No Reviews For You!

Let’s get this straight, before I go off on my rant: I like Amazon. I buy several items from them, including most of my reading material. On top of that, they are the key e-tailer for my books. My writing is sold through several different vendors, but Amazon has the broadest audience which translates into the most sales.


However, I do have a problem with one of their policies and how they implement it.

I ask my readers to write reviews, not only for my works, but for others as well. In turn, I feel it is my responsibility to write reviews also. Why?

1. I ask my readers to do it, so I should too.

2. As a writer, I crave feedback, so I assume others are the same.

3. I want to do all I can to support fellow Indie Authors.

4. A good book deserves praise.

5. A bad book deserves a bad review.

6. There are too many paid for reviews out there and the real reader needs to offset the bots.

Of all the reviews I have contributed, two of them were bad reviews, but all of them were honest reviews. Doesn’t matter. I received an e-mail from Amazon today stating that two of my reviews (the bad ones) do not comply with their customer reviews guidelines.

“Specifically, sentiments by or on behalf of a person or company with a directly competing product are not allowed in Amazon.com Customer Reviews. This includes reviews by authors, artists, publishers, manufacturers, or third-party merchants selling the product.”

Understand, I am not arguing the validity of this guideline. I like it, to a point. There are pros and cons to it, but the Customer Review is broken, and not just with Amazon. More on this later.

The problem I have: They only removed the two bad reviews. If Amazon was honestly removing my reviews because of the stated guideline they would have removed ALL of my reviews.

“…sentiments by or on behalf of a person or company with a directly competing product…”

If I am in direct competition with the authors who received my bad reviews, I am also in competition with the rest of them that received more complementary reviews. (by the way, I seldom give 5 stars…er, gave)

My reviews were removed because the author of the book that received my latest review complained about the one star he deserved. It stood in stark contrast to the many 5 star reviews he paid for. Just FYI, the book had an average rating of 4.2 on Amazon, while on Goodreads and Shelfari, its average rating was 2.

As I mentioned earlier, the customer review process across the Web is broken. It is no secret that companies pay for good reviews. Authors are no different. There are companies that sell reviews to authors. To achieve a four or five star rating on Amazon is easy; you just need the money to do it. This is one of the reasons I do not give five star ratings for anything, not just books.

Amazon is trying many things to combat this issue, but it is a losing battle. The only way to combat this issue is for actual customers to post honest reviews of products, be it a book or cellular phone. Right now, I believe the best way to find honest reviews of books is to find them on Goodreads. For the most part, the reviews appear honest.

A Question of Money

A common misconception I have heard/read on several occasions is that epic storylines (longer than the traditional trilogy) are all about the money.  You know, I could be a bit naive about this, but I will have to strongly disagree.

23 years and 14 books long, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series was wrapped up last week.  For those who have read the books, we know the length of the story was in large part due to Jordan's penchant for foreshadowing.  Chapters of non-consequential scenes littered the series, but those scenes were used to set up things that often didn't happen until two or three books later.

Millions of people enjoyed his writing style.  Millions of people, not two or three friends at work, but millions of people around the world.  I enjoyed his style, my wife doesn't care for it.  His writing style and the breadth of the story contributed to the length of the series.  Did I mention that millions of people liked it?

Money was not the bottom line.

Jordan had a story to tell, and if he was anything like myself, he wasn't going to cut it short just to meet some arbitrary number of acceptable books.  Sure, there were ways to crop the story; cut down on the characters (which he had aplenty), don't tell the readers about the sub-plots that contribute to the final page, knock it off with the foreshadowing, etc.  Jordan stuck to his guns and told the story HE wanted to tell and the story the READERS wanted to read.

My Drums of Rallinwar story is being told in the same manner.  I am telling you the story that I want to tell, and I hope the you want to read.  Granted, my story isn't fourteen volumes.  My story may only last three books, or it may go four books, but there is no number that I am tied to.  The story will end when it chooses to end.  Money has absolutely no bearing on the length of the tale.  I have other stories to tell.

While I'm rambling on, keep in mind that some author's tire of their stories and want to wrap them up.  Some have wrapped them up despite the cries for more from their readers.  Aren't they losing money by not continuing the story?

Just because your world revolves around the money that other people make, does not mean that their world revolves around your desires.

Here you go, shameless plug:  BUY MY BOOK!  Blood of Two: Book One in the Drums of Rallinwar series.  Available where you buy your ebooks and you can even find it in paperback on Amazon (do a search for C. Hollis Gunter).  Buy it, rate it, review it, and if nothing else, I hope you enjoy it.  However long the series is.

Is It Greed?

I'm torn, and I know that part of my thinking is due to the fact that I really don't much care for this particular author as a person.  We have never met, but through his interviews and such there is this pompous air about him.  Who knows, if we met I would probably like the guy.

A very successful author (and I do mean very) recently released a book through self-publishing means.  This is a good thing for him, because now he will make the money that he has earned through his success by cutting out the major publishers take.  This also highlights the relevance of the young e-reader in the book world.  Overall this is a good thing for him, for myself and the countless other independents out there, and for the customer.

Through traditional channels, this book would have been north of $15 for an electronic copy.  By bypassing the publisher, this book is available for $8.99.  And this is where I am torn.

While the price point for most Indie's is between $.99 and $5.00, this $9 price seems a bit extreme.  Publishing an electronic book can cost nothing.  Granted, this author probably spent some decent coin on marketing and editing, because he can, in the grand scheme of things that cost is likely negligible.

This book will probably sell close to a million copies because of his track record.  With Amazon, the author pulls in up to 70% of sale.  This author stands to make close to 6 million on this one release.  Divide that in half and it is still a significant amount.  So, is he charging too much?  It is less than what the publisher would charge, so the customer is still getting a decent deal.

Maybe it is the perfect price.  The customer gets a decent deal and the author hits the lottery.

Maybe I'm just jealous?

I don't know that I could charge more than $5 for a book, I think especially if I sold millions.  For myself, $5 is a fair price to ask.  Anything more just seems greedy.  I could be wrong, maybe he has spent millions in promoting this new book.  I just don't know.  I tend to like the path of providing the customer with a quality product at a fair price that benefits both myself and the reader.  Nine bucks just doesn't do it for me.

You Discovered What?

So, if you glance down the right hand side of the page you will see that I am reading a book about the Inca's.  I enjoy reading histories about different cultures, how they lived, and how their lives may have differed from other cultures.  But, what struck thought with this book was the ethnocentric view of how the Europeans "Discovered" areas of the world that other cultures already lived.

In 900 A.D there were cities in South America with greater populations than London.  Kingdoms existed with much the same social stratification that could be found in Europe.  So tell me Mr. Balboa; how is it again that you "discovered" an ocean that South American boats were already sailing on?  And I'm thinking that there were some natives that could have disputed some of Columbus's "discoveries".

Can you imagine a Viking and a Spaniard standing on a beach arguing who found this land first, all the while a group of people who have lived there for years watch on?

I know, you are thinking that I am picking apart semantics.  Nobody really "discovered" these geographical areas, they were just the first Europeans to see them.  But not really.

The Europeans (much like today's Americans), felt they were far more superior than other cultures that may have existed, and from their conquests you'd find it hard to argue that from a military point of view.  With that in mind, nobody of any importance had ever been to the America's, nor had they sailed the Pacific.  Therefore, in their minds they truly believed that they had "discovered" a massive, populated, continent that was being cultivated and mined as they sailed across the Atlantic in search of slaves, gold, silver, and exotic goods.

And now, Biru is called Peru because the "superior culture" couldn't pronounce it right.  The Cherokee, Mohicans, Seminole, and many other tribes are called Indians, because the "superior" culture thought they were somewhere else.

Semantics, I know.  But, it is still ethnocentric.

Goodbye Netflix

The headlines read, as headlines read, always written to incite drama, anger, or some other extreme emotional reaction; Outrage over Netflix rate hike continues.

Not so much for me. Disappointed, a little surprised, but not really outraged.

When the information on the rate hike was published two days ago (no, I haven't received an e-mail from Netflix), my initial reaction was that I would have to consider closing my Netflix account sometime before Sept. 1 rolled around. The deciding factor being that they had priced themselves out of being a viable option to the old standard movie rental store.

Really, this would be a good budget cutting move on my part. Like I said, I was just taking this in stride.

Then the VP of corporate communications for Netflix, Steve Swasey, opened his mouth. Wow! I will be surprised if this goober has a job with Netflix in 2012.

Let me break down his comments for you.

"$6 more is a remarkable value, a latte or two every month. For most folks it's absorbable.
He is referring to those with the minimum combined, download and dvd, subscription. I would venture to guess that a large percentage of Netflix customers have no idea what a latte tastes like. He is speaking to the wrong crowd here. It is obvious that six bucks is nothing to him, but most of us aren't VP's for a large corporation.

"sympathetic to those in terrible financial straits."
And there he goes with the knife throwing. He just told his customer base that they are either over-reacting, or that they can't afford his service to begin with. Obviously if six bucks is a concern you are on the edge of bankruptcy.

"30,000 or so is a sub set of 23 million subscribers. They're not speaking for the majority."
Translation: We won't miss you whining little punks. You are but a gnat on our corporate behinds. Move along children.

"We'll make it up over time and the service will continue to grow. I don't want to sugarcoat this. We expect a certain amount of people to leave the service"
Translation: Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

In summary: I went from making a decision before the rate hike to cancelling my subscription this weekend. All because of his statements. Netflix will not see any more of my money. They haven't earned it.

That's really too bad, because prior to this, I had considered them a good company to deal with.

You Just Don't Know

Two controversial verdicts were handed out this past month: A pharmacist in Oklahoma was found guilty for killing a would be thief in his store, and a mother was found innocent of killing her child.

In both cases cries of foul were heard across the nation. I even saw a photograph of a sign that accused the jury of murder, because they found the mother not guilty. Even one of my favorite idiots (Bill Maher) called Republicans murderers. Sometimes stupid stands out like meth addict in a monastery.

Take both of these cases, and you have twenty-four people that know the full story. Twenty-four, not twenty-four million. There are laws that these people need to consider when making their decision. Whether you agree with the verdicts, or not, the justice system worked exactly as it was designed. These jurors did their jobs.

The day that jurors begin to listen to public opinion is the day that the judicial system fails YOU.

IF there were any failures in either of these cases, the failures lie with the lawyers. IF these verdicts were wrong, it was because the lawyers failed in presenting their cases.

If you want to be assinine and accuse innocent people of murder, at least direct your ignorance in the right direction.