Tag: Authors

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The Spiteful World of Indie Publishing

Books Stack–

Every day, I take some time out of my schedule to follow the KDP’s author forum as well as a couple other forums dealing with independent publishing. It’s a great way to connect with other writers and get help and useful information.

But it’s also the place for learning more about the business we’re in. Despite many opinions and views on self-publishing, it’s a business like any other, with unending issues you have to deal with. But even though I’m perfectly aware of the spitefulness of human nature and the tough fight to be noticed among thousands of other authors in the crowd, the behavior that seems to be spreading among competive indies like a wildfire is appalling to me.

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Now, I have no need to complain, as I myself haven’t been a victim of this, but I still feel the need to address this issue. Had it been a few isolated cases, I would just put it down to a few people who never learned to respect others and compete fairly, but I’m hearing about this being done to more and more of my fellow authors.

The thing I’m talking about is independent authors, instead of just promoting themselves, doing everything to bring down their competition.

We have all heard about authors posting fake reviews on their own books in order to drive the ratings up and make the book seem more attractive to the potentiel buyer, but some of these authors take it much further.

Some actually pretends to be readers with no ulterior motive and posts vicious and downgrading reviews on other books in the same genre as they are writing themselves in order to hurt competition. They act like they have read the books and hated them, but a few clicks leading to their profiles show that they are not unpartial readers, but competing authors. Some even have the nerve to attack other books in their reviews and then suggest readers to read their book instead, even linking to them in the review.

The first time I read about someone who had been a victim of this, I was repulsed and didn’t get how anyone could have so little shame. I felt the same way the second time… And the third… Until I slowly started realizing that this was actually happening often and was becoming a common way to fight competition.

The worst thing is that so often it’s so blaringly obvious. I have seen reviews that don’t even target the book, but are direct attacks on the authors. Many of them are purely hateful comments with no arguments to explain why the “reviewer” dislikes the book/author so much.

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And the most scary thing is that it’s not only happening among indie authors. Even some traditional publishers have used this method to bring down competition! This article on DailyMail.co.uk describes the behavior pretty well, and it was already published in 2010 showing that it’s not a new trend:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1333885/Amazons-amateur-book-reviewing-vicious-free-readers-victims.html

It’s a sad, sad thing that people are willing to stoop so low in order to get success. And in the end, I really doubt ruining potentiel success for others will ever lead to anything good anyway.

And what’s the use of reviews, when you can’t trust them at all?

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28 Inspirational or Humorous Quotes by Writers

A small collection of fantastic quotes about writing that always put a smile on my face!

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1.”A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God.”

– Sidney Sheldon

2. “A critic is a legless man who teaches other people to run.”

– Channing Pollock

3. “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”

– E.L. Doctorow

4. “What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he’s staring out of the window.”

– Burton Rascoe

5. “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”

– Stephen King

6. “It’s not plagiarism – I’m recycling words, as any good environmentally conscious writer would do.”

– Uniek Swain

7. “An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.”

– Gustave Flaubert

8. “If I fall asleep with a pen in my hand, don’t remove it – I might be writing in my dreams.”

– Terri Guillemets

9. “Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.”

– Robert Benchley

10. “Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.”

– Truman Capote

11. “I have the heart of a small boy. It is in a glass jar on my desk.”

– Stephen King

‎12. “I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.”

 – G. K. Chesterton

13. “Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment.”

– Robert Benchley

14. “The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.”

– André Gide

15. “Being an author is having angels whisper in your ear – and devils, too.”

– Terri Guillemets

16. “Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.”

– Jules Renard

17. “I write because I’m afraid to say some things out loud.”

– Gordon Atkinson

18. “If I fall asleep with a pen in my hand, don’t remove it – I might be writing in my dreams.”

– Terri Guillemets

19. “It is impossible to discourage the real writers – they don’t give a damn what you say, they’re going to write.”

– Sinclair Lewis

20. “You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”

– Saul Bellow

 21. “Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free.”

– Samuel Johnson

22. “Most editors are failed writers – but so are most writers.”

– T.S. Eliot

23. “Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.”

– Don Marquis

24. “A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one.”

– Baltasar Gracián

25.  “I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.”

– James Michener

26. “Asking a writer what they think about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it thinks about dogs.”

– Christopher Hampton

27. “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club”

– Jack London

28. “It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.”

– Robert Benchley