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ficbot, this is the main dilemma for self-publishing authors today. At one time the author could sit back and let the publisher's publicist spout hyperbole about his/her book and remain untainted. But now authors must be promoters too. That inevitably means appearing immodest to some extent. And there are so many books on offer that it's easy for an author to stray over the line and become a desperate spammer.
Here I think it behoves readers to do their bit in the new publishing economy. Books are getting much cheaper and easier to acquire -- it could be argued that readers should be rather more active in recommending (or otherwise) books from their e-libraries. Word-of-mouth is anyway the very best marketing aid a book can have.
I'm not sure MobileRead is doing the industry a long-term service by providing a special forum for authors' self-promotion (although I took advantage of it myself for the first time only yesterday). Your decision to publish reviews of Smashwords books is much more positive.
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