Santa Select

And no one was happy,
Not even St. Nick.

‘Twas the day after Christmas
And the outlook was dour.
All the Indies were moping,
Even Santa was sour.

“I’ve tried and tried
All that I could
To help Indie Authors;
To make things good.”

I looked at the fat man
And said with a smile
“But surely your reviews
Will go live in a while”

“I’m afraid not, Dear,
I got an email from ‘Zon
Accusing me of sock-puppetry
That my reviews were a con.”

He stared out the window
With an expression so sad
The Zon had blocked Santa
This was really bad. Continue reading “Santa Select”

Fake-Out

Don’t you hate that sinking feeling you get when you find out you’re wearing Goochi loafers and a Rolodex watch? Your Mona Lisa is signed by Leonard DaVinci. All that money in your wallet has Art Linkletter’s picture on it. You have a gold American Espresso Card. Worst of all, you are driving a Limburgergini.

In Hise We Trust

People don’t hate fake things. Oh, they’d rather have real things—real teeth, real hair, real tomato ketchup. But as long as it’s a conscious and informed choice, people are fine with it. What they hate is being duped into thinking something fake is real. Then they get angry.

Hence, the uproar over the recent discovery of the posting of fake book reviews. Like most controversies suddenly “discovered” by the media, this has actually been going on for a while. In fact, I’ve touched on this in some previous articles. I won’t bother with a link because I’m not trying to set myself up as some sort of fake Nostradamus. Continue reading “Fake-Out”

Paying for Reviews? Just Say No.

Don’t know about the latest indie kerfuffle? That’s because you’ve probably been spending your free time writing. Mazel tov. In case you haven’t looked up in a while, here’s what you may have missed:

A few weeks ago, in a New York Times article, a gentleman named Todd Rutherford and his now-defunct company were “outed” for selling thousands of fake, five-star reviews to authors hoping to get an edge on their e-book sales.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, one of Rutherford’s customers was a rather well-known indie scribe who published a rather well-referred-to book about how he became a well-known indie scribe, mainly by purchasing hundreds of fake reviews. Now, Indieland has exploded with blogination: pro, con, and indifferent. Aspersions are raining down on this well-known scribe, who shares a name (if that indeed is his real name) with a dead philosopher and says of his meteoric rise to million-dollar sales, “Reviews are the smallest piece of being successful. But it’s a lot easier to buy them than cultivating an audience.” Continue reading “Paying for Reviews? Just Say No.”