#74:  If you’re a patient consumer, you’ve probably read reviews of products when visiting your favorite online retailer.  If you’re a smart consumer, you’ll ignore those one-liners which state “this product is (no) good” and give the product five stars (respectively one star).  Book reviews on Amazon are no different.  A well-written review goes beyond the one line and explains what the reviewer found good and what she found bad about the product (book).

A similar criticism can be applied to ranking systems, especially on Amazon.  One or two bad reviews can skew the total ranking of a book (who can figure out their ranking system anyway?).  It’s similar to those car insurance rankings in some states where you’re golden if you’ve never had a moving violation but on some black list if you look cross-eyed at a traffic cop.  The Amazon ranking is just as unfair as your car insurance ranking.  Professors use something similar for true-false tests—plus one for a correct answer, minus two for incorrect.  Amazon’s system is probably worse than most professors’.

Bottom line:  for an expensive book (eBook price > $9.99?), read reviews other than Amazon’s; for an inexpensive book (eBook price < $4.99?), you might want to just take a chance (for $0.99 or less, what can you lose?).

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#69:  Time is running out!  You can buy the entire “Clones and Mutants Series” (Full Medical + Evil Agenda) for $5.98 by using the Smashwords coupon on my “Steve’s Writing” page.  The coupon gives you Full Medical for $2.99 (normally $4.99) and Evil Agenda is already $2.99.  This is a holiday sale only.  Happy holiday reading!

#70:  Have you introduced your children to eBooks yet?  Want to be sure they’re not reading stuff you wouldn’t approve of?  Check out my sci-fi thriller for young adults, The Secret Lab, only $0.99 at your favorite online retailer.  If you like cats and enjoyed the young camaraderie in Spielberg’s Goonies and ET, you’ll probably also enjoy this novel.  I’m sure your tweens and young teens will.  It’s not Harry Potter in space—it’s the real magic of living aboard the International Space Station in the future.  Enjoy….

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#61:  For writers, readers, and others who want to know a bit more about me and peek into my insane writing world, check out my guest post “When, where, and how do writers’ ideas originate?” posted yesterday at Erin O’Riordan’s blogspot: erinoriordan.blogspot.com.  Note:  Erin’s genre is a bit orthogonal to mine, but erotica and romance novels have a big following.  She’s a master of her trade, wielding her pen (or laptop) along with the best.  Clearly, we have a common interest, the business of writing.  Hopefully my comments resonate with readers and writers in all genres.

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#50:  I hope you caught my guest blog post on Donna Carrick’s Carrick Publishing website.  If not, take a look.  It’s a brief look into my career as an indie author.  Somewhat related was my blog post “Why blog?” posted on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  These two posts are directed more to writers, but readers might enjoy this glimpse into what makes writers write.  [Note: Donna Carrick is author of the award-winning The First Excellence and her hubby, Alex, has several collections of short stories, one of which I reviewed.  I’m waiting for a collaborative effort—it should be good!]

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#43:  I’ve just reviewed Mike Nettleton’s Shotgun Start.  If you’re looking for a good read, look at this one.  If you’re studying how to write good PI action-suspense, study this one.  Of course, read my review first (blog post just preceding this one).

#44:  My guest blog post will appear on the Carrick Publishing site November 20.  Look for it.  I discuss my experiences as an indie author.  Donna Carrick has set up a whole series with this common theme.  (Also see #45 and #49.)

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#41:  What’s the deal with Amazon’s new lending program?  For readers, as near as I can tell, you have to be an Amazon premium member, so right away that’s a limitation.  I can’t figure out what it means for authors, if anything.  As near as I can tell, Amazon chooses which authors to put into the program.  This means indie authors will get crumbs, if anything—but then again, the Big Six are not going along with the program just yet, so maybe Amazon won’t have any legacy authors in the lending list.

The Amazon site is so hard to negotiate.  It seems impossible to get to Author Central via the usual amazon.com—I have to google amazon author central and go in that way.  When I do, I find nothing about the lending library for indie authors.  Let me know about any gossip you might have.

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#35:  OK, folks…I didn’t receive much help for writing reviews of anthologies.  Doug from eFiction offered some sage advice for those who write such a review in a MFA writing class but immediately qualified it by saying that most readers would want a very different review.  So, I took a wag at it.  You can see the results in Tuesday’s post to this blog (or, if you prefer, on Amazon).  Now you can help by reviewing the review….

#36:  Writers should challenge themselves now and then.  Writing the review for Alex Carrick’s Three Scoops Is a Blast was such a challenge, albeit only a brief struggle.  Writing my first YA (young adult) novel The Secret Lab was more long term but equally rewarding.  I’m now sketching out a new YA novel.  WD (Writer’s Digest) has a good article about how the author should not parent his young YA heroes.  Better late than never.  I struggled with this when writing Lab and employed many of their suggestions before they ever thought of writing the article.  Nevertheless, authors interested in writing YA stories and novels should read their advice.  (Also see #39.)

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#29:  I was very pleased to see The Secret Lab appearing on Holly Hook’s bargain eBooks list (my book is #354).  For avid readers, this is a wonderful list of inexpensive but worthwhile eBooks—ideal for giving e-stocking stuffers to your favorite person(s) for the holidays, for example.  For writers, if your eBook is priced low enough, Holly’s list is a good place to list it—it will help you build your platform.  The URL is: http://bargainebooks.blogspot.com.

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#21:  There was an interesting frontpage article in Monday’s N.Y. Times about Amazon going into the legacy publishing business.  Well, not really.  What I gleaned from the article is that Amazon has a secret board of editors who cherry pick from all the self-published books, both trade paperbacks and eBooks, and offer some contracts.  The conditions of the contracts are also secret.  No agents are involved, but authors can get advances.  The slushpile here is all self-published material found on Amazon.  (See also #28.)

This is yet another nail in the coffin of the legacy paradigm and the legacy publishers are running scared.  They probably shouldn’t worry just yet, but it doesn’t help when they punish an author who has gone the legacy route for one book self-publishes another (the case is also mentioned in the same article).  The legacy publishers’ control of bookstores has already suffered—every bookstore that closes provides additional nails for their coffins.  Exciting times.  We authors are wondering how it will all shake out.  Readers can only expect to gain by the changing paradigm (more books to choose from).  The bottom line is that only authors and readers are needed in tomorrow’s publishing world.

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#15:  Joe Konrath has spoken about the gate-keeping mentality of agents.  It’s obvious, of course, why they don’t like eBook self-publishing.  Joining the ranks still propagating the myth of legacy publishers (this myth states that an author needs an agent, editor, publisher, and publicist, although the agent only gets you out of the slushpile and to the publisher, and the publisher rarely helps you with marketing, while all four reduce your royalties to nothing), the author will find many reviewers.  Among these, one will find those who concentrate on “literary fiction” (they generally also refuse to consider anything self-published—I refrain from giving examples, some of them very well known).

This sort of snobbishness is exactly what I was talking about in my blog post “Writing for Readers”—these reviewers comprise the old boys’ club of literature.  Of course, I’m biased too!  I think “literary fiction” is a genre name that is snobbish all by itself since it implies that all other fiction is not literary.

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