Mary Ellen’s Comments (group member since Mar 18, 2017)

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

We Shall Ne'er Be Younger: Silver Chronicles Book 1

Steamy contemporary romance featuring a couple over 50. On sale for .99 this weekend at Amazon.

Spend Veterans day with a sexy blue eyed Marine. It will have you shouting Oooh rah!

done

Nature is nature. Part of the risk we take living where we live. The Keys and islands definitely got the worst of it.

Indeed, that why I am complaining here. I can't possibly whine to others in person locally when we got off so lightly. We were very lucky...mine are minor inconveniences. Just explaining my lack of presence lately really.

That is crazy when the ones we are discussing are so clearly not even about the book. *sigh*

Soooo sick of mosquitos, ants, spiders, roaches, and snakes fleeing the high water and trying to get in my house, garage, and porch. FYI I live on a lake in Florida. Yard flooded, road flooded.

On the bright side, my house suffered no damage and we were only out of power for 26 hours while some of my neighbors just got power back yesterday and have water in their garages, and in their homes.

Carole, I got a reply to a post on my blog that was similar to that review. What the person said made absolutely no sense. Fortunately, Word press allows you to mark comments as spam and delete them. Don't we wish Amazon would allow that? LOL!

Recent podcast on cliffhangers. http://wordessential.com/blog/swrt-01...

I Recently had a 1* that said, "It was unreadable." Yes, that was the entire review. Ok WTF does that mean? It made me panic that there were formatting errors. But the "look inside" preview is fine and it appears fine on the KDP preview. It can't be spelling, grammar or typos because I know that it is close to error free (unless the woman is a grammar nazi who condemns a book for a misplaced comma.)

Then I thought maybe she didn't like the first person present tense POV, or the writing style. But then I went back to the "look inside". If she bought it (yes it was a verified purchase) without reading the sample then it is on her, so that is annoying. Then I thought maybe it was the sexual content. But I state in the blurb that it is for mature adults only, and multiple reviewers addressed the sexual content (all in a good way btw) so again if she didn't read those before buying, it is on her.

Like you Wolfen, I immediately thought about asking her to clarify what she meant. But my sister pointed out that since the review was so vague, no one would even pay attention. The rest of the reviews are good and more descriptive therefore more helpful to a potential reader. But what annoys me is that it brings down my average from a 4.0 to a 3.7. That coupled with all the advice I've ever seen about not engaging with a reviewer, convinced me to let it go.

PS - Carole, I never thought about a negative review increasing sales. Thanks for that thought.

I saw this article last week and was so discouraged that I have I have indefinitely shelved a romance novel I have written because there is just no way it will get noticed and sell without cheating and I refuse to do that. I spent 35 years telling my students if they thought cheating was ok then I guess they wouldn't mind being operated on by a surgeon who cheated their way through medical school.

It isn't the fact that some people do it, that will always happen. What we are all upset about is the apparent non-punishment from Amazon for those publically called out for it. That is being complicit and hypocritical as many have pointed out. That book may not have a ranking but WHY IS IT EVEN STILL BEING SOLD? The author should be permanently banned from selling anything on Amazon.

Amazon is in the business of making money for themselves not helping us little guys make money. Until consumers stop spending at Amazon, or as Theodore said above there is pressure from the Big 5 there is no incentive for Amazon to do anything. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist...maybe the big 5 are doing it too and Amazon fears a lawsuit from them. I've seen some pretty well rated traditionally published books that were not that good.

It makes me want to pull my book from their shelves, but that is simply cutting off my nose to spite my face. Only if ALL of us did that would Amazon even notice. How to go about getting all Indies to do that isn't something I have any clue how to do.

Got my copy. Will tweet!

Check out this agent scam list from Writer Beware. Very helpful as it also explains what practices these agencies engage in.

http://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/f...

Good article. Unfortunately, the comments prove the journalists point since most are critical of the genre.

Ah ok...can you PM me the address to send the paperbacks?

I am still not on the list. I've sent in the info twice. I still need the address to send the physical books.

Ok, as long as you got it. Thanks.

Sent to the email. If not recieved, let me know and I will post here.

I sent in my form a few days agao and am not on the list. Was it not recieved?

Does anybody use Wattpad or have you used it in the past? If so what do you use it for or how do you use it? Just wondering if it is worth the time and effort. Any experience or advice is appreciated.

Thanks for sharing that Anna. Looks useful.