

Aside from that, I'm not even sure what the point of the post was. I have a feeling you broke some other rules, too, but I gave up trying to understand it about a third of the way in.

Who impliments a ratings system on books? How so they decide how much is too much? One of the issues raised when they started talking about rating records is what if things are misinterpreted? A good example is for a time radio stations wouldn't play John Denver's Rocky Mountain High because some people thought it was a drug song. So who gets to tell the world my books are too filthy for polite society? Any one of us who has had a beta reader or reviewer complain about something and it's clear they misinterpreted, misread, or didn't bother to read should be able to see the problems with a rating system.

Deborah wrote: "Great comment, Dwayne! For my novels... I have warnings for folks under 18 that basically claim if books are purchased or downloaded without parental permission, it's on you, the 18 and under buyer or downloader. Since the books are about a 90s rock band--sex, drugs, cussing, etc.--they could be considered "erotic" or "sinful" and not for teens by some stricter parents. And you are right--having warning labels would likely cause teens to want to, at least, download the free pdf if not buy the books. At least my covers aren't clearly erotic! Bwahahahahahahahah!"

Keeping this much of your comment, deleting the few words that come across as bookwhacking. Thanks.

Jay wrote: "Seriously? Why would I read beyond the opening once that's clear?"

Hazarding a guess, but Colin probably wasn't writing his book specifically for you. Some people would find the idea intriguing. That's the beauty of fiction. It's the beauty of writing. We can do pretty much anything we want and someone out there is going to love it.

Uh... something sciency and fictiony? Honestly, that's a pretty broad genre and it's hard to give ideas when we have no idea what your book is about other than "science fiction".

Bartender! Hey bartender! There's a grasshopper in my glass, there's a fly on my pants and a Beetle in the parking lot!

annob wrote: "I'm a reviewer who posts both on Goodreads and on Amazon, and I'd be livid to find out my name and review text posted on those sites had been used for marketing by a third party without my explicit..."

I might feel the same way. When I review a book, it's meant as a message to other readers, not a marketing tool for the author. Quite often authors cherry pick the parts of the review they like and then my words would be taken out of context. I don't think I'd be crazy about having an author contact me to ask to use a review, either.

The more I think about this, the more I feel it looks unprofessional and desperate to use reader reviews as part of a blurb.

I don't. I've seen it done. I have no idea how effective it is.

As a reader I'd be more interested in learning about your book in lieu of being told a bunch of people like it. I assume you'd only pick the best reviews. When I do look at reviews I'm more interested in a fair sampling of all reviews not just the ones the author likes.

Previous comment deleted. We don't discuss review swapping here and I don't give a hoot how you feel about that.

In fact, we're not here to discuss reviews and while I have been allowing some topics to remain, lately I've been closing these topics as sooner or later someone always comes along to blatantly ignore the rules.

Review swapping is worthless. Don't do it. All you're doing is giving one another fake reviews. It's pointless.

Caroline wrote: "Earlier this year I was contacted for a book tour, foolishly I did not investigate this as I should. What happened was my book was hijacked and offered as a download on sites located in another county. I stopped most of it, got my money back and even had GoodReads delete spam 1 star reviews on all my books! (about 20 of them!)

He's back and I am warning you. If you get an email from:
Erin K. Ison - look carefully at the email addy. It is actually from Jim J.
patricidy6r@gmail.com, the guy that tried to spam me.

If you receive a offer of promotion from either of these folks mark the email as spam and block them. The site he directs you to is [deleted] and you pay Verge Soft Promotions.

Be careful Indies, all I ever received was one FB post, one GR review that disappeared and the rest was a rip off.

Be Safe"

Deleting the original message. Most of it is posted here as it's good to be warned against pirates and other scum. I am deleting it because of the link. Links are against our rules anyway, and I don't want anyone clicking on a potentially damaging web site.

Thanks.

There seems to be no end to what will "trigger" sensitive readers. I don't bother warning people and see no need for it. If you pick a book labelled as erotic for 18+ as Tomas noted I'm not sure what other clues you need. Digging further than Tomas, the author's website has pictures that some would call pornographic. Her bio on Amazon and Goodreads makes it pretty clear she writes about the "darker" side of romance and tries to push the boundaries. Again, I'm not sure what more you need.

Yes teens might buy it. So what? Teens have always done things they're told not to. I read The Godfather at age 14 because my dad told me not to. Kids do that. Warning labels will make them want to read it.

Kids can do worse than read a book about dragons with a dirty scene or two. And if kids then go out and do the nasty things that are mentioned in the books they read, that's on the parents, not the author. Yes, I defied my dear old dad by reading the Godfather, but on the other hand, I didn't cut any heads off any horses and didn't rape any underaged children, just because it happened in a book I read - because my parents had the guts to instill morals in me. Mario Puzo wasn't my parent and it wasn't his responsibility to shield me from the dirty side of human nature.

If you want warnings on your books go for it. Let's not worry about what other authors are doing. We're supposed to be supportive of each other, not complaining that other authors aren't doing what we think they should.

B.A. wrote: "Didn't see this yesterday as I was on way too early..."

B.A.! I was just thinking about you! I have a character in my work in progress that won't stop smirking. I tell her to do something else with her face, but she's stubborn.

M.L. wrote: "The 270 ++++ bar is open! Woo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I'm happy, too, so Imma look over... there... and pretend I didn't see this. And, for no reason whatsoever, Imma start muttering, "No politics no politics no politics..."

Gary Niles planned nothing more than what any lawyer might do on a Saturday morning: a bit of shopping, followed by a round of golf.

Probably more of a personal pet peeve, but I'm not crazy about blurbs that start with "so-and-so is your average, run-of-the-mill, etc."

His day didn’t include meeting two tiny women with oddball powers like levitating pizza and delivering static shocks.

Probably not. Seems unnecessary to point out he wasn't expecting this.

He never intended to jump from world to world, interfere with a very foreign government, or, tunnel into a prison to save a pretty lady scientist. He especially didn’t expect to learn how to fwoosh.

Some nitpicks: Either a government is foreign or its not. "Very" is superfluous. "Pretty lady scientist" sounds dated and sexist. Who finds her to be pretty and is it that important to the story? If this is science fiction, it might help to hone in on what kind of scientist she is. I don't know what it is to fwoosh. I'm guessing it only makes sense in the context of your story, which I don't know, yet.

But Gary wasn’t careful when he pulled the shopping cart free of its mates, and backed into Vaire, a beautiful, exciting, and tiny oddball. And he certainly wasn’t expecting Sela, one inch taller, smart, focused, and just as beautiful.

You've already indicated the oddball is tiny, though not how tiny. Knowing the other is an inch smaller means nothing. We do get it by now, too, that Gary was intending to go golfing, not to run into oddballs. We don't know what oddballs are, though. "Just as beautiful" as what? The other beautiful oddball? Since we don't know what oddballs actually are, it's hard to envision what a beautiful one looks like.

Ignoring one such woman in trouble would be hard. Two? Impossible for someone like Gary.

What kind of trouble? Why would it be hard to ignore them? Why impossible for Gary?

Though if he knew what he was about to get into, he just might have walked away.

Because this wasn't what he planned to do that day. Yep. We get it.

Overall it sounds like it could be cute story with all the levitating pizza and static shocks. There's a promise of some adventures in world hopping and such, too. But it seems too focused on Gary running into whatever they are and not enough on what makes the books truly interesting or entertaining. What is at stake? What do the oddballs want? What will Gary gain in doing whatever it is they want him to do?

SheLivesAmongBooks wrote: "Hello..."

Good bye.

Laura wrote: "Hi Randall, this is intended as an Amazon book description. Perhaps "blurb" is misleading & if I've posted this question in the wrong forum, please forgive me (moderators tell me where to go)."

This is the right forum, Laura.

MasterClass says a blurb should be 100 to 200 words.

Author Society says between 100 to 150 words.

Reedsyblog says 150-200.

And so on.

To clear up what I meant by your blurb being "too long", I think B works very well if you cut it off at, "...can the family stay together?" I was talking more about the content of the blurb than the word count. At that point I think you've said enough to capture the attention of a potential reader. The rest is unnecessary fluff. If we look at word count, the way you have B written it is over 300 words, but if you cut it at "...can the family stay together?" it runs at 160 words, which is a good length.

Randall, it's clear from Laura's initial post, she's meaning this for readers, not agents or ad sites.

A doesn't tell me a thing about the book. Someone named Amy has brain surgery and something happens as a result. Oh, and here's a list of her relatives and their jobs. That's all I really got.

B is better, but far too long. I'd cut out the "meet the family" part and the "this is what readers think" part. Keep the focus on what makes your book interesting, not a list of characters and not a list of what a bunch of readers think. The last two bits down there seem unnecessary, too.

NOTE: As I was reading it over I felt like it was all too familiar. Some checking showed that you've started at least two other threads in the past for the blurb for this book. Please keep it all in one thread from now on. I'm going to lock the other two and archive them. There's no need to have three threads for the same blurb. Thanks.