Recently I’ve learned about a new (to me) term: catfishing. It means someone pretending to be what they are not. In terms of selling books on the Internet, this basically boils down to someone posing as an expert in a given field, then writing short, pithy eBooks using information easily and freely accessible on the Internet (think Wikipedia) and then passing it off as a definitive guide on Amazon.
The Washington Post recently ran a very thorough article on the phenomenon. The upshot is that (1) this is nothing new; there have always been people gaming every system ever devised and (2) most of these catfishers operate at least nominally within Amazon’s guidelines with the exception of paid reviews, the thing that Amazon is really cracking down on lately. Continue reading “Et tu, Catfish? Writing with Integrity”
Pilgrim Wheels by Neil Hanson
Larry the Horrible Time Traveler by Andrew Coltirn
The Sun Singer by Malcolm R. Campbell
I’ve had to ask myself a question recently: why on earth do I bother reviewing books? Actually, I know why I started to … it coincided with the purchase of my Kindle. I fancied an anthology of my opinions and what I thought of all the books I read on it because I thought the advent of digital books was quite a Big Thing. So, wait … let me rephrase that: the behaviour of authors has made me ask myself the question.