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Reviewers vs Honesty


cseresz.reborn

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Ocean of mediocrity? Read a lot of self-published work, have you, Patrick ;-)

About a third of my reading is self-published, and sure, there's dross out there, but perhaps not as much as you might think. It's also easy to avoid. The rest falls into the same pattern as traditionally published works: some mediocre, most of it good to very good, a very few outstanding. It also often falls outside the conventional styles, sometimes in highly original ways. Or, to put it another way, you never know quite what you're going to get...

You've piqued my curiosity - Examples? Thanks!

(Also, how do you avoid the bad, reading the previews for Kindle?)

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You are talking about one drop in an ocean of mediocrity, my friend...

Until self-published authors routinely receive such starred reviews from trusted sources, there is no debate...

Patrick

More than a drop, surely...

But I agree; there is no debate here.

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You've piqued my curiosity - Examples? Thanks!

(Also, how do you avoid the bad, reading the previews for Kindle?)

I'm no reviewer, but I'll answer. I almost never buy any book - independent or signed - without a look-see, and after a page or two I can usually tell if the author knows how to write or not. It's no skill specific to me, and I am sure most reviewers can do the same. I don't understand how that's some incredible time-waster, but whatever.

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I find the safest thing to do is assume all bloggers are liars and all of their reviews are a massive pack of lies. Then I use a complex mathematical equation based on each individual review to calculate the precise objective score out of ten (the 1-10 scale is the only correct way to rate things).

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My defense of indie authors notwithstanding, I did have an cringeworthy experience a few weeks ago. My co-author and I were doing a reading at a local bookstore, along with three other authors, one of whom had published through a vanity press. (The tool of the devil!**) This author's work was completely amateurish, and after listening for a few minutes I wanted to shout, "Learn how to write before you actually self-publish, because you're making the rest of us indies look bad!"

**Satan and I agree on most things, but vanity presses truly are toxic.

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My defense of indie authors notwithstanding, I did have an cringeworthy experience a few weeks ago. My co-author and I were doing a reading at a local bookstore, along with three other authors, one of whom had published through a vanity press. (The tool of the devil!**) This author's work was completely amateurish, and after listening for a few minutes I wanted to shout, "Learn how to write before you actually self-publish, because you're making the rest of us indies look bad!"

**Satan and I agree on most things, but vanity presses truly are toxic.

Since my view of self-publishing (one that is not generous) is almost entirely built on my accidental-or-forced brushes with vanity press, perhaps you can enlighten me: why is that worse than self-publishing through any other means? Or was his terribleness and his vanity-press status just a coincidence?

Also: congrats and stuff on the publication.

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Since my view of self-publishing (one that is not generous) is almost entirely built on my accidental-or-forced brushes with vanity press, perhaps you can enlighten me: why is that worse than self-publishing through any other means? Or was his terribleness and his vanity-press status just a coincidence?

Also: congrats and stuff on the publication.

Thanks!

Vanity presses are evil because their customers are not readers; they make their money by selling books and book services to authors. That results in a book that is awfully expensive, because the author must cover what he/she paid to the press and then try to make some kind of royalty.

Now, my coauthor and I were fortunate in that between us we had most of the skills necessary to produce a book. He is a programmer and was able to set up our Web site and format the Kindle and Nook versions of the book, and I am former sorta-graphic designer capable of laying out the paperback and creating print-ready files. We had only to commission artwork (well, and write the novel, of course!) The vanity press would of course take care of these services...for a hefty per-book fee. Really hefty. To give you some idea, the author to which I so obliquely referred was charging $21.40 for a 183-page, 9 x 7 paperback book, which in my view is pretty pricey. It had to be, for the author to make any money from sales, but I don't know how persuasive that will be to the consumer.

Oh, and the terribleness was just that she was clearly inexperienced and inept. Perhaps with some classwork and involvement in writing groups she would improve, but at the time of the reading her work was just not ready for prime time. As her publisher would have told her, if the publisher were concerned about getting books to readers.

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You've piqued my curiosity - Examples? Thanks!

Most awesome - Andrea K Host's Medair duology. Unconventional in a score of different ways, not a high-action book, more introspective, but very thought-provoking. And completely gender-neutral (for those who are interested in such things). The only self-pub book I've given a 5* review to so far.

Slightly more conventional: Sue Rule's Shehaios Trilogy. A terrifically complex protagonist, interesting conflict of two societies, great magic system.

Beautifully written: Tom Kepler's The Stone Dragon, about a dream-mage, charming, funny, unusual, with undertones about the nature of consciousness (most of it over my head). With dragons (yay!). There are some short stories, too - Who Listened To Dragons.

And I have to mention TrackerNeil's own book, The Duchess of the Shallows, which isn't deep or grimdark, but is well-written and entertaining. It was a pleasure to read. And nobody paid me to review it. :-)

(Also, how do you avoid the bad, reading the previews for Kindle?)

The same way I do for any book: check the Amazon or Goodreads page, read the reviews, read the sample. You can spot the rubbish a mile away - typos or grammatical errors in the blurb, for instance, or bad cover art, or bad formatting in the sample. And a couple of pages of the sample is enough to tell whether the style is going to drive me nuts. But I find that most of what I reject isn't bad, so much as not my thing (vampires and such like). I'm kind of selective.

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First, please be gentle...this is my first post in the forum. I've been lurking for a bit but have been too intimidated to post on any of the other topics. This is, however, an area I know something about, from a couple different perspectives.

I was an entertainment reporter, yes, professionally, for several years for a metropolitan daily. Mostly music, but occasionally movies and books. I did this in the years of the dotcom boom and bust. When I started, publicists showered me with free books and CDs and movie passes. By the time I left the industry, I was lucky if I could get an advance copy of an album that would actually play on my PC and wasn't drowning in its own DRM. (Note: the dearth of review material by the end was not due to my reviews, but rather the changing economy and shrinking budget of conventional music industry players.)

Now, while I'm in a different career that lets me live a nomadic life (and also negates the need for me to attend Britney Spears concerts. *Shudder*), I write fiction on the side and have recently tested the indie publishing waters. With no small amount of tenacity I was able to put my dark historical novel out there totally on my own, without a vanity press or its expenses (I agree with a few earlier posters...vanity presses are parasitic entities, preying on the gullible).

That's the backstory.

When I was writing reviews professionally, I always labored to be objective. I tried to put the concert/album in a greater pop culture context rather than merely come down on "this is good" or "this is bad." Was it derivative? Was it innovative? Did the artist deliver on fans' expectations or connect with them in a way that made sense in his idiom?

I felt my personal preference didn't count for squat. That's how I ended up giving great reviews to artists I personally disliked and sometimes savaging a few of my favorites. I have to say a lot of other reviewers I knew did not take this approach. They'd gloat about looking forward to disemboweling (uhm, metaphorically speaking) an act "just to prove people are stupid" or would trip over each other in a rush to be seen as one of the tastemakers hip enough to "get" the latest In Thing.

What I found interesting about the whole process was how often readers interpreted my attempt at objectivity as a personal attack on their subjective tastes. If I didn't say I loved what they loved, I was an idiot. If I didn't say I hated what they hated, I was an idiot.

I came to the conclusion that writing reviews professionally, at least in the way I did, attempting to be objective, was a sisyphean endeavor. People didn't want that. It seemed they wanted me either to be a member of their tribe or to stand there as "the enemy" and take their slings and arrows. That was one big reason I left music journalism (also, I couldn't bear the thought of attending another Kenny G show).

On the other hand, now, as an indie author, I am, well, horrified at the review system out there. A few total strangers found my blog through Wordpress' random blog of the day, read the excerpt, liked it enough to sample it and then buy it and read it and posted awesome reviews on Amazon, GoodReads, etc. I want to hug them, whoever they are. But I've also been inundated with offers from other indie authors to "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" with a positive review. I look at their Amazon previews and think, uhm, no. I can't go there. I want attention for my book, but not if it means compromising some basic principles. I've also had a few "send me your book free and I'll shill for it" offers which are equally odious.

I guess it's no wonder I always come up as Ned in the "which character are you" quizzes.

Still reading? Oh good (I read the Rules for these forums...they said, no one-liners, lol!)

So my take on reviews is that most of them, professional or not, are useless if the focus of the review is to say the book/album/movie is good or bad, a 3 or a 7 or a 10. Not only do I feel it's too subjective, but it's too easy for a bogus review to be taken seriously. If the review's focus is on the book's themes, general style (spare, dense, etc), then I pay attention. Those reviews tell me the reviewer probably actually read the book, for starters, and do a better job at informing me as a potential reader.

I suspect, however, based on my experiences in the mosh pit of entertainment journalism, that I'm in the minority, and most readers just want to find someone like-minded, someone of their tribe, so to speak, to tell them what's good or bad. If that's the case, I think sham reviews will continue to flourish.

Anyway, that's my two cents, plus a couple extra wordy bucks. Thanks for reading. I'm excited (but still feeling a little daunted) to have joined these forums.

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On the other hand, now, as an indie author, I am, well, horrified at the review system out there. A few total strangers found my blog through Wordpress' random blog of the day, read the excerpt, liked it enough to sample it and then buy it and read it and posted awesome reviews on Amazon, GoodReads, etc. I want to hug them, whoever they are. But I've also been inundated with offers from other indie authors to "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" with a positive review. I look at their Amazon previews and think, uhm, no. I can't go there. I want attention for my book, but not if it means compromising some basic principles.

That's a tough situation, I agree. My policy is this: I don't expect anyone to read my book, and I don't feel obligated to read anyone else's. However, when a kindness is done for me - say, a positive review or free publicity - I am happy to respond with a favor of the same magnitude if not the same type. I'm not going to say I like a book I don't, but I might be willing to mention it on my blog, assuming of course that more than twelve people read the thing.

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That's a tough situation, I agree. My policy is this: I don't expect anyone to read my book, and I don't feel obligated to read anyone else's. However, when a kindness is done for me - say, a positive review or free publicity - I am happy to respond with a favor of the same magnitude if not the same type. I'm not going to say I like a book I don't, but I might be willing to mention it on my blog, assuming of course that more than twelve people read the thing.

That's the approach I'd like to take, but that's clearly not what these people are expecting. And I figure, if that's their attitude, what's to stop them from posting a negative review purely out of spite? It's something I'm still sorting through. Thanks for the reply, though.

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So my take on reviews is that most of them, professional or not, are useless if the focus of the review is to say the book/album/movie is good or bad, a 3 or a 7 or a 10. Not only do I feel it's too subjective, but it's too easy for a bogus review to be taken seriously. If the review's focus is on the book's themes, general style (spare, dense, etc), then I pay attention. Those reviews tell me the reviewer probably actually read the book, for starters, and do a better job at informing me as a potential reader.

All reviews are subjective, to a degree. Even those at the formal critique end of the spectrum are going to be influenced by the reviewer's own tastes and opinions. I don't actually think there's any such thing as 'good' or 'bad' (in the broadest sense) about creative arts like writing (or music, for that matter). They can be technically bad, perhaps - bad grammar or wrong notes - but I don't think it's sensible to say that one book is 'better' than another as if there's some linear scale. It's not quantifiable. Different books have different ambitions, different audiences, and they should be judged accordingly, and whether the reviewer enjoyed it or not is as good a measure as any other.

Personally, I don't mind how subjective it is, so long as the reviewer explains why s/he did or didn't like it. You're right that a good/bad or marks-out-of-ten review isn't helpful. The more detail the better. I don't know whether readers of book reviews are looking for validation of their own views in the way you've seen with music fans, but I know what I look for: some way to determine whether I would enjoy the book or not. So even a very negative review might be helpful: if it goes 'this book is terrible, it's got too much detailed world-building, boring old dragons and no decent battles', I'm going to be saying: yay, where can I get it?

Good luck with the book, by the way. Bit dark for me, but it looks like a nice piece of work.

And welcome to the forum.

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  • 2 weeks later...

But I've also been inundated with offers from other indie authors to "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" with a positive review. I look at their Amazon previews and think, uhm, no. I can't go there. I want attention for my book, but not if it means compromising some basic principles.

I'm sure this is pretty common in the publisher world too, where authors are asked by their editors to give a blurb to another novel in-house.

I remember picking up a book because Martin had a blurb on it, and was amazed how poor the book was (no I don't recall the title, just the bad taste in my mouth). I also remember picking up a book with a Jordan blurb, which eventually led me to this forum. ;) I still give new books a closer consideration when an author I like recommends them, but I do so with more scrutiny.

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That's the approach I'd like to take, but that's clearly not what these people are expecting. And I figure, if that's their attitude, what's to stop them from posting a negative review purely out of spite?

Nothing, really. We live in an age in which even the most angry, unbalanced, disgruntled fool gets a microphone and the opportunity to shriek into it. All we can do is be nice to those with whom we interact and hope they reciprocate. However, my experience has been that the majority of people are decent enough if they feel they're treated respectfully.

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I'm sure this is pretty common in the publisher world too, where authors are asked by their editors to give a blurb to another novel in-house.

I remember picking up a book because Martin had a blurb on it, and was amazed how poor the book was (no I don't recall the title, just the bad taste in my mouth). I also remember picking up a book with a Jordan blurb, which eventually led me to this forum. ;) I still give new books a closer consideration when an author I like recommends them, but I do so with more scrutiny.

Yes, very common...that's why I don't even read author blurbs. But one thing I will say about that kind of tit-for-tat blurbing in the conventional publishing industry...the books have gone through, at the very least, an editor. Some of the stuff people were approaching me to review was seriously the equivalent of scribbling random thoughts on a napkin. I think the indie publishing world is a great place. I just wish people cared enough about their work, and the industry as a whole, to give it a wee scrub and polish before sending it out into the world.

But all's well that ends well...I've got five reviews on Amazon now for Plaguewalker, all of them five star and only one from a family member...it's my brother, my severest critic, and I wish there was a way for me to note that if he said he liked it, he really liked it! Ususally he's the first to tear apart my stuff!!

Cheers

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Good luck with the book, by the way. Bit dark for me, but it looks like a nice piece of work.

And welcome to the forum.

Thanks, Pauline...I don't get online as much as I'd like given that I'm in Antarctica (really) so I'm just seeing your reply now. My mom's 72 year old, conservative, very Catholic friend *loved* the book (I didn't even know she read it till she FBed me!) which gives me hope that maybe my audience is larger than goth kids and Rammstein fans, lol (I say that as a grown-up goth kid and longtime Rammstein fan).

Thanks again for the welcome!

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I think the indie publishing world is a great place. I just wish people cared enough about their work, and the industry as a whole, to give it a wee scrub and polish before sending it out into the world.

It's a fair point. Publishing independently is not a good excuse for putting crap out there. However, I'd argue that neither is traditional publishing, and yet I've read some books - published by major houses - that were simply dreadful. Polished, sure, but dreadful nonetheless. I am far from certain that the involvement of a publishing house always improves a novel.

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It's a fair point. Publishing independently is not a good excuse for putting crap out there. However, I'd argue that neither is traditional publishing, and yet I've read some books - published by major houses - that were simply dreadful. Polished, sure, but dreadful nonetheless. I am far from certain that the involvement of a publishing house always improves a novel.

Oh, don't get me wrong...a scrub and polish does not improve a poorly told story at all. I'm talking about indie authors who assume readers will just visualize punctuation and capitalization or allow for massive issues. One author noted, when introducing his novel on one of the indie publishing forums I lurk around, "the beginning is a mess but stick with it and the middle is much better." Uhm....nice honesty, I suppose, but I think an author--any author--owes it to his readers to keep working on a piece until it's readable.

But I absolutely agree that many a big house has put out many a piece of polished poop. :cool4:

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One author noted, when introducing his novel on one of the indie publishing forums I lurk around, "the beginning is a mess but stick with it and the middle is much better." Uhm....nice honesty, I suppose, but I think an author--any author--owes it to his readers to keep working on a piece until it's readable.

Ouch. That's just not the way you approach self-publishing; in fact, when my coauthor and I decided to go that route, we put more pressure on ourselves to make a good product. We had no major (or minor) publishing house to lean on, nor any publicity machine, so if the book wasn't the best we could make it...what did we have?

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