I'm not stupid. Okay, not that stupid. I knew eReading technology meant opening the floodgates to anyone with the time or inclination to put fingers to keyboard. I knew 99% of those fingers, including mine, won't receive the benefit of a professional editor before they click 'Send' and their novel goes live on one of the many outlets now available.
Frankly, I don't mind if some indie writers aren't that good - wheat and chaff, right? There will be some bad stuff, but there'll also be some fantastic stuff coming through that wouldn't otherwise see the light of day. It makes the mediocre novels worth ploughing through if, now and again, I find an occasional nugget of gold. Thus, I'm all in favour.
So now I'm not just an indie writer, I'm an indie reader. Like Aladdin with his lamp, I have my eReader in my hot little hand ready to open the magic door to this treasure trove of wonders. But what to choose among so many sparkling jewels? Fake or flawless, you can only tell once you look more closely.
Thankfully, there's Amazon and its ranking system. If a book's any good, it should come up high on its system, right?
So I thought.
There's also Amazon's 'Look Inside' feature that gives you a preview. Gives you a taste of what's to come, right?
Hmmm. So I thought.
I'll explain.
Having offered a fairly damp review on Amazon about the uninspiring book I'd just purchased and read, I received a comment suggesting I must be too young to appreciate it, or that the plot must be over my head.
That got my hackles up. Made me dig deeper. In nearly all the reviews I read on all the different books this particular author has written, the same 'customer' names cropped up, giving sparkling reviews and 5-star votes. Look deeper still, reviews reporting anything negative tended to have comments like the one I recieved (from these same 5-star reviewers, strangely enough) implying that the reviewer is 'not clever enough to understand the plot', or that they're 'young' or 'stupid'. Some were even taunted with baby speech. If that reviewer, or anyone else, then tried to defend their views, the option to vote the comment as 'unhelpful' was clicked by someone six or seven times, thus rendering it invisible to subsequent viewers.
The reason I think this is a deliberate system, rather than just a bunch of young people rushing in to support their mate, or even the author himself using a variety of alter-egos, is the way the books are written. I only read one - could only bear to read one - but looking at the more balanced reviews appearing against his work in general, his books all follow the same pattern.
They're all novellas, barely. Less than one hundred pages. Admittedly, they are only around a dollar (77p) to purchase. Not enough for any one person to kick up a fuss if they feel scammed. When you see this author has a dozen titles out, though, and that he ranks fairly high on Amazon Kindle, it makes you wonder how many people are buying them.
His sales pitch? Aside from managing to get his rank up by receiving lots of 5-star votes, it's the Look Inside feature. In there, you'll find a fairly engaging piece of writing, full of ideas and imagination and comparatively well-written. Purchase the full piece and get past the sample, you'll discover the writing deteriorates rapidly, the plot becomes thin, the characters cardboard - at least in the one I read. Reviews I found on this writers' other books say the same thing.
So, what I find puzzling is, am I dealing with an author who's writing to the best of his ability and is truly passionate about his stories? Are his gang of supporters just that? Defending him when an outsider dares question his awesomeness?
Or is this deliberate manipulation? Is this writer churning out junk just to get people's 77p? Face it, he's earning more per copy than he'd get from a publisher, and if enough people buy his books he could make himself a fair stash. Are his friends (unless he's using different Amazon accounts and managing it all himself) purposefully stomping on anyone who gives a more accurate review of his work, so the next schmuck to come along won't see the warnings?
No idea. I'm bemused by the whole thing. But I know something. I won't be buying any more of that writer's ebooks.
It's about starting over.
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