Reviews...fake...nasty...and contained has been the topic
around the Blogosphere this week.
Goodreads moved to ‘set the appropriate tone’ of reviews on their site this week. But some
cried foul as they saw it as censorship.
As I have said before, if you don’t like the book don’t
review it...or say why you don’t like the book and back it up....
Goodreads new policy is to try to stop the bullying reviews
and personal attacks of authors on the site. The freedom of anonymity, while you
are sitting at home, to write on the internet a corrosive review of a book or
author because you can...and no one will call you out to your face for your
behaviour...brings out the troll in some people. And trolls seem to seek
affirmation of their troll behaviour from other trolls. Any writer putting their head above the
parapet to call out troll behaviour gets targeted. Hugh Howey talks about this and how he was guilty of ducking it until this week...A great article from
Hugh.
Being the geek I am, I read PopSci and this week PopSci looked at a scientific study of negative reviews on science stories and found
that constant negative reviews which are emotive, skewed the perceptions of the
readers to put aside the facts of the science article.
PopSci pulled the plug on comments on their articles on
their website...there are still ways to comment...FB, Twitter.... but not on
their website.
If
you carry out those results to their logical end--commenters shape public
opinion; public opinion shapes public policy; public policy shapes how and
whether and what research gets funded--you start to see why we feel compelled
to hit the "off" switch.
Self-publishing
advice has an article which tells you about the subculture of Amazon Reviewers...yes they talk to each other...
Porter Anderson
spends a lot of his Ether just looking at the articles flying about reviewersthis week and there are many... So take a long break and maybe reach for
alcohol.
The Frankfurt
Bookfair is about to kick off and as usual there are lots of side events
looking at the state of publishing. Publishing Perspectives takes a look at one
aspect that will be big news at the fair... Self Publishing : the industry implications and impact.
Another must read
is Kris Rusch. This week’s stand out article is the stages of an Indie writer.
This is being tweeted around the blogosphere...
Elisabeth S Craig
also has a nice little post on being a Hybrid Writer.
Chuck has always
been Mr Nice when talking about traditional publishers, after all he may cuss
but he is not a hypocrite. (Unlike
a certain author who is getting roundly dissed for his hypocrisy all over the
web.) Chuck traditionally publishes but doesn’t diss Indies or Amazon or anyone
that plays fair... until today when he came out in Chuck mode in an open letter...
Dear Publishers.
In Craft,
Simple Writing has one of the best explanations ofVoice I have read in a while.
In Marketing,
Julie Muesil looks
at the brilliant way that Hugh Howey markets.
MediaBistro takes a
look at how to do book covers with public domain pictures.
DigitalBookWorld
looks at 5 ways that authors can handle bad reviews.
Website to go look
at,
This is an author run co-op with some illustrious members...making waves in the indie publishing
world. Check out how they got together and how they publish their work. I keep
saying this is the way of the future...
To Finish,
SCBWI has introduced a new award for non traditionally published books...and Katherine Applegate (Animorphs) has been signed by HarperCollins for a new series on the strength of 3 sentences...
The green trolls of jealousy should be gathering to pull her
down about now.
More Power to Katherine’s Arm.
I saw in my Twitter feed today a
nice reminder....
If you think your idea is too weird to fly... just remember
these four words.
Teenage. Mutant. Ninja. Turtles.
Feel free to comment....
maureen
Pic courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons/ Frankensteinnn
