I haven’t posted a blog in a while and for that…I apologize. I’ve taken an extended break from my writing. This is due a mild loss in enthusiasm. Like most independent artists, I encountered a slump in my conviction. It was a very slow spring and summer for my work, but a couple things have brought me out of my funk and I’m rededicated to my craft. First, is a sudden spike in my ebook sales on Amazon throughout this Fall. I had stopped cheerleading, didn’t even discuss my writing with people, and didn’t touch my fan page or this blog. Suddenly, my sales were climbing. I won’t question it, I will just take this positive for what it should be…motivation. The second thing was the recent outing of independent authors and their sometimes shady practices with regard to book reviews on Amazon. This whole situation turned into a huge mess that impacted all independent authors…including, if not especially me.
John Locke is one of the most famous and respected independent authors in the world. He was the first to sell over a million self-published ebooks on Amazon without a traditional publishing house. Recently he was outed for purchasing a thousand dollars worth of book reviews for his titles. This equaled over 300 reviews on Amazon. Authors were in an uproar and petitioned Amazon to act on this manipulation of their reviews. What could Amazon do? People can post whatever they want, that is the freedom of the review process. How could Amazon possibly police such a matter? Oh well, everyone will have to deal with it and John Locke must deal with the fallout of this exposure. I’m not debating that what Locke did was shady, but as I understand it, he didn’t force the paid services to provide 5 star reviews, and Locke’s novels individually have review numbers from 150 to almost 500. Yes, the 300 or more he paid for are mixed in there, but the rest are legitimate. The money he spent was probably marketing to him. It was a slick move, and truthfully no one knows how much those reviews helped his sales. Regardless of what the reviews say about something, when I don’t like it, it gets no love from me on a review. Now I’m not defending Locke’s actions, but he’s like any magician or politician…he’d showed us his left hand so we wouldn’t see the right. A petition was compiled and Amazon decided to act in an attempt to flush out what they considered illegitimate reviews. This was a huge mistake in my eyes. Whatever search criteria or engine they used is flawed. Many legitimate reviews were deleted because of this. I know because I don’t pay for reviews and I lost plenty of them because of this, some of my direct reviews of other’s work were also deleted. If you check in with JA Konrath on his blog he speaks about many of his reviews being deleted as well. So, now legitimate reviews were casualties of these Gestapo tactics.
This brings me to the “One Star Review” fiasco, which is also a problem at Amazon.com. You have to really detest something to give it a one star review. I’ve never given one. Even if I had to stop in the middle of a book because I lost interest. I gave it two stars because I picked it up in the first place and read it, for whatever reason it was just not my cup of tea so I stopped reading, but that’s just how I am. It came to light that a few independent authors were spraying one star reviews all over other’s independent works attempting to boost their own sales by bashing the competition.
I was a direct victim of this. The worse is that I found out who it was. It was another writer, a man who felt I had no business being a writer. I wasn’t on his level, couldn’t be, he’d been a freelance writer for years…online. When I met him he was talking about a novel he’d been working on for years, I mean years. I decided to tell him about a novel I’d just published. He was openly dismissive and acted as if he was Brad Pitt and I’d just mentioned that I was an extra in a Mentos commercial once. Nevertheless he was an acquaintance of my wife so…bygones. He attempted to publish his novel traditionally for years. I suffered this delusion as well, but only gave it two years before deciding to own my destiny as a writer. Anyway I published three novels in that time. He finally came around and self published his novel. My wife purchased it right away in a show of support. I fully support my peers. I love independent artist and go out of my way to be supportive, given that I’m independent as well. I’m inspired by authors such as JA Konrath and Amanda Hocking. I feel we must stick together to be successful. The big publishing houses have been losing money since ebooks came along. Established authors have left their traditional contracts for self-publishing, and why not? You get 75% of your royalties and you keep all your rights. The traditional houses have even cut marketing budgets to where authors are forced to come out of their own pockets anyway, you might as well get the larger chunk of yourwork, but I digress. This guy must not have seen the success he envisioned for his book, so suddenly he elects to attack my novels…all of them. But in attacking my work, he specifically attacks me personally, attacking my character and not my writing at first, showing that he hasn’t even read my novels. He references stuff he can see in the “look inside the book” feature but not much else. At first I’m in awe as to how much a complete stranger could hate my work, but I deal with it and try to take things he wrote constructively to improve. Then in the midst of ongoing attacks online. My wife gets a text from this guy asking when she’s going to finish his book and write a review. She explains that she’s been busy, but is enjoying what she’s read so far. He responds rudely with vulgar language. What the hell is that? Soon we learn that he’s the one who’s been attacking me online. All in an effort to make himself feel better about his lack of success, and attempting to make me feel as if I do not belong.  Just today I saw that a person went online and rated three of my titles with one star, but posted no comments or a review. This again seems fishy, if you dislike something enough to give it one star, would you not post at least a sentence saying why?
This type of stuff is completely unacceptable and ugly, and what’s worse is that his reviews and comments are ones that stayed on Amazon, while other positive reviews from my readers were removed with whatever criteria Amazon was using.
What I’m getting at is John Locke is not my problem. The reaction Amazon had is. If people know what he did, great, the trick is revealed, don’t buy his books, but to assume that all hardworking dream-seeking writers are doing the same is unfair and it costs us more than you know.
Take a look at my novels, I earned every one of those reviews. There aren’t many, so when even a couple are taken away it stings. Add the fact the unjust one stars are still there and my ratings are in the gutter.
John Locke’s actions hurt our efforts immensely. Between him, JA Konrath, Amanda Hocking, Barry Eisler, and Susan Ee we were headed somewhere. Traditional publishers were in trouble and they were feeling the impact, they were scrambling along with many literary agents to taint what we do, question our talents and shun the very thought of leaving them behind for our own good. John Locke gave them something to hold up for their cause for a while, but the truth is, I’m confident things will continue to progress for us. They are just too greedy and our price points will continue to kill them, and in the end, the reader will decide.
The average writer in my situation makes less than a garage band. People learn I’ve written books and they think it immediately comes with loads of money and recognition. Nothing could be further from the truth. When they ask me how much I make, I simply say I make enough to keep writing. I’ve always said, “When you’re unknown, you do for the love.” I love to write and someday I hope the masses will love what I write. I have a decent following and I look forward to seeing it grow. I won’t give up.
Independent artist, I respect and appreciate you. Thank you for putting yourself out there. Many forget how much we’ve gained in all categories of entertainment from the independent artist. We need your support. All we ask is that you give us a chance and be honest about your feelings. We will either grow or fail, but don’t pass us over because the gatekeepers didn’t agree with our vision. We decided to stand strong and do on our own, only you will decide if we belong or not.