04 February, 2012
03 February, 2012
Fake book reviews
Most authors have probably now read the article related to fake book reviews on Amazon. If not, the link is: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1333885/Amazons-amateur-book-reviewing-vicious-free-readers-victims.html
As written you would assume this is something new, but those in the book industry have seen this going on for years. And it isn't the only problem facing authors and readers.
There's also fake promotion. I see this on forums as well where restrictions apply to self-promotion. Authors gang up to "you promote me, I'll promote you". I don't truly have a problem with that if the author doing the promotion has actually read the book and really likes it, but a trade off on promotion where the book hasn't been read looks bad on both authors. Especially if readers of your work buy that book based on your promotion and hate it, find it full of typos, formatting errors and basically a book just not yet ready for publication. What does that make the readers think of you?
I, as an author, and as a reader despise fake book reviews and fake promotion. Amazon's policy on reviews actually prohibits authors from reviewing each other's work, and I can live with that. If I've read a really good book and I want to review it then I do that on my blog site. I also try to provide an author interview at the same time, giving my readers a glimpse of the author as well as their work. And I never review or plug a book I haven't read myself, nor do I do 1 or 2 star reviews. Truthfully, if a book deserves 1 star or even 2 stars--I'm can assure you I didn't finish reading it. And if I didn't finish reading it, then I have no right to offer a review.
Fake tags are another problem occurring in the book industry. Readers searching for a Stephen King book may pull up several others also tagged as Stephen King. Believing the book is similar to Mr. King's work they may even buy the book, only to be extremely disappointed. Authors and readers add tags to books to help readers find a particular type of book. My tags for my book were simple: Mystery, murder mystery, kindle, kindle author, psychological suspense, thriller, 99 cents - etcetera. Other tags were added by other people that have absolutely NOTHING to do with my book. Are they bad tags, no, they're not bad tags, they just don't apply to my book and I HAVE NO WAY TO REMOVE THEM. Which is something readers really need to know--Authors on Amazon cannot remove reviews or tags placed on their books by anyone visiting their book site. We can email customer service and ask that it be removed, but we have no control over whether Amazon will remove it.
Tags, book reviews and promotional sites were put in place to help authors and readers find the types of books they would enjoy reading. The abuse and misuse of these areas creates a black mark on the industry, especially when publishers and/or authors become part of the abuse...
This article continues here (Source: Books.gather.com)
When reviews written under pseudonym go wrong
An extraordinary literary "whodunnit" over the identity of a mystery reviewer who savaged works by some of Britain's leading academics on the Amazon website has culminated in a top historian admitting that the culprit was, in fact, his wife.
Prof Orlando Figes, 50, an expert on Russia and professor of history at Birkbeck College, London, made the startling revelation in a statement through lawyers following a week of intrigue, suspicion, legal threats and angry email exchanges over postings on the website's UK book review pages.
The spat began last week when the Cambridge-based academic, Dr Rachel Polonsky, noticed among the many favourable reviews of her book on Russian culture, Molotov's Magic Lantern, one condemning her efforts as "dense", "pretentious" and "the sort of book that makes you wonder why it was ever published".
It ended on late on Friday evening with the surprise unveiling of Figes's wife, Dr Stephanie Palmer, a senior law lecturer at Cambridge University, barrister, and member of the top human rights specialists, Blackstone Chambers, as the reviewer calling herself "Historian", and responsible for several anonymous online attacks on the works of her husband's rivals.
Indeed, "Historian", who it transpired also generated a profile on the Amazon website under the username "Orlando-Birkbeck", had not only rubbished Polonsky's book, but also other works going back years and including books by Oxford University's Robert Service, biographer of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. The book on Trotsky was a "dull read", that on Stalin "disappointing" and his history of communism derided as "rubbish" and "an awful book".
By contrast, Figes's 2008 work, The Whisperer, was, according to Historian, a "beautiful and necessary" account of the Soviet system, penned by a man possessed of "superb story-telling skills" with this eulogy ending with the fervent wish: "I hope he writes for ever."
This article continues here (Source: The Guardian 2010)
Howard G. Zaharoff on the dangers of using pseudonyms
“Some writers wrongly believe that if they lambaste their enemies under a pseudonym, they can avoid being sued for libel or slander. Though using a pen name may make it harder for plaintiffs to find you, or prove that you (pen person) are you (real person), if they're persistent they'll get you.”
31 January, 2012
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Monde Mdodana on artists
“... There is arguably no era in the development of human culture(s) when art in its varied forms has not played an essential role in reflecting society to itself. Art has always played the role of a mirror, with the artist as the sensitive individual who expresses that which is latent or unconscious in the minds of his fellow men. The paradox of the artist is that although he has to be one of differentiated individuality, he is nonetheless indispensable as a social function; a society without artists would be a society unconscious of itself...”
~ Monde Mdodana
Excerpted from a review published here.
29 January, 2012
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