Support for Indie Authors discussion
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Defenders of the practice of honest reviews, unite!
The solution will probably need to be bigger than Goodreads. There will probably need to be various parts to the strategy. It's just a matter of thinking up workable solutions, and convincing people to adopt them. You can make social changes from the bottom up, if you care enough, and come up with good ideas, and get other people to help.For example, one obvious part of the solution is to educate authors in general to the damage they do if they fall for such offers to produce positive reviews, and actually pay for them. E.g. I think fewer people fall for the Nigerian Scam these days, because more people know of it.
So the point in proffering solutions that require other people to help implement, or to take certain steps, or to change certain existing processes, is that if they do buy in, and the ideas are workable, the problem gets solved. And when the problem requires bits and pieces of things to be done, then as each piece is done, you make progress, and people can see that it's worthwhile to work to improve things.
Don't underestimate the power that exists when people work together for a common goal, taking the time they need to make good things happen.
damn thats sounds nbot quite right, I do offer ruh services and all but damn promote a book or do a review have a good review because of money it just doesnt diggest with me.
Chikamso wrote: "Not to sound defeatist or anything like that, but save any of us actually getting employed to work for or heading up a reviews verification department within goodreads as an organisation, I don't s..."This. We are not affiliated with, nor do any of us work for Goodreads, so this really isn't the place to dicuss possible solutions. Again, your best bet would be to contact Goodreads directly and offer them the suggestions.
As far as how to contact Goodreads: Click the about us link at the bottom of the page and there will be a contact option.
K.P. wrote: "lolz wut folks only want 4 or higher reviews? pfft 3 is decent. I was happy was the 3s ..."Agreed. I give 3-star reviews to traditionally published big name authors all the time. 3 means "yeah, it was OK." And then in my reviews I'll point out why. Sometimes a 3 is a disappointment (for authors I usually really like, or if the book had much greater potential that was sullied by some flaw). Other times 3 just means I was entertained but probably won't remember the book after 8 months.
I've also given 2-star reviews to books that were seriously flawed, and a few 1-stars for real disappointments.
But I don't agree to do review swaps no matter what. It's just fraught with possible bad things. If they give me a 4 or 5 star and I can't honestly return the favor, that just sets up a possible bad vibe. I've given my reactions to some authors privately, though. And I've done a few reviews for authors I've met here, but only because I actually purchased their book and liked what I read.
Consequently ... I have almost no reviews on my own publications. Oh well. Some works by traditionally published authors I read don't have many reviews either.
Until authors stop using these "services", there will continue to be a market for them. It's like book piracy or any other shady practices in business. If there's' a market for it, it will exist. We can't force Goodreads to verify every member or otherwise change their policies. About the only thing we can do is to report such messages, NOT accept fake services or any other kind of dishonest practicies and encourage other authors to do the same.
Also, here's the contact link. I clicked on "about us" at the very bottom of the page, then "contact" on the next page.https://www.goodreads.com/about/conta...
I totally agree with you Mysti. These services come with demands. Without demands, the services would disappear.
Oh just to explain, the individual doesn't do swap. I wouldn't even have answered him if that had been the case. He approaches people, ask if they would review his book, then sends you book(S) to review and add the little clause to it. I read the first five pages of each of them and decided it wasn't worth wasting my time. All were so similar, I thought he had send me many times the same book with different character names. Oops!
(That was about 2 years ago when I still accepted read for review. I rarely do anymore, so please don't send me requests. :P)
Micah wrote: " 3 means "yeah, it was OK." And then in my reviews I'll point out why. Sometimes a 3 is a disappointment (for authors I usually really like, or if the book had much greater potential that was sullied by some flaw). Other times 3 just means I was entertained but probably won't remember the book after 8 months."That's essentially how I felt about the Mad Max: Fury Road movie. So imagine how far I nearly spat my tea this morning when I saw it was nominated for 10 Academy Awards! Just goes to show, we all get/see something different from our entertainment.
Mysti wrote: "Also, here's the contact link. I clicked on "about us" at the very bottom of the page, then "contact" on the next page.https://www.goodreads.com/about/conta..."
Thanks, just saw your post, Mysti! Done.
Christina wrote: "Chikamso wrote: "Not to sound defeatist or anything like that, but save any of us actually getting employed to work for or heading up a reviews verification department within goodreads as an organi..."I don't understand the relevance of being unaffiliated with Goodreads. I'm also honestly puzzled why you think that this is the wrong place to discuss possible solutions. I see SIA as a group of indie authors, who are seriously affected by this problem. I feel I'm misunderstanding your point, Christina...? I'm struggling to imagine a more suitable forum!
Luke wrote: "I beg to differ: if you're not traditionally published, the "received wisdom" is that reviews are vitally important for your marketing. ..."You are quite right: this is the received wisdom. However, hard data do not support it. So this is an area where caution is needed.
Personally, I am not convinced this is a problem that seriously affects us, in the sense of devaluing reviews. Readers are aware of this and adjust their behavior accordingly. Readers who care about reviews (some do and some don't) tend to be capable of discounting "false positives" and while they tend to look down on books where they believe the author has "plumped" their reviews, this doesn't affect their behavior in a general way (at least, I have seen no indications that it does).
The primary reason is that these services exist is that some authors attach more importance to reviews than they deserve. As Mysti points out: if we authors remove the demand, the practice will die out.
I think I have to agree with that, and I'm not sure if the reviews really carry as much weight as writers sometimes think they do.
Hákon wrote: "I think I have to agree with that, and I'm not sure if the reviews really carry as much weight as writers sometimes think they do."I agree. Reviews do not push sales, but I think they can retard them. No or few reviews seems to be a major losing characteristic. I saw a listing of 5 star reviewed books for Amazon. The algorithm suggested to me that they were ranked by the number of reviews as well as the quality.
As a guess, it appeared that reviews with less than thirteen composed easily 70% of the total list while those with more than 13 were within the first five "pages" of number one.
Having 30,000 reviews like The Martian may not help more than twenty except in the determination of the #1 slot.
That being said, when we are in the throes of worrying about a newly published book, reviews are what you can DO to worry.
Ok, I don't know if it helps the sales or not, but I know most authors love to see that their book is read and that's about the only way they can know for sure.That said, I'll still be writing reviews for both the readers and the authors, although please, any author who doesn't like review, or doesn't read reviews, please let me know so I won't waste my time on them when there are other authors who'd love it and would acknowledge it. :P
Sorry for being sarcastic here but I just don't get authors who say that they don't even sneak a peak at their reviews. To me, that's something very out of the ordinary. I understand the rule 'not to engage' the reviewer but not even look at a review? No way.
W. wrote: "Reviews do not push sales, but I think they can retard them. No or few reviews seems to be a major losing characteristic...."Form what I've observed, this (like many things) appears to be genre dependent and (to an extent) time dependent. Again it's complex. One thing I believe may tend to hurt sales is a review-sales rank mismatch (on Amazon): more reviews than a book would likely get given its sales rank (as perceived by the reader). Readers in some genres tend to be suspicious, and sensitive to such things.
It comes back to how readers assess and assign credibility, and there is no blanket answer for that. This encompasses not just the number of reviews but whether ARC reviews are viewed as a good thing or a negative things, and under what circumstances.
For example, in our genre, it appears that ARC for new authors do not help and may actually hurt. But once an author has become successful and has established credibility with their readership, ARC are accepted as legit and become helpful. But in other genres, ARC reviews appear to help establish credibility for new authors.
The main point about reviews is that they serve a proxy for past commercial success, more than they create it. When trying to evaluate a book's sales track record, reviews can be useful and they are indeed often used that way. And success tends to breed success, so the perception of reviews tends to change as a book becomes more successful.
This is why I believe reviews are a two-edged sword, and we authors should not be so concerned about them: the point at which new authors tend to desire reviews most -- which creates the market for the service this thread started with -- is the time when reviews tend to be weakest or even harmful, if they create the wrong impression. At the point reviews become more valuable, a book is already succeeding well enough that I suspect most of us would have stopped caring much about reviews.
Owen wrote: "Form what I've observed, this (like many things) appears to be genre dependent and (to an extent) time dependent. Again it's complex. One thing I believe may tend to hurt sales is a review-sales rank mismatch (on Amazon): more reviews than a book would likely get given its sales rank (as perceived by the reader). Readers in some genres tend to be suspicious, and sensitive to such things. ..."The thing is, even the ranks change a lot. Sell a few books you go up, stay a few weeks without selling, you go way down. Still doesn't mean you didn't sell and the reviews aren't legit. There's no winning here. :/
Before I went KDP select, I was on B&N. Two reviews were posted. A one from a DNF and a three. Maybe it has something to do with them or maybe not, but I hadn't sold one book after those went up. Coincidence? Maybe, but I'm not going back. I love Select. :)
I have a recent review where the reviewer said that he wasn't sure about my book because it had "so few reviews" (13 at the time he posted his). So it does make a difference to some consumers.
G.G. wrote: "The thing is, even the ranks change a lot. Sell a few books you go up, stay a few weeks without selling, you go way down. Still doesn't mean you didn't sell and the reviews aren't legit. There's no winning here. :/ ..."It does often seem that way. We are dealing with reader perception based in a snapshot of a possibly volatile situation over which we have little or no control. All the more reason not to worry about it.
Joe wrote: "I have a recent review where the reviewer said that he wasn't sure about my book because it had "so few reviews" (13 at the time he posted his). So it does make a difference to some consumers."It does to me now. I never paid attention to that before though. Nowadays, if I have to choose between reviewing a book with no reviews or few of them or one that has hundreds, I'll choose the few ones. So it makes a difference. :P
No but seriously, you have advocate for both. I just think that the ones with the hundreds of reviews already know their books are being read whereas the others still need some reassurance.
Luke wrote: "I don't understand the relevance of being unaffiliated with Goodreads. I'm also honestly puzzled why you think that this is the wrong place to discuss possible solutions. I see SIA as a group of indie authors, who are seriously affected by this problem. I feel I'm misunderstanding your point, Christina...? I'm struggling to imagine a more suitable forum!"The problem with discussing a possible " solution" is that this is a "problem" that is not universal to all indies. SIA is a support group in that we have put together a place where all indies can come, bounce ideas off each other, gain insights, and have a fun, positive experience. Think of this more as a community center than a war room.
Banding together and raising pitchforks against readers is not supportive. Yes, we keep paid reviewers from posting here. We actively keep people from soliciting review swaps and other forms of bad behavior. We actively encourage our members to report abuse and flag bad behavior.
However, what any of you do outside of this forum is not our concern. Just keep in mind that this forum is not private. We aren't rabble rousers here. We do not encourage rabble rousing. We do not want to see any of our authors crash and burn because they got on the wrong side of a Goodreads user group.
Remember: Goodreads is a reader's forum first. Authors are here and maintain our own profiles because at the moment, Goodread lets us. They can change this at any time and there is nothing we can do, except follow their rules and hope that they don't take this away from us.
G.G. wrote: "I know most authors love to see that their book is read, and that's about the only way they can know for sure...."Very true! Reviews might mean more to authors for this reason than because reviews are an effective marketing tool.
Christina wrote: "Same here, JC, though my rule is nothing under a four stars gets posted and I don't give author feedback because I don't let anyone know I'm reading their book. The problem, and the reason why pa..."
I got several of those, but THEY are not only organized, but very computer savvy. The messages are impossible to forward and somehow they evaporate after few hours. I have some saved on my email. I just don't know where to send them.
REVIEWS..... It's not only about the HONESTY and individual INTEGRITY, it actually DOES effects success, too. The AMAZON algorithm is effected by reviews.
Joe wrote: "I have a recent review where the reviewer said that he wasn't sure about my book because it had "so few reviews" (13 at the time he posted his). So it does make a difference to some consumers."As with all things, this is a situation caution is needed. The picture we author get by looking at reviews can be completely distorted, but it the dominant picture we have. Consider that a very small percentage of reviewers leave reviews. It maybe 1 reader in 100 overall. Also the predilections of those readers who are motivated to leave reviews do not necessarily have much in common with those who don't.
By focusing on reviews, we authors run the risk of getting skewed impression from a tiny unrepresentative sample of readers and making decisions that might tend to alienate the vast majority who will never tell us that. This is why I think authors are in general better off ignoring reviews completely. Now I don't do that. I read every review, as do most of us I think. But I don't consider that any review has any wider validity or application.
Mimi wrote: "REVIEWS..... It's not only about the HONESTY and individual INTEGRITY, it actually DOES effects success, too. The AMAZON algorithm is effected by reviews."The idea that reviews affect Amazon algorithms is prevalent, but I've never found any substantiation. Nor is there any valid statistical evidence of a causal link, that I can see. If someone has documented proof of this, describing exactly when and how, it would be great to see it.
I noticed this question was asked, but no one has responded to it. What about outfits like Kirkus? I assume they're honest reviews, and you pay out the nose for them. Do you consider them sock puppets, too? Would you post a Kirkus review on GR?
I've seen a lot of complaints about the paid reviews from Kirkus. Not sure why anyone would pay that kind of money for a review anyway, though I've heard that they do some reviews for free? Not sure on the validity of that. Usually when I see "Kirkus," my first instinct is to assume it was bought.
Roxanne wrote: "I noticed this question was asked, but no one has responded to it. What about outfits like Kirkus? I assume they're honest reviews, and you pay out the nose for them. Do you consider them sock pu..."
A Kirkus review is an editorial review and may be posted anywhere as long as it is posted as such and not as a customer review. Amazon and other retailers have a place for editorial reviews. Personally, I wouldn't pay for a review from anyone, but that's not the point. The point is that customer reviews are for customers. Paying a service to write fake customer reviews is a violation of Amazon's terms of service, yes, but more importantly, it is a violation of the Federal Trade Commission's regulations. If someone was to post their Kirkus review as a customer review, it would be in violation.
Luke wrote: "Yesterday I received an email, sent via the contact email on my blog, with a valid reply-to address.It made me angry. This person offered, for a small sum, to "promote" my book with "honest" well-..."
I'm relatively new to the Indie publishing world, with my first and second novels published in 2015. I decided from the start that I would never pay for a review, although I am happy to provide a courtesy electronic copy of my novels in exchange for an honest review. I've received a few reviews on each book, some from 'verified purchasers' and some from people who have received a courtesy copy.
For better or for worse, at least I know that the reviews my books receive are 'real.'
I've read that Amazon is trying to crack down on paid reviews, but I don't know how successful they have been.
I got my first review on my first book in July of last year. I have six reviews and eight ratings on that book. I have one review on a book published this month.Some were swaps, some were R2R, some were actual readers. I've decided I don't like swaps. When I did them I read the sample before reaching out - so as to make sure the prose wouldn't hurt my brain. I also think my reviews are honest - a bit flowery - but honest. I really did like those books. Whether that means the swap reviews of my book are honest I do not know. Either way, I've decided that I don't like swaps. I won't be doing any more. It didn't sit right with me.
The handful of reviews have led (directly) to a couple of sales. So what I've decided to do is chase sales for a time. I figure if I take the same percentage of my day job that I spend wondering about how to get more reviews - and spend the income from that percentage on advertising, then after a few months I can compare and contrast.
At some stage, at some quantum of reviews sales must follow. At some quantum of sales - then reviews must follow too. Or am I thinking like Amway?
Paying for reviews doesn't make sense to me, either financially of ethically. At the end of the day either the book is going to resonate with a readership or it's not. And that has as much to do with its quality as anything.
It's something like this that makes me wish people would just play by the rules and be honest about a book. If it's not this whole soliciting and paying to write a review then you have trolls who leave bad reviews and bash the author leaving little to the imagination. Its unfortunate that both parties exist and we can only do our best to not fuel their fire, acknowledge them and their ignorant ways and report to Goodreads accordingly.
Someone left me a 1-star (rating only) on Goodreads right after I published my first novel. It was clear he hadn't read my book. After discussing it with a group I belonged to, I came to the opinion that he was just marking the book as one he had looked at and dismissed. His reading material at that time was non-fiction war, mostly of WWII, and his search had erroneously turned up my book. The rating disappeared after a few weeks, so sometimes it's really inadvertent, not an actual rating of your book's content. Maybe that's true in only a few cases, but it's worth considering before you decide that someone really hated your book.
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I haven't been hit with any drive by 'one'ings yet though.
I apologise if I have missed a comment and this has already been said but it does seem that no one has mentioned why 4 and 5 star reviews are so important and keeping 3, 2 or 1 star reviews off your book is vital for sales.Amazon and sometimes Goodreads star ratings are used, not only by readers, but by the email bookselling groups like Bookbub.
How many of you use the many email news letters which go out to readers offering your book on a special price? Most of them will not accept your book without at least 5 five Star reviews or an overall star rating of 4.
Here are some examples:
http://www.ebooksoda.com/ you need 8 reviews of 4 and 5 stars.
http://www.thefussylibrarian.com/submit/ you need 10 reviews of 4 and 5 stars.
http://ereadernewstoday.com/ your book will need to have at least 10 reviews (from Amazon US), an overall 4.0 star rating, be priced 99 cents and be available on Amazon.com.
http://www.thefussylibrarian.com/for-... you need 10 reviews and an overall 4 star rating.
Thus the pressure is on us to get those 4 and 5 star reviews.
NO! I would not pay for a review. I'm with you all on this. But I do not give reviews on Amazon or Goodreads unless I can give a 4 or 5 star review for this reason.
I ran foul of the Goodreads bullies somewhere and found my books being one starred. I was able to prove that these review were false and had most of them removed but for a time I could not use those email newsletters to sell my books. These newsletters are an important part of getting sales so you can see why authors could be reduced to buying reviews.
Demanding honest reviews is not enough. We need to take away an author's need for those 4 and 5 star reviews. There are a few decent groups which offer PR without demanding 4 and 5 star reviews but every author wants Bookbub which demands 15 or 20 5 star reviews and a fat fee!!
Yes, we should stand up for honest reviews. Perhaps we could have a logo attached to our author pages which states that we support and write honest reviews? But until we find a way round those places selling our books which demand 4 and 5 star reviews we are stuck.
Anyone got a brain wave? I did try to get Goodreads to alter their review system to two levels, one for person use only and one for public use. That meant a reader could chose whether to make their opinions public or not. No replies so far after a year!!!
Yes, my only 1-star review has been on Goodreads, and also with zero comment. This made me wonder if the reviewer had even read the book. I don't know the motivation of such a person, but at the time I just shrugged it off. Oh well.
P.D.R. wrote: "I apologise if I have missed a comment and this has already been said but it does seem that no one has mentioned why 4 and 5 star reviews are so important and keeping 3, 2 or 1 star reviews off you..."Thanks for all the info! Wow, some eye openers in your post.
Greatly appreciated. xoxo
P.D.R. wrote: "I apologise if I have missed a comment and this has already been said but it does seem that no one has mentioned why 4 and 5 star reviews are so important and keeping 3, 2 or 1 star reviews off you..."I'll add just add a couple of observations: First, it is true that these service have these requirements, They do because those rating are a proxy for a measuring a book's track record, which is the basis of their business. However, I don't think this should create any "pressure" to get 4 and 5 stars reviews. There are two reason for this: first a proxy is just that. If these services feel that the proxy is becoming unreliable, they will simply find another, so chasing the proxy in hopes of success does not work. Next, while these services do consider reviews, they are not the only thing they consider and they not even the necessarily the most important thing they consider. In the case of BookBub, particularly, it's more like a lottery. So again, no pressure should be created because getting all those reviews does not necessarily increase the chance of success.
The final point, though, is I think the key one: perform a statistical analysis of review number and average rating and sales on Amazon. Does this analysis show a positive causal correlation between sales performance and reviews?
Short answer (based on my analysis): No. Positive reviews do not show a significant causal relationship to sales. Books that sell in large numbers do get reviewer after the fact. Sales success results in reviews. Reviews do not create sales success. This is why they are used as a proxy -- a valid proxy cannot be a driver, it must be an output, or it's not valid.
That is the issue at the heart of review seeking or any concern with reviews beyond the personal impact. From the business perspective, trying to take and output and convert it into a driver, yields poor results.
So the best thing an author can do from a business perspective, according to my analysis, is to simply ignore reviews. Allow them to come in naturally. Do to otherwise rarely helps and may do harm.
Note: As I understand it, Bookbub does not consider GR reviews -- only reviews on the sales outlets it will link to. I am not sure about the other services. The ability on GR to simply leave a rating with a click undermines the credibility of GR ratings, so I would be surprised if a service would consider them. But I can't say that for certain.
Owen, do you know http://authorearnings.com?Welcome to AuthorEarnings – a website for authors, by authors
Our purpose is to gather and share information so that writers can make informed decisions. Our secondary mission is to call for change within the publishing community for better pay and fairer terms in all contracts. This is a website by authors and for authors.
Do their findings agree with yours?
And the trouble is that it is all very well saying 'Oh ignore the need for reviews.' but if you are about to launch a PR programme
for your newest book now and intend using these email newsletters, they want Amazon 4 and 5 star reviews, and a high overall rating and ask for them.
They have not found a new method yet. We are dealing with the now of trying to sell books.
Yes, Bookbub does ignore GR but they do demand Amazon reviews and a rating plus that steep fee.
Reviews are, alas, still a part of getting our Indie books in front of the readers. We can be rational and logical and say reviews don't count, but we are trapped in a cycle where we have to have reviews to get our books out in those newsletters to readers.
What actually sells a book is a darned good story, well written in a different way, which intrigues the reader who then tells hir friends about it. Word of mouth is best. We know that.
BUT
we have to get our books out in front of the readers.
Oops! forgot to say thank you for the nice comment to Mimi.
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That's the truth. Everything else is just throwing your dice, even with "proven success".
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That and patience. And writing more darned good stories. And patience. And more patience. And more stories...
P.D.R. wrote: "What actually sells a book is a darned good story"Dunno, I'd argue that what makes a book is a darned good story, but a darned good story that no one knows about doesn't sell. Vicious cycle!
Let's just remind ourselves.... It's a marathon, not a sprint. :-)
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P.D.R. wrote: "And the trouble is that it is all very well saying 'Oh ignore the need for reviews.' but if you are about to launch a PR programme for your newest book now and intend using these email newsletters, they want Amazon 4 and 5 star reviews, and a high overall rating and ask for them...."I understand your perspective there. My point is simply that if I intend to use those newsletters, which want Amazon 4 and 5 star reviews, and I don't have them, I simply wait. I can wait 3 years or 5 years or 10 or as long as I need to be properly positioned to use those newsletters. Or until new opportunities appear. Our books never go out of print. There is no time pressure, no date when we are cut off from success. If our books don't succeed commercially in our lifetime, they might in our children's.
Dwayne hit the nail on the head by saying it takes writing and patience, and more writing and more patience. So I don't think we are dealing with the "now" of selling books. We are dealing with opportunities that become available whenever they become available, which might be now or in the future, and we need to nothing but write and be patient so we can benefit from them when they occur.
By the time our books get enough reviews to make Bookbub happy (leaving aside the fact that Bookbub considers many other factors), Bookbub may no longer exist or be irrelevant. The landscape maybe quite different. This concerns me not at all. I will seize the opportunities I see when I see them.
So no worries about reviews, and no pressure.
Joe wrote: "P.D.R. wrote: "Dunno, I'd argue that what makes a book is a darned good story, but a darned good story that no one knows about doesn't sell. Vicious cycle! "It's worth bearing in mind that books become known in different ways, including some we are unaware of. We should not succumb to the view that we are solely responsible for getting our books out there.
Oh yes, my colleagues and I in our writer's co-operative have a five year plan, but Amazon put out more than 3 million books last year.It gets harder to get books seen and some of us have to eat!
I got an email in my Google account from someone who sells Goodreads and Amazon reviews. S/he offered a long list of services and packages starting at $5. I wish I had kept some of the information from the email, but I was so furious that I completely spaced sharing the sender's information on this thread.
Honestly, I was looking for a way to make this person's life a little uncomfortable because it was apparent that this person knew that s/he was violating Amazon's and Goodreads TOS. Since I offer a newsletter on my blog through MailChimp, I am somewhat familiar with the Can-Spam Act. I did some research and figured out that this kind of email is considered a "commercial" email under the Can-Spam Act. Since the email did not have any of the features required by this law, I reported the sender to the FTC and Google.
I know that it's a drop in a very large bucket; especially since these people have multiple ISPs, MAC addresses, emails, and user accounts. However, there is a certain amount of satisfaction to be gained when turning individuals such as these in for Can-Spam violations and it is something that we as individuals can do to make life a little more difficult for folks who try to prey on indie authors while playing the system.
Honestly, I was looking for a way to make this person's life a little uncomfortable because it was apparent that this person knew that s/he was violating Amazon's and Goodreads TOS. Since I offer a newsletter on my blog through MailChimp, I am somewhat familiar with the Can-Spam Act. I did some research and figured out that this kind of email is considered a "commercial" email under the Can-Spam Act. Since the email did not have any of the features required by this law, I reported the sender to the FTC and Google.
I know that it's a drop in a very large bucket; especially since these people have multiple ISPs, MAC addresses, emails, and user accounts. However, there is a certain amount of satisfaction to be gained when turning individuals such as these in for Can-Spam violations and it is something that we as individuals can do to make life a little more difficult for folks who try to prey on indie authors while playing the system.
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Good point