Quote:
Originally Posted by Edward M. Grant
True. Because trade publishers would never expect to get reviews in return for buying advertising space in magazines and newspapers. And trade-published authors would never write a glowing blurb for a book without reading it.
Indie writers buying reviews sucks, but let's not pretend that trade publishing is a haven of virtue.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AnemicOak
That some self pubbed authors buy reviews just like some trad pubbed authors (& publishers) have been known to do.
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The big difference between trad pubbed authors and indie authors is that trad pubbed authors have gone through a gatekeeper. Specifically, a publisher has been confident enough that their books would sell that the publisher has invested thousands or ten thousands of dollars in that book.
Indie books don't have gatekeepers; the answer to the lack of gatekeepers is supposed to be reviews. But if reviews aren't a useful way of sorting indie books, then it is even harder to separate the wheat from the chaff.
That's why this matters for indies much more than it does for trad pubbed books.