I'm Very Angry
I'm very angry because I'm sick and tired of what I see as
deception and dishonesty within the literary community. It's
been going on for far to long and nobody seems to want to pay
attention to it or to care about it.
I love my publisher which is Publishamerica and it's a first
rate Publisher however I have seen firsthand with my own eyes
individual authors that meet on discussion boards asking each
other to do reviews of one anothers books that most always turn
out to be four or five star reviews.
These people then go on every major bookseller website and post
these reviews and in my opinion decieve customers into thinking
these are independant and unbiased ratings of these books from
customers when in fact they are really reviews from friends and
fellow authors who claim to be unbiased but to me it's deception
of the highest order and it stinks.
In my mind it should be put to a stop immediately and these
authors should be made to apologize to these websites and to our
publisher for doing what is known as logrolling. That's when
friendly authors positively review one anothers work.
It's a scratch my back and I'll scratch yours method and I don't
like it one bit. A friend is more likely to help a friend and
say something good even though the work may be bad. Most of
these reviews are four and five stars and it's always the same
names so look into it on Amazon and sites like this and you'll
see these authors scratching each others backs and careers that
comes at the expense of the reader in my opinion.
I have never asked for a review from a fellow author because to
me it's unethical to accept a review from a fellow writer that
you're friendly or familiar with. My reviews you can be sure
will come from honest and independant sources unlike those who
support and take part in this logrolling that should be stopped
and abhored.
It's time for people to wake up and see the widespread deception
in my opinion and write to these people in order to put a stop
to this unfair practice. It really takes away from and hinders
the efforts of honest writers out there who don't seek to
falsify anything or cheat the system like some in the business
do.
Let's have a call for honesty and fairness and a call to stop
these people from what I see as deceiving customers with
friendly reviews put out all over the place from their fellow
associates and cronies.
Let's show the honest writers out there in the world that we
support them and their efforts to put things out to the public
in an honest and forthright way and let's put a stop to this
pathetic logrolling once and for all.
Jeffrey Michael Miller