I’m not going to lie to you. (Hopefully, you know this by now.) I am one of the most competitive people I know. I try to repress this aspect of my personality because I don’t find it endearing. If someone has to win, I want it to be me. If someone is going to judge me, they better damn well judge favorably, because I do everything I can do to “win”. I don’t do things I can’t excel in. Like I said, it is one of the things I dislike most about myself, but it is what it is. So, it was with a sick feeling in my stomach that I checked my books on Amazon and saw that, along with 8 five-star reviews, ‘The Biker’ now has a ONE STAR review. Then I looked deeper and breathed again, and then I made a call to Amazon. Now, I am waiting. A bit bemused, a little angry, and a lot befuddled.
Tag: Reviews
How Technology Will Re-define Writing
Notwithstanding my many other predictions as to what the future may hold for authors, I do believe the writing is on the wall for changes that will impact the way we plan and market our books.
As e-reader device capabilities increase, so will the expectations as to what constitutes a book. It may be that the time approaches when a book is more than words. As the devices become more capable multimedia platforms, it will change the way authors craft and develop books.
In the short term, I believe the principal opportunities here will be in the areas of greatly improved interactivity and video features. Continue reading “How Technology Will Re-define Writing”
Ed’s Casual Friday: Seize the moment.
Carpe occasio.
There are a lot of good moments as a writer, stretched out over the course of writing (and hopefully, selling) a book. Maybe a line of description that you write which surprises you. Maybe something a character “says” that you could swear they did say, while your presence as a writer above the page or in front of the screen was just that: A presence. Like you watched it happen, without doing it yourself. Continue reading “Ed’s Casual Friday: Seize the moment.”
My God, It’s Full Of Stars!
This week, I’m going to be a little more serious than usual. No idea why. I just am. And I want to talk about star ratings. No, I don’t want to discuss the relative merits of Justin Bieber or Katy Perry, fascinating as that might be; I’m talking about the graded star method many websites use to rate various products, but specifically as it pertains to indie authors, that aspect of the review system used by the mighty Amazon.
Sometimes feeling like I’ve accidentally wandered into a cosmologist convention, I keep hearing my fellow writers discussing star systems, conversations that range from the alleged importance of 5-Star ratings to dire warnings of the career damage caused by 1-Star ratings. There are even dark tales of jealous authors deliberately dropping a single star on the book pages of their competitors… a frankly bizarre behaviour, if true, since my admittedly collectivist-hippie-skewed moral compass informs me we’re less competitors than we are colleagues. My favourite star-related content is our own M. Edward McNally’s regular inclusion of 1-Star customer ratings for classic novels. The ratings, along with their concomitant cluelessness, are hilarious. Continue reading “My God, It’s Full Of Stars!”