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Originally Posted by Felicity Grope
As to offering a public service: your consideration to your fellow readers is admirable but who holds you to account and where do we draw the line regarding who should or should not be allowed to write or publish? Frankly, about 99% of the ebooks written are dross and muddy the market for better publications. But it’s not my place to attack the books I hate and people should never be discouraged from trying to create anything.
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Creating is one thing - participating in the commercial marketplace is something else entirely.
As for who should be allowed to write or publish? Anyone is allowed to write, as they should, but I do sometimes crave "quality checks" for publishing. Sadly, I don't think there's any fair way to institute a process for it. Which is why we have reviews, and why reviewers are important to readers.
And the "how many of those people could write a book themselves" nonsense (somewhere up thread, I lost the post) stopped holding water at the exact moment when the number of self-published books in the marketplace provided an answer: "Most of them, apparently."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Felicity Grope
I can be scathing, vicious, and downright hurtful at times but I only attack people in positions of power.
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I don't get this. People either deserve respect or they don't, but it should be based on their actions, not on their "position of power".
A book, however, is a thing, not a person, and deserves only an honest review. If an author can't handle the truth about their book being less than great, then they need to either get better or go home.
I don't advocate being mean to authors (or anyone else), but I also don't advocate coddling the creative types. And I say that as a creative type myself. Honesty, even brutal honesty, can be a much greater gift than meaningless kudos and "participation awards".