World, Writing, Wealth discussion
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DEBBIE'S SPURTS: Why are review swaps not allowed?
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I can sympathize with you, Tim. For me, I simply let time and the word of mouth do their work. It may be slow, but it works...(if your novels are any good).
*pokes spacey weirdo with a stick*Some of us "others" are having a go at book review blogs. Perhaps you gentlemen would consider rolling up your sleeves and getting to work with us?
I'll even lend you some of my war paint ^_~
Seriously, though, I'd love to get some intel on a wide variety of genres. Help? *smiles sweetly* Pretty please?
Hugs,
Ann
Annie wrote: "*pokes spacey weirdo with a stick*
Some of us "others" are having a go at book review blogs. Perhaps you gentlemen would consider rolling up your sleeves and getting to work with us?
I'll even le..."
(spacey weirdo waking up from poking) Uh, thanks for the invitation, Annie, but since I publish my ebooks for free, I feel no financial incentive to push the process. Besides, with a total of over 108,000 downloads for my books on Free-Ebooks.net, time seemingly WAS on my side (this is not to brag, just to say that patience is often rewarded).
Some of us "others" are having a go at book review blogs. Perhaps you gentlemen would consider rolling up your sleeves and getting to work with us?
I'll even le..."
(spacey weirdo waking up from poking) Uh, thanks for the invitation, Annie, but since I publish my ebooks for free, I feel no financial incentive to push the process. Besides, with a total of over 108,000 downloads for my books on Free-Ebooks.net, time seemingly WAS on my side (this is not to brag, just to say that patience is often rewarded).
Michel wrote: "108,000 downloads"Cuz I always quote awesomeness ^_~
I'll letcha know when I hit 100K. I'm just a few copies short at the moment. Like, I dunno, 98,500 or so? ROFLMAO!!!
Very proud of you! Well done!!
Hugs spacey weirdo,
Ann
Oh, and I totes forgot to say! Reviews aren't about financial incentive for me either. I just dig how those suckers look *smirks*
Amazing numbers. Well done, Michel and Ann!
@Mr Nik: I'm
short
98,500 copies ROFLMAO!!!And yes, Mr Michel has done very well ^_^
Annie wrote: "@Mr Nik: I'm short
98,500 copies ROFLMAO!!!
And yes, Mr Michel has done very well ^_^"
Short is a petty nuance. I like the number -:)
Well, I just checked and you'll be happy to know I'm closer to 99K short of 100K.I was being too optimistic. Oopsy daisy! Haha!!
Awesome job, you guys! :)I see offers for review swaps on goodreads almost every day. So there must be a lot of people out there who didn't get the memo.
@Miss Marie: Just to be clear, I'm 100K MINUS 99K hahaha!!@Mr Tim: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
EDIT: Actually, I didn't realize that review swapping was against TOS until recently. I just never did it cuz it felt "icky" to me...
*shrugs*
Haha Annie, I did not quite catch that the first time :D Still impressive!! I don't do review swaps either, for reasons above as well as just plain awkwardness and knowing that authors have had their reviews removed from Amazon. But I have seen swaps offered so much on goodreads that I feel bad for the authors who might find out about this the hard way :-/.
Miss Debbie made a very informational post earlier today. It just happened to be in the help folder, which we're keeping uncluttered to the max (beta reading requests are deleted after their end date) so I'm gonna copy/paste the awesome info into its own thread. Thanks again for the info, Debbie! Greatly appreciate you sharing with us ^_^
Hugs,
Ann
Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)
Annie wrote: "Review swapping is NOT allowed as it violates both GR and Amazon TOS. ..."
Not allowed also are review exchanges or assignment methods that are not directly swapped (e.g., it's not just Author A reviewing Author B then Author B reviewing author A; if a group of Authors A-Q review one of their books then another author in the group is assigned to review your book -- randomly selected, sequenced, escrowed, or whatever -- that's also against policy).
Amazon gets weird on author reviews and what authors can do, period. Plus oddly enforced or allowed even when they do clarify something.
Amazon and goodreads are U.S. consumer review sites. Meaning that the consumer laws require disclosing any services received for a review (including the service of getting review on your own book, swapped or however assigned) would have to be disclosed if allowed. Still has to be disclosed on U.S. sites that do allow authors to review for a review of their own book.
Goodreads used to allow these provided disclosed properly where did not violate U.S. laws and risk massive FTC fines -- you'll still see years and years of the posts in lots of gr groups from when that was allowed. But, goodreads stopped allowing because no one was disclosing receiving the service of a review on their own book (most of the time not even disclosing even when they got the book for free) and because of all the retaliatory rating changes plus groups setting minimum ratings that also were not disclosed ... just ruined it for everyone when goodreads said "allowed but disclose properly" and no one disclosed. Add in gaming the system where Author A not five-starring Author B's book caused many in group to then one-star Author A -- goodreads no longer allows authors to review to get a review of own book.
Other consumer review sites might allow -- but in U.S. disclosure that you are reviewing in order to get your own book reviewed is needed. Plus disclose any conditions like minimum star rating and any free books. Lots of sites are set up for authors to review each other's books (caveat: possibly only other authors are reading those).