Reviewers Behaving Badly

I've become just as suspect as anyone about the legitimacy of reviews. With authors paying for reviews, begging for five stars and dressing up as consumers to write inflated reviews of their own books it’s hard to trust all five of those shiny stars. But what happens when those seeming "authors behaving badly" are actually reviewers doing it themselves? Can a gushy, happy, joy-joy 5-star review actually be more detrimental to an author than a 2-star one?

From some personal experience, some fellow author's experiences and a little observation, here are some pitfalls authors may encounter even in honestly obtained reviews.

1. The Facebook Comment As Review

 

"Omg, my cousin totally wrote this book and it's amazing! I don't read at all, but I think everyone should buy this book because my cousin spent a lot of time and money on this and it's so cool that I'm related an author! 5 stars for Brooke and her awesome accomplishment!"

Ok, fine, if you want to put something like this on your Facebook page, knock yourself out but for the love of literary kittens do not post it on a distributor like Amazon or B&N or a review site like goodreads. It makes the author look like they have been soliciting reviews. I have no doubt the author (poor made up Brooke in this case) did NOT ask for an overzealous cousin to post this, but sadly some excited friends and family members do. Unless you have read the book and have more of an opinion as to why it's good besides knowing the author personally, keep things like this on Facebook, not on review sites.

2. The Skimmer Writes a Review

"This is a great time-travel piece. The characters find a magical creek and drink the water and are transported to the Civil War where they free slaves from an auction. I loved the narrator and her brother was so funny. 5 stars."

Well, that's great, but in the book, they go to the creek AFTER they get tossed back in time because it is the only natural landmark they have to go by. Then they find out they are in 1855 (the Pre-Civil War era) and a vigilante group of abolitionists plots to steal slaves from an auction. And the narrator doesn't have a brother, that guy is just her friend, though the narrator does lie that he's her brother so it doesn't seem so improper they are traveling together for the time period.

See the difference? I've had authors mention people recounting events in their books that never happened or are so skewed they make the story seem, well, stupid. Especially in fantasy, horror, or sci-fi when oversimplification can make even great books sound lame, it is pretty darn important for reviewers to know what they read. I’ve seen many readers at the library claim to “love” books they’ve only skimmed. It happens. But don’t write an incomplete review. It makes the author look like they don’t know how to tell a story and consumers will think the 5-star rating is unjustified.

3. The Stalker

"This was a great book. It was entertaining and the characters were likeable, yet had heroic energy that provided a wonderful escape. 5 stars."

What's so wrong with that, you ask? Well, nothing, the first time around. But when it's posted on Amazon, and B&N, and Smashwords, and Goodreads, and... well, you get it. I had an author friend who had an excited fan who actually created multiple accounts to put the exact same review everywhere the book was sold. I have a hard enough time keeping track of where my books are distributed... but a reader? My friend didn't know what to do because she never asked the guy to put the review up in the first place let alone in ten places. She was worried someone would think she paid a robot to put the review up everywhere. I know I like to look at multiple sites with book reviews and if I saw the same one twice I would be suspicious. The same has happened with excited fans posting multiple promotions for an author's book on all their social media until their friends become annoyed at them and, of no fault to the author, the author as well. Authors love when friends and fans help promote the work, but when done badly it makes the author look egotistic and amateurish.

4. The Silent Anonymous That Loved Your Book

Anonymous. 5 stars. There is no text for this review.

Hey look five stars! Click. No comment. Just a sad blank spot. As an author this can be frustrating. With any extreme review like 5 or 1 stars, the author wants a little feedback… What did I do wrong? What did I do right? I must admit that on goodreads I am guilty of just posting stars and no review. But on say B&N, the anonymous option leaves no feedback whatsoever for authors or consumers. At least goodreads includes a name, profile, and shelves the reviewer put the book on so consumers can tell what demographic the reviewer fits into to give some inkling of why they reviewed book highly in the first place. Anonymous doesn’t. I mean, sure remain anonymous if you want to give a bad review so the author doesn't behave badly and find you on FB or some junk, but a good review? Readers have no way to know why those 5 stars are there. Naturally I'm more suspicious of anonymous 5 stars than anonymous 1 star. (Which may be a good thing, considering so many anonymous 1-star reviews.) Sad but true.

 5. The "I Never Should Have Published Short Stories for Free if You Don't Get It" Reviewer

 "1 star, this was only like, 20 pages long!"

"I got this book for free and it's not even a book, there's like one chapter! 1 star."

"This book stops after the good part, WTF. 1 star."

"I liked this but it's not very long at all and I'm confused where's the rest lol. 1 star."

"If I open it and its less than 20 pages long, I'm just giving it one star."

 All right, so this isn’t a 5-star review, but an unfair review I think can sometimes be because of bad reviewer behavior.

Don’t get me wrong. I hate when an author uses confusing wordage to promote a short story (“A short novelette of epic proportions!”) then charges $2.99 (or more!) for it. If the consumer is made to believe that they are paying for a whole book because the author is greedy then of course they should be mad.

But when the word “short story” is in the description, and on the title page/cover and the story is free… well, then give me another reason for a 1 star rating then the fact that it was just a short story.

I think authors have every right to publish their short stories as ebooks if they are honest about what they are doing, but that’s a whole other blog post.

6. Authors Behaving Badly As Reviewers Making Other Authors Bad In A Terrible Spiral of Bad

In an email: "Hey I totally reviewed your book on my blog 'cuz it was good and indie and stuff. Here's the link to the post so you can share it! Attached is my novella kind of about the same thing you wrote if you want to review it on your blog, just do it by October because I'm promoting the release of my new book "Best Book Ever" then. By the way you rock, let me know when you're next book is out so I can review it!"

 This has happened a couple times now that I've been including my email in the back of books/my blog/at the end of short stories. So I click on the link and there's a picture of my book from Amazon and some generalities taken from the sample chapters but when I click to view the whole blog, my post is buried under another 8 posts of other indie books and guess what? They're all amazing and happy and great. But the sad thing is, some of the authors really did share the link and review the attached novella and give it high ratings just because some random author exploited their desire to be reviewed. It’s a sick, sad, un-genuine cycle of reviewing badness and it makes my head hurt.

I understand we indies need to help each other out, but to me this good review in exchange for a good review is dishonest nonsense. It’s one thing if you actually like the book, but if you’re just giving a book 5 stars because the author threw some glittery BS to you in an email then you are doing other indies a great disservice.

 Go give an indie author you really enjoy those 5 stars and a thoughtful review before their anonymous cousin does it for you.

Quitting YouTube

I finally got around to removing all my videos from YouTube. (Well, technically, all but one.) And it feels great.

I opened up a YouTube account over 7 years ago to do vlogs, book reviews, and talk about writing topics. Well, just like this blog, I had no focus (or publication credits!) when I started, and I did numerous re-launches of my page. Eventually doing videos just seemed like a drag. It wasn’t fun or productive anymore and I finally had to say, enough is enough. I’m starting over.

Looking over why YouTube didn’t work for me, I came up with 5 main reasons. I think YouTube can work in favor for authors to promote work or get book reviews out in a different medium than written word. Perhaps some insight can be gleaned from the problems I encountered. Here’s my list.

1. My videos were too long.

I tried to cut down my videos, but even short reviews ended up being at least 6 minutes long. I usually hit 7-9 minutes, which is way too long in my opinion. Often I would ramble in the video for 20 minutes before editing and it was taking too much time. For me it's easier to edit a written book review, to get everything I want to say in without rambling. I just never got the hang of it on video. And since I never got it with book reviews I didn’t even attempt to do writing advice videos.

2. Haters gonna hate.

I'm not saying I quit because of the haters. Quite honestly I need all the rehearsal I can get with them as I am a self-published author putting my work out there to be judged. But YouTube is not a site specifically for books, writing, and reviews. I got a lot of senseless traffic on my videos, not even commenting on what I had to say about a book or concept. I had to delete random derogatory terms (I find it amazing how many users get a kick out of leaving one worded comments like "slut" or "bitch" for no reason.) or random comments like "You said you stole this book off your husband's shelf, I can't believe he even did you let along married you." or the ever direct "You're ugly." The best one I ever got was "I don't want to have sex with you.”

(Side rant: I noticed nearly all these random comments had to do with telling me I was unattractive/not sex-worthy. I hate to say that in 2013 that something as stupid as YouTube comments are contributing to a society that is anti-woman. But seriously, putting women down for voicing their opinion by going after their looks has been around since the Victorian era, get a new gimmick. Rant over.)

I can completely understand getting heated over your favorite books. But all the other stuff that had nothing to do with anything was really getting old. I love goodreads because at least the drama that breaks out there is about the topic at hand and not anonymous trolls lurking around with nothing productive to say.

3. I thought about getting more views instead of bettering my content.

I reviewed books that I thought would get views, not necessarily books I liked or wanted to talk about after I read them. Since my heart wasn't in it, making the reviews was no fun and after awhile I just kept putting it off. When I did do videos, the content wasn't as good because it seemed like a chore to get views rather than something I was doing to spread news about good books.

4. I have nothing new to say about popular fiction.

It's great that I decided to discuss Chopin's “The Awakening,” but really, I have nothing new to say about the classics. My interest in discussing fiction rests in contemporary fiction and young adult fiction that features disabled characters. Other than that, I would most likely discuss non-fiction. I think I was trying to emulate other book reviewers instead of being true to myself. Which goes along with #3… if you’re heart is not into it, you’re going to fail.

5. Writing reviews is sometimes better than recording them.

I fell behind in my book reviews on YouTube because most of the time I just wanted to write the reviews. I think some reviews are better typed while others would be fine on video. Same with discussing writing topics. Instead of doing both I held myself to the video format and ended up neglecting many reviews that I should have written instead. If you start making videos, understand that not every review/topic will make a good video. Don’t overlook other mediums just because you make videos.

 

So, there it is. Am I done making videos? Nope, not at all. I can post videos directly to my blogs and I am interested in looking into the goodreads video posting feature. I have many new ideas and now that I'm being true to what I want to discuss the videos will help instead of hinder my online presence and the way I interact with others online and via social media.

I suppose quitting YouTube was a lot like my decision to Self-Publish. The platform YouTube offers is vast, but I was swept away in everything that went with it. By focusing my goals and intentions I can get my content out there to those I mean to get it to. Though the audience is potentially smaller, it is more effective for what I am working at accomplishing.

6 ways to be "that" annoying author on Facebook

With all the talk of author brands, online platforms, and finding more outlets to promote work, Facebook seems like an ideal place for an author to connect and advertise. In many ways it is, but if you're not careful you will quickly turn into that annoying person on Facebook, who gets blocked or removed from your friend's news feeds. As an author that uses Facebook with other authorly friends, here are the six most annoying things (in my opinion) an author can do on Facebook.

1. Creating too many pages, and wanting your friends to like ALL of them.

Having multiple pages for pen names or keeping your personal page separate from your author page is often necessary. But don't go overboard. I know authors that on top of having a personal page and multiple pen name pages, they make pages for each book published. Way too much, especially when the author sends like/friend invites to their entire friend's list each time they make a new page. There are only so many things friends will like before you start getting ignored.

2. Word for word multiple postings and shares.

Posting things on your author page AND your personal page word for word will show up as repetitive clutter in friend's feeds that are linked to both your pages. I am guilty of doing this from time to time and I should stop, because it is annoying. Not to mention it doesn't give anyone a reason to like/friend an author page if you post everything to your personal page as well. If you want to promote works via other pen names or your personal page, spread it out and don't copy paste. It's easy: Post. Wait a day. Post with different wordage. But only on really important things like a new book or maybe a promo.

3. No content other than "buy my book."

Not only will you get boring to your friends, new people that check out your page (who may have already bought your book) won't want to subscribe to you on FB unless you provide more content. There are plenty of LOL cats relating to books, writing, or topics you write about (zombies, cooking, rodeos).
If you want to be more serious, do book reviews, post smart things people from history have said, or cats doing serious things. Linking other social networking accounts to automatically post to your FB can be good to up content but not if you post the same things on twitter that you post on FB. (I personally like the goodreads app. For FB, as it updates automatically and I post things there I don't post anywhere else.)

4. Abusing tagging and messaging

Just because someone liked your page/friends you doesn't mean they've signed up for the mailer too. Private messages are a little better, as these are private, but tagging means it'll show up on the tagged friend's wall.

Which, yeah, then people that aren't friends with you will see you have a new book! Awesome!

No, more like annoying because it feels like you're stealing the friend's opinion and using their space for advertising. Bad.

If a friend chooses to post: "New book by Authorly Awesome, read it!" Then great. But when you say "New book by Authorly Awesome, read it!" and stick it on their wall with the clever use of tags... ouch. Sure, people can untag themselves or remove themselves from messages, but really, do you want to wave something in front of their face and annoy them to a point of taking action? They probably won't check out what you're telling them about if that's the case. Especially if you just posted it on your author page. And again on your personal page. Oy.

5. Being too casual.

Personally, I would love to post naughty words and angry self-righteous rants on my personal page, but I don't. I'm super PC, because I'm paranoid. So I'm usually extra paranoid on my author pages. Keep in mind that strangers will be looking at your page even if they don't friend/like your page. So personal, heated drama should probably stay out of your updates. Life updates like moving or kidney failure are probably good if you can tie it into why your next book is late, but daily wallowing is bad. Also, keep it professional. Have a cleaner layout, use complete sentences. No pixilated pictures for your cover photo and do not make your Schnauzer your profile picture. Using profanity is up to you. Of course if it's in your book or your book has adult themes you don't want to present yourself as having a book full of gee-whiz and sexuality that goes as far as the midriff. Just use your best judgment.

6. Calling FB "advertising" or using it as your primary marketing tool.

Having an author page is not advertising. Maybe if you pay lots-o-money for those side ads, but there are debates as to how effective those actually are. And if you think just making a FB page for the book is a good enough marketing plan... um. It's not. And if you think all 437 friends on your personal page will buy your book, you are dreaming. From the local authors I know, and from my experience, only about 10% of your friends will actually buy. A little bit more will read/download free stuff like short stories or blog posts. And less than 10% will come to a live event. Facebook only goes so far and you will soon exhaust your pool of fans and annoy them into blocking you from their feeds/unliking your page if your only advertising is done there. Which defeats the purpose when you have a new book or an event to share.


In my experience FB is best when you have NEWS which is very rare. A new book is news. The first book signing is news. An award is news. Reminding friends to buy the book you published 8 months ago is not news. Reminders are okay, if you get an influx of likes/friends from say a blog post being featured or a book event you went to. But posting every week (or every month) about old books is a good way to turn off your audience. Constant posting is good to stay updated with content, but keep it minimal. A quote here, a link there, an lol cat once a week. That way when you have NEWS you can have a cluster of postings and not be annoying/actually have people pay attention.

FB is a double edged sword, and I will return to the topic to further depress authors in a post I have in the works: why FB will disappoint you as an author. Cheers.

10 Ways to Make Your Editor Angry

I was an in-house editor at my college for my internship and since graduation I've delved into the world of freelance editing, on a small scale in between drafts of my own stuff. I've learned a lot, especially about author/editor relations. So here's a handy list of things to upset your editor, in case you ever want your editor shaken, not stirred.

1. Giving your editor your first draft.

I'm begging and pleading here: do not give your editor your first draft. If you say to me "Brandon and Jeremy are the same person, I just haven't decided the character's name yet," you are not ready for an editor. Unless both you and the editor know it's an early draft to be gone over for general suggestions, you won't get a very good edit from an early draft.

2. Giving a ridiculous deadline.

"Yeah, I want to start formatting this next week."

Well… It takes me at least two months to edit a book. Longer if you insist that all 250,000 words in this behemoth is necessary. I've had some writers practically laugh in my face when I say it takes me at least an hour to edit 5 pages well. And I never edit more than two hours in a row because then I start rushing or looking over things. Trust me, my suggestions for plot and character development are going to take more work than just adding a comma here and there. Getting an editor may be one of the last steps in the process, but it's one that takes a lot of time, so please don't have unrealistic expectations.

3. I'll pay you in pickles.

It was really rocky for me to transition from "I need the experience, I'll edit anything for free" to "I will need some money from this." Even now I charge way less than pro editors. But I still get, "I can't pay you, but I'll take you out to lunch." or "I have half a tub of cool whip and some toilet paper to give you if you'll look this over." Really strange things. (Unfortunately, no one's offered peach vodka, which I would probably go for.) I understand it's hard for an author to shell out a lot of money, especially if they aren't sure the edit will be good. (I personally hate it when I hear stories about an author paying a crap editor. Just because they like to write or have been to college doesn't instantly make them a good editor, even if they think they are. Makes me sad.) I do my best to tell the author exactly what I would do in an edit, how I make it mandatory that they sit down with me and we go over everything together after I have edited a section to clear things up/get better ideas. I show them my work and my process so they know where I'm coming from. Unfortunately just like graphic artists and photographers I've known who have made the jump to charging for their services, people think that because it's more of an intellectual/abstract service that it doesn't deserve as much payment. I do a good job, act as a professional and truly believe I can assist authors with my skills. Please don't offer to pay me in sandwich toppings.

4. Not taking any of the editor's advice.

I know as an author myself, sometimes you think your work is so fantastic, when someone else reads it they're going to say, "Whoa, this is amazing! I mean, this comma here might not need to be there, but other than that, this is great!"

End daydream sequence here. An editor is there to edit. Cut. Chop. Murder all your sweet, innocent darlings. I actually like when an author is a little feisty and defends their ideas. Or maybe I don't get something and they say, "Well, I was trying to get this point across." Then we edit an earlier part to make the troublesome part make sense. That's editing. But when an author completely shuts down every suggestion I make, I stop making suggestions. And that is an utter waste of everyone's time and money. An author certainly does not have to take all the suggestions an editor makes. Part of being a good writer is knowing when to veto some suggestions. But don't let your ego destroy your work and your relationship with an editor. Even if it means putting the piece down for awhile and looking at it later. But yes, as an editor when I spend hours reading and editing something, just to see the final published version is EXACTLY the same thing I read…. Uh oh.

5. Giving an editor's credit without permission.

Now, this may be different for some editors. Some editors will be offended if you DON'T give an editor's credit. But for me, at the stage I'm at, I don't want an editor credit. I'm also an author, so I don't want my name popping up too much on other work that is drastically different than my own. I'm also not officially pro and can't take on several projects at once, so my name as an editor doesn't need to be out there. What I would rather have is a short write up of how I helped the author and how the edit improved their progress, so I can show that to future authors that want me to edit something. HOWEVER, if the editor does do a good job and wants a credit, give it to them. Basically, be clear about what the editor wants and never put an editor's name out anywhere unless they approve.

6. Stealing the editor's exact words.

I usually circle problem paragraphs and offer loose suggestions, but this does not mean I'm rewriting the paragraph for you. I say "this is an example," not "put this in verbatim." But often I will see the author put in the exact word or sentence that I suggested. Or I'll say, "Maybe start this differently" and start a sentence then fade out… but the author will say, "You didn't finish this sentence for me here."

No… because you're supposed to.

I don't know if other editors just rewrite entire paragraphs for authors, but I don't. Usually I talk with the author instead of writing suggestions. If you think you can just plop a manuscript down and insert the corrections the editor made and move on, you are mistaken. Which brings me to…

7. Not rebuilding your piece.

I hate it when I make suggestions and the only changes I see are commas and misspellings but no real overhaul to the piece. I do not try to change the integrity or point of a piece, but STRUCTURE, PEOPLE. You will have to perform some surgery after an edit. You can't just put in what the editor put in red. Or worse, something at the end is re-written but that just makes something at the beginning not make sense. As an author, you still have to write and see the whole picture. Or else you just make both you and the editor look dumb.


8. Sending three stories when I said I'd only look at one.

Each transaction must be agreed upon. If you say, "Hey I have this 2,000 piece work, can I pay you twenty bucks to look at it?" and I say yes and get three stories in my inbox? No good. Or I edit one book for someone, eight months goes by and suddenly book #2 magically appears in my inbox with "We can get together Wednesday about the first section edit." No, no good. Also, if I say "Well, I have too many things going on right now, I can't take this on," don't try to guilt trip me into looking into it anyway by saying I don't have to look at allll of it, just sooome of it. I don't work that way, I'm sorry. I've learned the hard way when I was not charging that if someone asked "Could you look over something for me?" I would get anywhere from 3-7 pieces sent to me. Know exactly which ONE piece you want edited when you approach an editor.

9. "So, uh, since you edited my book... and you've done this before... can you format my ebook and print book for me? And can you set up a Facebook page/tweeter thing/manage my Createspace account too? I have more toilet paper money."

Uh… No.

I have absolutely no problem showing authors how social networks work. I'm a bit of a junkie in that aspect and am on goodreads every day. I even ask about post-production in the editing process, with marketing ideas etc. because I firmly believe it is important to keep in mind during editing. But I cannot manage all those accounts for you and send updated royalty reports to you. And while I may format books for authors in certain situations, I will want to be paid in addition to the edit. I will most likely charge less than a freelancer on Craigslist anyway, so don't take advantage of the fact that I taught myself the skills you need by throwing the service in with the edit or giving me more pickles.

10. "Thanks for editing my book! It's on sale now. It's 25.00 but for you, 21.95!"
No comment. Just don’t.