09-03-2012, 01:31 AM | #106 |
The Black-Hearted
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Its entirely possible. Some people are such sheep. They would in turn bleat about how 'awesome' the book is, and the rest would be history. And money.
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09-03-2012, 09:21 AM | #107 | |
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It's a matter of visibility. There are literally thousands of fine writers out there whose work could be entertaining and pleasing thousands of readers if only the readers knew of their works. Given that some people use the Amazon sorting tools to explore the Kindle store, juicing the reviews to artificially float his titles into 5-star range instead of "merely" 4 stars would draw enough eyeballs to make a difference. Another trick Mr Locke openly admits to using early on is "throttling" his ebook prices--dropping select titles to $0.99 whenever they dropped low in the sales rankings and raising them back after a few days when they moved back up. Both tricks had the same goal: raise his visibility to get enough books out into the world to build up his name as a brand. How *much* they helped him and how much such tactics might help *today* is unclear but they very likely help him ramp up his business into long-term viability. |
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09-03-2012, 09:28 AM | #108 | |
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Quote:
Andrew |
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09-03-2012, 09:32 AM | #109 |
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There is nothing wrong with juggling prices or offering the book free. The only problem many have with Locke is buying fake reviews and pretending that they came from readers who found his book in a conventional manner and enjoyed it enough to write a glowing review.
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09-03-2012, 10:05 AM | #110 | |
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Andrew |
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09-03-2012, 10:10 AM | #111 |
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It isn't a trick, it is commonly employed marketing device. Specials or discounts are a part of everyday life. Amazon recommends such ploys.
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09-03-2012, 03:16 PM | #112 | ||
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It's as much a trick as any other card trick. Mis-direction and illusion. Nothing wrong with it. Just sneaky. Clever. Try definition 3a, here: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trick Quote:
Locke, however, apparently thought that talking to the Guardian about how he got people to buy his ebooks at the higher price instead of waiting for the next discount period wouldn't hurt his sales. There *is* a school of thinking that there is no such thing as *bad* publicity so this whole thread might be serving his interests right now. |
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09-03-2012, 04:59 PM | #113 | |
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BTW, I was just reading an article about a trade-published writer who admitted a couple of years back to leaving bad reviews of books by other authors in his field. Things like that are the reason why trade-published authors are sneered at. |
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09-03-2012, 05:32 PM | #114 |
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More trade-published writers leaving fake reviews:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/b...hors-warn.html That settles it: I'm never trusting a review of a trade-published book again. |
09-03-2012, 05:34 PM | #115 | |
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1. Q - Would he have sold more than a million books without 300 fake reviews? A - He very well may not have. Obscurity is the biggest problem for an indie author, and *300* fake reviews is a huge splash in a small pool. It suggests a large groundswell of support for an otherwise unknown author. 2. Q - Did he sell more than a million books *just because* of the 300 fake reviews? A - No, not just because of the reviews. While I don't think he would have sold so many books without the reviews, if his books were spectacularly bad his books would not have sold so well. Nor do I think that he would have sold so well if he hadn't prices his books as aggressively as he did. So while I think the fake reviews may have been necessary for his success, I don't think that they were alone sufficient for his success. |
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09-03-2012, 06:14 PM | #116 | |
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In the New York Times or the Atlantic Monthly, yes, because the reviewer is being paid to be objective, and some effort is made to keep reviewers away from books authored by friends. Not that old established magazines are perfect here either. Reviewers, however professional, don't know my taste. It always is a risk that I start a book not worth finishing. Someone may dislike this post because mainstream book review publications ignore their books. The world is unfair -- especially to authors -- and great books can be overlooked. Given limited time, I still am going to stick to paid reviewers hired by professional editors, such as found from links here: http://realclearbooks.com/ Last edited by SteveEisenberg; 09-03-2012 at 06:18 PM. |
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09-03-2012, 06:42 PM | #117 |
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Are you sure? I heard differently this weekend at Worldcon. They do not publish the relation the reviewer have with the author if any and it is common that there is some relation. According to the person in a panel that seemed to know what he was talking about.
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09-03-2012, 09:17 PM | #118 | |
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In the long history of those publications, ethical lapses have occurred, as well as borderline situations. One difference between NYT/Atlantic and Amazon is that the reviews in the former grouping are not only signed, but signed in a way the review author is clearly and uniquely identifiable. Because of that, it's easier to recognize an ethical lapse where people are reviewing each others books. If it happens, someone can then write a letter to the editor or otherwise expose the situation. I realize that many, if not most, Amazon reviews are also signed, but you can't be 100% sure of the attribution. And even when you do see an name and a city, it's often a common name and a big city, so the attribution can't really be used to check anything out. Kirkus and PW have completely anonymous reviews. As I said previously, I'm not a fan of those either. |
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09-03-2012, 09:34 PM | #119 |
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09-03-2012, 09:44 PM | #120 |
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If you'd read the thread you'd presumably have realised I was parodying the OP, who thinks that one self-published writer buying reviews means all self-published writers should be sneered at. Clearly, then, we should sneer at all trade-published writers because some of them have admitted to posting fake reviews.
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