Dale’s Comments (group member since Sep 15, 2017)

Dale’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

Glad to hear it Carole!

I'm in a constant state of too-thinness (timewise, not weightwise). And with my wife's illness, a lot of things are just not getting done now, or not done consistently or well. Sometimes you have to decide what's important and what's not, and actually jettison what's not.

I'd jettison my day job, but my creditors don't like it when I suggest that. ;-)

Faith wrote: "... which is even longer. Ooops."

But you do have an interesting style! Thank you for the input.

It is a bit long, but it fits on the cover with room to spare. ;-) My wife did edit it down a bit. It's length now is shorter than mine but longer than yours. I'll try to post it later, once get it from computer A to computer B...

Carole wrote: "I want to find ways to promote indies where we are not dependent on the ..."

You're already doing that! You've built up an audience and are promoting indies to them through your blog, the magazine, this group, etc. You're sharing what you've learned so novices like me can maybe up our games. Even by your troubles you're helping us. (Save your reviews; good point!) Seems to me you're doing pretty good.

Theodore wrote: "I'm simply asserting that to admit any wrongdoing or error on their part (e.g., problems with their software to identify manipulators) would be to invite an investigation by one or more states' attorneys generals into their business practices regarding, say, the manipulation of ranking and other data, for whatever purpose might be impuned by purchasers. "

Maybe. I'm admittedly not a lawyer, but I'm not entirely sure there would be anything illegal in that. Unethical, perhaps, but illegal?

As for rights to reviews, I would have expected that, just didn't know, since there have been cases of sites claiming to own content posted on them (although I think that practice has pretty much been shot down by now).

Carole wrote: "It feels like they are shooting for a certain profile. Many people I know have been shut down, while others who review things, perhaps that Amazon wants to be reviewed and pushed upward are allowed..."

It's certainly possible that outside pressure from publishers has led them to shift how they look for and remove "fake" reviews. It's also possible that their mechanisms tend to generate more false positives on indie titles than others, even if unintentionally. But I guess I'm a bit skeptical that this is really anything more than overzealous algorithms because from what I've found similar things have happened in the past, at least as long ago as five years back.

That doesn't mean you're wrong, of course. You have a lot more experience in this than I do. I've been struggling to get 10 reviews each for my two books. Whatever the reason, they probably don't touch me simply because I'm such a small fish. ;-)

Denise wrote: "I'm sure this will become somewhat of a trend with reviewers. If their reviews are being deleted from Amazon, they're not going to bother reviewing."

Yep, entirely possible.

Theodore wrote: "An acknowledgement would leave them open to legal liability. The word in the business world is: never admit to anything."

I know, but . . . what legal liability? If they don't claim ownership of the reviews posted on their site (which they might), they certain have language in their agreements (which we agree to by using their site, whether we've read them or not) that allows them to remove whatever they want to remove. There likely isn't any reasonable legal action anybody could take to protest reviews being removed. Meanwhile, the ill-will they cause by blowing off readers and writers instead of at least explaining what's going on may do them some damage.

Here's my next post. This one is about Lokesh Sharma and his novel Halfway .

Denise wrote: "To me, it doesn't matter if it is unintended or not. ..."

Oh, I understand. I just think having some sense of what's actually going on gives one a better chance of dealing with it. If Amazon's automated review deletion process stinks, maybe one can discern what triggers it and in some measure avoid getting caught. If it's "Amazon hates indies" that suggests a rather different strategy. ;-)

I have issues with companies that grow so big as well. There are some virtues in economies of scale, but power corrupts.

We (One Voice Press/Serpent Cliff) sell our books through our own websites, B&N (print & Nook editions), Amazon (Kindle editions only), and a couple of specialty distributors. We also get a reasonable amount of income by selling books to their authors, but we give them the wholesale price and never require them to buy anything. (They also get a few free copies at the outset.) So far we haven't made any money at it, but we've been close to breakeven over the past couple of years now. We don't do print on demand, though, because we want to deal with stores and distributors that don't accept print on demand titles.

I'm hoping I can apply some of what I learn from this wonderful group to marketing our titles, although we may not be in operation that much longer. It's not clear yet whether my wife will be able to commit to all that work, and she's the only editor I know who will work for room and board . . . in my room. ;-)

Theodore wrote: "That some are being caught up in sweeps of searches for abuses is an "unintended consequence," and we only can hope their bots or whatever is behind these actions are "fine tuned" at the earliest possible time. ... Amazon, for all its faults, has much to offer the indie community. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. "

Agreed on both counts. Probably the worst part of this is that they seem to show about zero interest in fixing the problem, or even in acknowledging that a problem exists. They may well be at work on it behind the scenes, but an acknowledgement might help quell some of the complaints.

Theodore wrote: "And yes, I don't know how any class in creative writing can be taught without photo prompts, now that I see the Indies Unlimited weekly competitions. Congrats to your student. Who knows; he might win an Editor's Choice Award (isn't that what we all seek?)."

He might! He has a good imagination. It's been a very popular addition to our program. Everyone seems to enjoy doing it.

Building an email list . . . that's another of my problems. :-P

I'm not an Amazon fan by any means. My wife and I buy from them as little as possible (which means almost never). At the same time, I suspect this review business isn't the Pure Evil that most who have been bitten by it seem to think. It's more likely the law of unintended consequences.

Amazon wants to sell things. (Obviously.) Reviews are a part of the sales mechanism. (Equally obviously.) Taking down reviews willy-nilly doesn't make any sense. Taking down bogus reviews does make sense, but how do you distinguish the real from the bogus? Humans could probably do a fairly good job of distinguishing them, but given the number of products sold on Amazon, it would take a huge workforce dedicated to the job. They don't have that. For one thing, they're too cheap to pay for all that human intelligence. For another, even a company that isn't cheap couldn't justify that kind of staffing level.

Instead, they automate it. They have to. But this isn't an easy task to automate. It's likely riddled with flaws simply because it's not an easy thing to get right.

Amazon has done high-profile mass deletions before, and it's not just indie authors being affected. Hillary Clinton's book "What Happened" fell victim to review deletions earlier this year. Also, it is nothing new. It happened at least as far back as 2012.

The upshot is, Amazon isn't specifically targeting indie authors. They use automated review removal processes that don't always work well. (They seem to be pretty horrible at responding to complaints, but that's another matter.) Those processes may well affect indie authors more than traditionally published authors. Indies probably garner more reviews from mechanisms that are susceptible to being hit by the flaws in these processes.

But I agree with what many others have said here: over-reliance on Amazon is simply not a good thing. There are a lot of other mechanisms available for getting the word out about our books, and we need to make use of them. The trick is having the time and energy and know-how to make use of them.

Chella wrote: "I wonder where trolls come from. Maybe they wrote something mediocre & flogged it all over social media, but people still didn't buy it. So trashing other authors makes them feel good for a few sec..."

Not necessarily. You'll find trolls in all sorts of venues, and they all have their own agendas. However, I'm fairly convinced that the bottom line is this: they enjoy twisting other people into knots. They get their jollies by seeing how much anger or hurt they can cause.

The situation is a bit different for product reviews, but in online discussions it's been fairly well established that the best rule of thumb is, "Don't feed the trolls." Just ignore them. When they see that their posts are not getting any reaction, they'll find someplace else to play. In a moderated forum, it's best to let the moderators deal with troll posts; everyone else should refrain from replying to them. In an unmoderated forum, everyone should ignore them. Sadly, that never happens. People can't resist rising to the bait, which feeds the trolls and guarantees that they'll stick around like stray dogs who have found a little old lady willing to set out scraps for them.

With product reviews, it's a bigger problem because the point in trashing a product is not to generate discussion. In that case, the only real remedy is to try to get the site owner to agree that the review was posted by a troll and take it down. I have no experience in that area, although others here seem to have plenty, and are plenty frustrated by it. That said, it's probably worth educating potential customers about the problem and how to recognize troll reviews.

There are also statistical measures one could apply. Generally, one sees a spread of ratings that more or less resembles a bell curve (technically a Gaussian distribution). If that curve seems to be there, but there is an uncharacteristic bump at the bottom score, it probably means trolls have been there. Likewise, if there is an uncharacteristic bump at the top score, it probably means people have been trying to artificially inflate the ratings. Note I say "probably." There can be exceptions.

You beat me again, Ted. Congratulations! I don't know how you do it. I flog my FB contacts, and fight for every vote and always am running about 8 votes behind you. Although, I just found out that some of them aren't seeing the announcement until after voting is closed. I guess they don't get online every day. Oh, well.

On a side note, one of my creative writing workshop members (Michael Kelly) also posted a story this week. I've been using the prompt as a warm up in our monthly meetings for several months now. I think this is the second time he posted.

Okay, I have a new version. Let's see what does for you all:

The forecast: Record cold. The crimes: Colder still.

Case #1: By all accounts, veterinary technician Jayvon Fletcher might have been a saint: honest, friendly, hard working, without an an enemy in the world. While working late Christmas Eve two years ago he vanished, leaving behind only a broken window and smears of blood on the wooden steps out back. Now Detective Lieutenant Rick Peller takes a fresh look at the case, doubting he can shed new light on the young man's fate. The trail has grown too cold.

Case #2: Detective Sergeant Corina Montufar puzzles over details of an arson that destroyed a wealthy businessman's mansion. The incident looks familiar. Two other mansions had burned the previous year in exactly the same way. But the arsonist had been caught and already sat in prison when this new crime occurred. Could this be a copycat, or is the real culprit still at large?

Case #3: It's only Mid-January, and already Dectective Sergeant Eric Dumas is staring at Howard County's first murder victim of the year. Michio Tamai specialized in crime and kept an address book overflowing with accomplices. But even his friends were his victims. Not one of them is sorry he's dead. And any one of them could be his murderer.

In the dead of the most frigid Chesapeake winter in decades, a cold case collides with new cold-blooded crimes, while somewhere out there a killer with blood as icy as the waters of the bay watches and waits.

Matt wrote: "Dale's blurb suggested to me that the arsonist suspect was already in prison."

That was the intention, although possibly it won't be clear to all readers as I originally phrased it.

Thanks again. It does indeed give me some possibilities to mull over.

Thanks, Anya, for the detailed comments. It's always a bit tricky to ask for advice when nobody has read the story yet. ;-) Let me explain a bit. I don't think I have any spoilers here. These are just the key elements that get worked out in the story.

I have three main characters, Detective Lieutenant Rick Peller and his underlings Detective Sergeants Corina Montufar and Eric Dumas.

Peller's neighbor asks him to look into a two-year-old missing persons case, the disappearance of a young veterinary technician whose grandmother goes to the neighbor's church.

While Peller is doing that, Montufar is investigating an arson that looks very much like two others that took place the previous year. But the culprit in those cases was apprehended and is now in prison. The family that owned the house in the new arson was fairly wealthy (as was the case with the previous arsons). None of them were home when it happened, so none of them were harmed.

At the same time, the first murder of the year in Howard County occurs. Dumas investigates that one. He almost immediately learns from the deceased's girlfriend that the victim kept an address book filled with contact info for his accomplices in various criminal ventures. He regularly cheated many of these people out of some of their earnings. Thus, the address book could be a long list of people who wanted him dead.

As the three investigations proceed, details emerge that suggest there might be connections between them.

Subplots (which may not go into the blurb):

(1) Montufar's father is dying

(2) A romance between Montufar and Dumas (established in the previous book, True Death, is blossoming.

(3) Dumas is struggling to keep his long history of rejection from messing up his relationship with Montufar.

(4) Montufar is emerging from a long spiritual drought as she returns to the Catholic Church (her childhood religion).

(5) A colleague introduces Peller to a divorced woman in the hopes that they will hit it off. Peller isn't particularly interested--or so he tells himself. (As revealed in the previous two books, he lost his wife in a hit-and-run four and a half years earlier, and he still "talks" with her inside his head.) But he finds he can't blow her off completely, so enters into a somewhat reluctant friendship with her.

You are now armed with more information than you wanted. ;-)