UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
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No idea who this person is, but makes sense.
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Hmm, I'm not keen.I'd love to know that an author wrestles wallabies. I'm not a fan of the cover heralded as 'effective'. And it's a bit hypocritical to start a blog post with 'Don't be an arsehole' and then use two real authors' work in a section bitching about bad covers.
I agree that authors generally come off worse if they try arguing with reviewers and that 'like for like' schemes must be avoided.
I also agree that editors are important. BUT, when I started out, I would have had to go without food if I'd paid for professional proofreading. Eating is more important than polishing a book (just).
Yep.There is so much 'advice' out there and most of it contradicts the rest of it.
I can't afford an editor until I sell enough books to pay for one.
Ditto for 'professional' covers.
I do try to put out the best books I can though.
And I avoid all manipulative schemes and ruses.
Good points Rosen but I think the wallaby wrestling was a point about being professional in a review request email.Very good point about him using real covers.
I suppose it hit a chord with me because we get so many people who hit our group and (figuratively) scream 'READ AND REVIEW MY BOOK'! Without putting any effort into getting to know us and allowing us to get to know them.
Or only showing up when they've got a book to promote then disappearing for ages til it's time to promote again.
Can't speak for anyone else in the group, but I know I make an effort to read and review and recommend books I've enjoyed from our regular authors, such as you Rosen.
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I feel the same as a result of administering IBB. Many authors use the service properly and are very professional. But it does annoy me when a small number of authors want me to help promote their books but don't care enough to even read the rules or make the text on their cover a different colour to the background.
Oh look, a lengthy blog post criticising writing standards which includes multiple instances of shaky grammar and an apparent comma allergy. It's probably churlish of me to point that out, but what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and all that.There is good advice there, among the nonsense. But I've said many times that well-intentioned friends and family are likely to post gushing reviews whether you want them to or not, and that really they're no less objective than a rabid Pratchett fan scribbling a brown-nosing tribute to the latest Discworld novel. If my Mum gave me a five star review with the title "BEST BOOK EVER!!!!" (she really wouldn't, but that's another story) I think it would be sweet, naive, and utterly transparent. But dishonest? Not so much.
I've never really agreed that it's wrong for friends and family to write the occasional honest review.Yes, it's a bit off if an author has ten reviews and they're all from friends and family, especially if they've been asked to do it.
But my friends are legitimate readers and their opinions are as valid as anybody else's. If they didn't like my work, they wouldn't review it. The critics seem to have a vastly inflated sense of how many friends authors have, and how easy it is for us to get friends and family interested.
When any author starts out, their first readers are people they know and I see no problem with the beginning of a review history reflecting that.
As I loathe writing reviews, I only write them for people I feel are my friends through the group.I may have written a couple for books that I dont know the author of through the group, years ago. God, that's and awkward sentence, isn't it? Sorry Andrew. ;)
And every single review I've written is completely honest.
My integrity means the world to me.
He hasn't really said anything that hasn't already been said many times before.
Only if you've read it before of course, Mike.Not all of us go searching for writing blogs. ;)
Writing blogs are very dull, it's why I don't do one.OMG I DID 500 WORDS WHILST SITTING ON THE BUS TODAY LOL THIS OLD WOMAN WAS LOOKING AT ME RIGHT FUNNY WONDERING WHY I WAS LAUGHING TO MYSELF
Bore off.
Lmao, Mike!I've unfriended people on Facebook for posting that sort of thing.
I have a hard enough time getting friends & family to read it, yet alone review it. Half of them say they're sick of hearing me talking about it (even the ones I haven't seen for many months!), half of them trot out the so-annoying "if you were a real author you'd have a proper publisher" BS, and all of them think they're entitled to a free copy.
Knowing my friends and family, were I to ask them to write me some reviews I'd be subjected to wave upon wave of snarky comments. As for the biscuity chap's blog-rant... I kinda liked the covers that he had such a downer on. And if there's one thing that makes me quit reading a review, blog or any article it's an annotated picture of someone from popular culture (irregardless of whether they captain a starship). Mind you they're not as unpleasant as animated GIFs, my personal bugbear.
Ha! You want to stay away from some of the reviews on GR then! GIF city, some of them! The reviews seem to be graded by number of animated gifs per square inch! (I don't hold with these new fangled centimetres - they'e a botch job if ever I saw one!)
Michael wrote: "Writing blogs are very dull, it's why I don't do one.OMG I DID 500 WORDS WHILST SITTING ON THE BUS TODAY LOL THIS OLD WOMAN WAS LOOKING AT ME RIGHT FUNNY WONDERING WHY I WAS LAUGHING TO MYSELF
..."
I agree with you 100%, and I suspect that a lot of other people agree with you as well. Once I stopped blogging about writing, people started reading the blog :-)
I want to know what his qualifications are that make him an expert on writing books and designing covers. I liked the ones he didnt and didnt like the ones he did
He made a good point about the importance of being able to read the title and author name in a thumbnail size pic, though.Hate having to squint at covers.
Being able to read the title was pretty much the only thing the 'good' cover had over the 'bad'.
This is raising a question in my mind.Over the last year, I've been writing a book called 'How Not to Self-Publish'. It's like a worst case survival manual for authors and includes lots of humorous obscure scenarios as well as (in my opinion) some genuinely good advice.
It tackles some of my pet peeves such as calling a book:
❤BRAINS (An apocalyptic zombie thriller novel with FIVE STARS on Amazon.)(Proofread.)iLLUSTRATED (BRAINS series, book 1 of 1)!!!!❤)
The reason I've refrained from publishing (and indeed finishing it) is that I'm worried I'll come across as a sanctimonious bitch and do indies more harm than good.
Having read the responses to the article posted above, I think my fears may be justified.
I'd love to read it though Rosen.We all have different things that bug us.
All part of life's rich tapestry.
Oh and titles like that bug me too!
Me too. Your quarter million trumps my 150, so you must be doing something right...(Actually, my 150 in 5 months isn't too shabby compared with a lot of books, come to that!)
Have to say, I don't need to read any more blogs telling me I don't know what I'm doing. I'm already well aware of that fact.
Jim, the poster of the blog is a good bloke. He writes lots of horror reviews, and Andrew he is dyslexic, hence the errors in what he writes, but Jim has put lots of years and time into building his site, and his blog gets a lot of hits because it's popular among readers and writers. He is writing from a bloggers/reviewers point of view, and I know he gets hundreds of review requests, so he is writing from his own experience.
Tim wrote: "Me too. Your quarter million trumps my 150, so you must be doing something right...(Actually, my 150 in 5 months isn't too shabby compared with a lot of books, come to that!)"
I suspect you're the top side of average Tim.
David wrote: "Have to say, I don't need to read any more blogs telling me I don't know what I'm doing. I'm already well aware of that fact."Read my blog then. It merely tells you I don't know what I'm doing :-)
I wonder how it would go down if an author published a post called 'REVIEWERS YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG'.Jim (Ginger Nuts of Horror) is quite right - authors who argue with reviewers generally end up with egg on their faces.
Jim's article aside, I do get tired of the culture where reviewers are allowed to say whatever they like about authors and their books, no matter how damaging, but if we dare to commentate on how a reviewer does their job, we're the worst in the world.
In general, I'd like to see more two way dialogue between writers and reviewers, like we get on forums like this one. And less 'Authors must do a) b) and c) but anything goes if you're a critic'.
Critic. n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him.There is a land of pure delight,
Beyond the Jordan's flood,
Where saints, apparelled all in white,
Fling back the critic's mud
And as he legs it through the skies,
His pelt a sable hue,
His sorrows sore to recognise
The missiles that he threw.
(Orrin Goof)
Jim wrote: "Once I stopped blogging about writing, people started reading the blog :-)"Yep. I do find most writers blogging about writing to be rather dull. There are exceptions (Chuck Wendig is one I like usually - but even his can get wearisome sometimes).
I do try to be more original in mine, even though it doesn't always (usually) work.
I quite enjoy your blog David.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "I quite enjoy your blog David."Thanks. Much appreciated.
I don't know what to say now.
Oh stop twisting your toe or I'll have to give you blog topic suggestions as I do Jim sometimes.Not that he pays any attention to my suggestions. *pout*
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Oh stop twisting your toe or I'll have to give you blog topic suggestions as I do Jim sometimes.Not that he pays any attention to my suggestions. *pout*"
Ah... suggestions.
Interesting.
There's a blog topic.The power of suggestions.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "There's a blog topic.The power of suggestions."
I will suggest it to the muses and see what they suggest.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Oh stop twisting your toe or I'll have to give you blog topic suggestions as I do Jim sometimes.Not that he pays any attention to my suggestions. *pout*"
You haven't given me suggestions for weeks!
perhaps they were subtle hints, I'm male, I don't do subtle hints.
Yeah, that's it.I'm subtle, me.
Dave sez I'm as subtle as a slapped arse, but what does he know?
How long has he been living with you? There might be a hint in that :-)
A 'How Not To Self-Publish' book would be interesting, as long as we remember that it isn't a case of one size fits all.A few basic premises aside (write an good book, have it edited/proofread, a killer cover), we all go about it in our own way, which is the joy of being an indie. (why do I always get a vision of a bare chested Harrison Ford when I use that word?)
Some of us are brilliant self-promoters, have excellent social media skills and tons of money to throw at Bookbub ads - and some of us aren't/don't.
There's also a very good (i.e. useful) and hilariously funny book called, 'How Not to Write a Novel'. Must re-read that sometime.
Everyone has a right to say what they like, that's the power and the problem of the internet. I'd probably be more interested in Rosen's take on self-publishing than the blog author's, but that doesn't mean there wasn't stuff in the blog that I thought was right and stuff that I thought was wrong. The stuff about the actual covers was right, but the cover that was lauded was rather dull (I thought).My blog isn't the most updated it the world (no Patti), but I only add to it when I have something to say that I think has value, which recently has been reviews of books sent to me by publishers.
You should really never say no to me, Darren.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "You should really never say no to me, Darren."No, Patti.
I'd hate to be you right now.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "I'd hate to be you right now."And you think I don't?
http://gingernutsofhorror.com/4/post/...