Tomas’s Comments (group member since May 15, 2018)

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

I haven't seen it yet - would you mind posting a screenshot?

Yeah, after writing and proofreading my 180k (well over 200k in early drafts) manuscript, I can easily spot some mistakes - as someone who isn't native in English...

...but I don't pull out my grammar police badge unless the post is completely undecipherable for me.

That said, I'm more used to the "grammar nazi" term than "grammar police".

Christine wrote: "I wanted to share that I often see picture book authors post on Amazon without doing the following
1. Categorizing properly
2. Making ample LOOK INSIDE section
3. A+ Content"

I don't know how things are in picture books but in "normal" e-books, the free sample is 10% and I guess the look inside may be similar (please, if someone knows I'm wrong in this, correct me). That means the only reliable way to affect point #2 is to cut the c**p in the front matter - chuck anything that doesn't need to be in the front matter to the back matter (which is general advice for e-books anyway).

It's in Account settings -> Settings -> scroll down to friend requests.
BUT
If you have an author account, it first chucks you into author settings, so you need to click something like "edit user profile" to get to the "normal" settings. Just because GR is clunky like that...

I think these come in waves. I've had a couple of weird invites in past, so I enabled the challenge question, and that seems to have stopped that - I guess the bot makers aren't willing to deal with that, especially as the invites are probably scripted so they wouldn't be even able to read that question, let alone make a sensible answer.

Then, at some point, there were a plethora of spam likes from profiles that had very suspicious links as their website on their profile. That seems to have lessened in intensity as well, and they moved the link from the website section to commenting them on their own profile, which is way low where few people scroll. I reported them anyway.

It's often either a new account or one that was inactive for years (and thus is obviously hacked account).

Also, thanks Gifford and Eileen for the information about Reedsy - I've heard the name, but I didn't expect them to end up in spam if they're reputable. I may give them a look at some point.

One thing with such review services I'd like to know (from writer's PoV) is how easy is to remove your book from being up there - my point is that I could imagine staying there for a while to get ARC reviews, then leaving so I can enroll in KU (because, as a beginning fantasy author, it doesn't seem practical to spread wide when fantasy specifically has a decent amount of KU readers - even though I have yet to tap into them). So yeah, if I was to consider such a service, I'd need to know how reliable it is to join/leave.

EDIT: I'd have the same question for any other similar ARC/review service if you know any.

Sotto wrote: "I assume you mean for this kind of requests, because I understand that many members would want their profiles as private (go to check mine, still getting the hang of it)."

Yes.

Private profile is always a major warning...

Gail wrote: "And did you know about Amazon's requirement that any reviewers spend at least $50 in the store they are reviewing?"

Yeah, it's being mentioned for a while as an attempt to block bots posting paid fake reviews. I don't have any evidence for it - I'm steadily above the $50/year mark for Kindle e-books.

I've had this end up in the spam folder on my contact form (at my website, hidden between 10 porn bot posts):
---
Hi there, I really enjoy reading your blog and thought I’d say hi! I was wondering whether you’d consider joining the Discovery book review community — I think we could potentially be a good fit. In case you haven’t heard of Discovery, we spotlight gems of the indie publishing world — great books that are often overshadowed by big bestsellers. This is where people like you come in: our reviewers guide the community, spotting new trends and deciding which books we recommend to our 200k readers. If you think you might like to join us, here’s what to do next: 1. Fill in our application form here: [LINK REMOVED] 2. Once approved, you’ll get full access to our library of ARCs and other member perks. 3. Write reviews as often as you like and see them appear in our newsletters to readers. What do you think? I’m happy to chat more via email! You can reach me on victoria.jacobi@reedsy.com All the best, and thanks for your interesting work on the blog, Victoria, Professional Book Nerd @ Discovery
---
Had anyone seen this one yet? I don't expect it to be legit anyway, just curious... the strange part is that I actually have someone loading the "contact me" page on the day this was posted (which isn't the case with bots because they somehow send it to the inbox directly, probably by some script).

I *am* the cactus!

That said, another block of edits done today, yay!

Valerie wrote: "Now, excuse me while I go and work on the next chapter of my own WIP - you've quite inspired me! :)"

I finally managed to get some time for writing today. First time after some two weeks. I admit I was holding it off because the block I'm editing now is quite a compact set of 5 chapters (I guess around 12-15k words total) so I wanted to take it in a couple of sessions at most.
I managed to surprise myself today with two chapters edited (though, apart from the first scene, they were surface edits) and three new scenes written. A good day, I'd say. I should have some writing time on Thursday and Friday, and today made me feel like I could actually have this block edited by the end of the week.

Nailed it :D

Maybe it's just the winter. Especially as it gets a bit bleak here in the suburbs as the snow melts quite fast, so it's mostly muddy anyway.

Jay wrote: "Readers don’t notice point-of-view errors."

My experience would say it's the opposite. But I guess it comes down to each individual beta reader. Maybe I was lucky...

Dwayne wrote: "If your book is fantasy at all, even borderline, you could even have the horses speaking to one another."

Now that you mention this, I have a crazy idea: dragonrider fantasy from the dragon's point of view.

Keep in mind that how many readers are at *other* retailers than Amazon differs by genre. In some genres, KU has a very dominant position. In general, KU seems to favor romance and erotica (in many forms) where the books are short (so the monthly fee is way better for a reader than buying tens of books) and fantasy where the books are long and cost more to purchase (and thus the amount of pages increases the payout for a full read).

It may be worth looking into your genre specifics. Look up the books in top 100 in your genre and see how many of them are in KU. If many - the genre favors KU. If few, it probably favors direct purchases.

To me, writing on a touchscreen with smaller keys just sucks compared to a PC keyboard. Way more typos and misclicks. I guess it's habit more than anything. That and no right-click, no Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V to eventually copy bits between GR, blog, and Amazon (here, touchscreen loses even more), etc.
So, nope, unless it's extremely urgent, I won't type anything longer than a sentence without a proper keyboard.

Eileen wrote: "I've found that a lot of readers can be shy about writing reviews, but most are more than willing to click on X number of stars."

Personal experience as a reader: when I finish a book on kindle, it gives me the rate+reviews screen. It's easy to click the starts, but it's very inconvenient to write something longer than a sentence without a proper keyboard, at least for me. Which means I'd have to return to the book page later to write a review.