Free (nook/Kindle) The Twisted Ones by Vin Packer [Vintage Pulp Crime Thriller]

[ATDrake]

The Twisted Ones by Vin Packer, a pseudonym* for award-winning YA author Marijane Meaker (Wikipedia) is a vintage pulp disaffected youth crime thriller, originally published by Gold Medal in 1959 and now reprinted and offered free courtesy of Adams Media's Prologue Books imprint.

This is of course another one of the books I paid for during that big Prologue 99 cent sale at Amazon a couple of weeks ago and not one of the umpteen dozen which didn't make the sale. Only 131 more to go and I'll have "free" ePub versions of everything I went and bought!

Prologue Books, from the looks of it, have now started in on their vintage pulp sci-fi/fantasy line, with reprints of E.E. Doc Smith and Robert Sheckley featured as new releases on the official website. Hopefully they offer a couple of those free.

Anyway, free for the next week @ B&N and Amazon UK (likely to drop in the main store).

Description
These were nice kids, model kids. They didn’t wear leather jackets and roam the streets in “wolf packs”; they didn’t steal and mug for dope. For kids, they were well mannered and quiet. They were attractive and nicely dressed. You’d have welcomed them as next-door neighbors.

Yet...

one raped

one murdered

one killed by fire

What got into them? What dark thoughts tormented them when they were alone at night

* Speaking of pseudonyms, author Meaker turns out to have an unfortunate tendency to give a 5-star customer review to her own work, and plug her related books when reviewing other authors' works on the same subject, and in the past sort of vaguely skirt around the fact that she is the actual author of the work she praises (or at least has this baffling tendency to talk about herself in the 3rd prerson), but hopefully she's learned better since 2005 as she more recently openly admits to having written the book she is 5-starring, which is progress for an octogenarian, I suppose.

Hopefully she has sufficient milliHarlanEllisons of talent to compensate for that, otherwise she's already gotten all the 20x$0.99 she's likely to get from my pocket and I'll just wait for future prospective freebies instead.

[Blue Tyson]

Thanks. See if I can read one of those tonight.

In this case though, measure in milliBracketts.

[ATDrake]

Did Leigh Brackett ever pull flouncy ranting temper tantrums and grope/sue people like Ellison does? I'd never heard that about her.

Because that's what the scale measures for in terms of and and as regards the intersection of genuinely genius-level talent sufficient to make up for acting like some man who mistook his @$$ for a hat.

Many authors would not rate even a fraction of a milliHarlan of consideration for their foibles. The scale is a harsh mistress, much like the moon, but without the rail gun of loving correction. Much as I'd occasionally like to drop meteors on people whom I think could really benefit from it.

[Wald07]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

turns out to have an unfortunate tendency to give a 5-star customer review to her own work.

Well, I liked MY book!!!! Of course I gave it 5*****

Indeed. This. Garbage. Has. Really. Ticked. Me. Off.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Did Leigh Brackett ever pull flouncy ranting temper tantrums and grope/sue people like Ellison does? I'd never heard that about her.

Because that's what the scale measures for in terms of and and as regards the intersection of genuinely genius-level talent sufficient to make up for acting like some man who mistook his @$$ for a hat.

Many authors would not rate even a fraction of a milliHarlan of consideration for their foibles. The scale is a harsh mistress, much like the moon, but without the rail gun of loving correction. Much as I'd occasionally like to drop meteors on people whom I think could really benefit from it.

Actually, no. Believe she told him off once at a dinner, though.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Wald07

Well, I liked MY book!!!! Of course I gave it 5*****

Indeed. This. Garbage. Has. Really. Ticked. Me. Off.

Please, don't let it get to you. This is rather common if you include spouses, family, friends, fellow authors.

I treat it like a hide-and-seek adventure. Can I find them camouflaged in with the other reviews?

It doesn't mean the books are poor quality just that the author may be overzealous in her "marketing." We just need other criteria for determining purchase-worthiness.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Fbone

It doesn't mean the books are poor quality just that the author may be overzealous in her "marketing." We just need other criteria for determining purchase-worthiness.

Author ethics, or a noticeable lack thereof, seem a good enough purchase-worthiness determination criterion for me when it comes from transferring money from my pocket to theirs.

I'm fine and even occasionally pleased to accept promotional freebies of dubious background. It lets me indulge my morbid curiosity at no cost besides my time, should I choose to spend it.

But as for my actually paying real money to someone who's been less-than-competently attempting to deceive people in order to get them to pay real money for less-than-competently deceptively-marketed wares?

Ahahahaha… no, not unless one's skill and enjoyability are such that little lapses like that can be readily forgiven, which most people simply don't have the talent for to produce works of sufficient quality in the first place.

There's enough quality work out there that I'd personally much rather spend my time and money supporting authors who produce and promote such work in a fair and professional manner, letting it stand on its own merits, rather than go and subsidize those who don't just because they're merely producing work which may be of adequate quality which they present to the reader by whatever means they've no doubt decided are necessary to get ahead.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Author ethics, or a noticeable lack thereof, seem a good enough purchase-worthiness determination criterion for me when it comes from transferring money from my pocket to theirs.

I'm fine and even occasionally pleased to accept promotional freebies of dubious background. It lets me indulge my morbid curiosity at no cost besides my time, should I choose to spend it.

But as for my actually paying real money to someone who's been less-than-competently attempting to deceive people in order to get them to pay real money for less-than-competently deceptively-marketed wares?

Ahahahaha… no, not unless one's skill and enjoyability are such that little lapses like that can be readily forgiven, which most people simply don't have the talent for to produce works of sufficient quality in the first place.

There's enough quality work out there that I'd personally much rather spend my time and money supporting authors who produce and promote such work in a fair and professional manner, letting it stand on its own merits, rather than go and subsidize those who don't just because they're merely producing work which may be of adequate quality which they present to the reader by whatever means they've no doubt decided are necessary to get ahead.

I agree with you totally.

I'm sick and tired of the unethical nature of the few writers who do indulge in such activity. When it happens here I put on my Moderator hat and act quickly.


Don

[koland]

Keep in mind, there are those that overpromote and those that leave one comment to clarify a work due to what was, at one time, a very long time lag from when a KDP work was live and when it's description finally showed up. You have to pick some number of stars when leaving a review and (sadly), 3 no longer seems to mean "average", which is what the authors should choose.

Having said that, I didn't bother to go read this author's own comments (although at least it appears she makes it clear that she is discussing her own books, even if she does name drop titles here and there -- a tactic that is, sadly, promoted by many agents).

In the meantime, having been more restrained in grabbing books from Prologue when first introduced, this one is actually new to my library today and truly free (unlike all the other ones they have price dropped recently).

[Wald07]

Each of you has valid points, and I agree with aspects of each point of view.

For me, I think it's the plural sock puppets that have me up-in-arms. That, and authors paying $5 per review and including a copy of the book in question.

I could accept a review from the author, as long as it's made clear who they are, and what they were intending to achieve by posting a review. So long as they are not engaging in subterfuge...

Transparency is what I want to see. I'm employed by the local gov't, and we are always concerned about appearances, wheather they are accurate or not. We are concerend about how things MIGHT look, even if it's not that way.

I'm certain if had a self-pub book, all my friends and family would want to leave a review, much like a child having their artwork prodly displayed on the refrigerator. It becomes unethical when you are soliciting reviews and paying for them, and slamming honest reviewers who just didn't like the book, genre, whatever.

And I certainly won't part with my hard earned dollar to support some &$$-hole. Same goes for buying goods. If the seller is a jerk, I move on to another vendor. It matters to me, the character of those I do business with.

[Fbone]

But as for my actually paying real money to someone who's been less-than-competently attempting to deceive people in order to get them to pay real money for less-than-competently deceptively-marketed wares?

There are several forms of deception. Some more obvious and irritating than others. Most have a bias (83% according to a study) but this is to be expected. You want to have sex tonight then you better give your spouse's book a positive review. Avoid WW3 at the next holiday dinner; click five stars often. You want to keep your friends; write that good review. Continue receiving free samples; be praiseworthy. Earn extra income from affiliates? Start by saying "This is the best book I ever read" and collect that 6%. My worst offender yesterday was an self pubber with 63 out of 64 five-star reviews.

Personally, I've never purchased an ebook from Amazon. Just free stuff. And I only post free items so no wallets are involved. Still I do avoid (and don't post) books with only suspicious reviews. I'll let them brew and see if they reappear in 90 days with more reviews.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Most have a bias (83% according to a study) but this is to be expected. You want to have sex tonight then you better give your spouse's book a positive review. Avoid WW3 at the next holiday dinner; click five stars often. You want to keep your friends; write that good review. Continue receiving free samples; be praiseworthy.

If people disclose upfront bias/potential conflict of interest, then I respect that. Saying outright that "I really enjoyed this wonderful book by written my friend, whom I give 5 stars, I never suspected s/he had such amazing talent!" or will make me dismiss the review as a "friends and family" harmony-keeping thing, but won't make me subtract marks from the perceived potential-value-for-money that the author brings to the work (if one is sufficiently insecure to require such praise, probably the work is not good enough to merit it in the first place, though there will be exceptions). Nor will trying to accentuate the positives and downplay the negatives on an "I received a promotional copy for free in exchange for a review", since most people generally want to be "nice" when reviewing stuff they've gotten for free direct from the author/publisher which didn't suck outright.

Even author cluelessness in reposting positive reviews from other venues on Amazon under their own name (but giving credit to the original source) is a bit of mostly harmless gaucherie I can give a minor pass to, as long as people are reasonably upfront about it. Though it got creepy in that case that happened to an MR member who had her Goodreads reviews re-posted by someone doing "marketing" for the author who created an account with her exact same handle to make it look like she'd herself gone and posted such praise in more commercial venues, since that was a kind of identity theft.

It's deliberately trying to conceal any affiliations/relationship and pretending not to be the author/author's family and serendipitously stumbling across someone totally brand new and excellent when reviewing/directing people to a "deal" (even when sharing the same last name/exact same location details) and/or justifying the practice as "what us poor indies have to do to get noticed" (as often happens on the Amazon customer discussion boards) that gets the automatic DO NOT BUY, MAYBE NOT EVEN SKIM, DON'T BOTHER LINKING TO AGAIN.

And in the end, the fakery messes things up for everyone. "The Best Book I Ever Read!" will net the reviewer a reputation of only having read really bad books or having very poor taste, so people stop paying attention to their reviews. The "friends & family" promotion plan nets the author who does it, and all indie authors in general, a bad reputation as someone who needs yes-men to sneakily prop up their probably-shoddy work and suspicion directed towards their future offerings. And even now, people are becoming much more suspicious of customer-supplied reviews in general as astroturfing; we've already seen posts/articles about people not trusting the Amazon system any more and getting their recommendations from Goodreads, etc. instead.

1-star backlash can and already has hit works with disproportionately stellar rankings, especially those of authors who went and KDP-freebied their book so that unrelated readers could actually go read it. And the disgruntlement goes even higher with people who spent actual money for the book based on pre-existing 5-star reviews and I'm seeing a lot more "am I reading this in the negative mirror parallel universe than those people who live in the alternate world where this book didn't suck gave it all those 5-stars?"

Trying to game the system may net short term gains for some people who do it, but the long term result is a loss for almost everyone involved. Except Harriet Klausner, who's apparently Teflon-coated and will survive unscathed like cockroaches after nuclear armageddon. And Cassandra Clare, who's demonstrated what I'd consider an impressive ability to parlay a reputation for plagiarism into book deals were it not for the fact that publishers seem to be rather lax about checking or caring about rip-offs of other authors' works and glorified numbers-incompletely-filed-off fanfics taken straight to press, as long as the original creative parties don't sue and the repackaged books make big enough profits.

[koland]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Earn extra income from affiliates? Start by saying "This is the best book I ever read" and collect that 6%. My worst offender yesterday was an self pubber with 63 out of 64 five-star reviews.

I have to wonder with that many reviews, whether it's actually a decent book (as 5-star is now the new "average", it seems) or the person is really, really dedicated at writing sock puppet reviews. Could they have really found that many real people willing to plant false reviews for $5?

p.s. Affiliates get 4%-8.5%, depending on volume (although at B&N, it's zero percent, plus you get charged if someone uses a coupon, so you end up paying B&N to send them customers...). For free books, it doesn't add up very quickly, though (and for most of the self-pubbed books, you don't even make enough for a phone call, even if you could find a working payphone, let alone a soda to wash the story down with). In one of my reviews, I wrote that the book was the worst I had ever read and finished (which I only did because I paid really money for it); I repeatedly mentioned how bad it was over the next year. Yet, people clicked the link and BOUGHT the book and the publisher sent me the next one he wrote, free (in hardcover). I can honestly say it isn't the worst I've read (but perhaps might be in the running for #2), but it was a struggle to finish it. I've put off writing the review of it, while I try to find the right phrasing (and I really don't want others to buy it).

[koland]

Originally Posted by Wald07

Each of you has valid points, and I agree with aspects of each point of view.

For me, I think it's the plural sock puppets that have me up-in-arms. That, and authors paying $5 per review and including a copy of the book in question.

I could accept a review from the author, as long as it's made clear who they are, and what they were intending to achieve by posting a review. So long as they are not engaging in subterfuge...

Transparency is what I want to see. I'm employed by the local gov't, and we are always concerned about appearances, wheather they are accurate or not. We are concerend about how things MIGHT look, even if it's not that way.

I'm certain if had a self-pub book, all my friends and family would want to leave a review, much like a child having their artwork prodly displayed on the refrigerator. It becomes unethical when you are soliciting reviews and paying for them, and slamming honest reviewers who just didn't like the book, genre, whatever.

And I certainly won't part with my hard earned dollar to support some &$$-hole. Same goes for buying goods. If the seller is a jerk, I move on to another vendor. It matters to me, the character of those I do business with.

I'm not sure our views on the sock puppet users is actually that far apart. And those who do paid reviews should (and are required by law to) disclose that they are simply paid advertisements. Authors should know better than to get all their family and friends to post their own pre-written "reviews", but there are some big name people who do so (then again, they go from a publisher that does the promotion to needing to to it themselves and have no idea where to start ... then get suckered by a book or "agent" that advises them to do these things).

Free books for reviews may at first appear to be compensation, until you have to dust the blasted things for a while (often a "review book" shows up as a lose collection of printed paper, rather than an actual book). You do get the ability to read it early, but many are impossible to get thru (and that's from "real" publishers, not necessarily those from self-pubbed authors). They have no monetary value tho, either as ebooks or print copies (they are "not for sale" copies and even used stores won't take them - I donate mine to the nursing homes after I read them).

I know one big-name author who had a book (non-fic) in a specialized area; people leaving honest (and outraged) reviews over misinformation in the book were attacked by the author, agent (and probably sock puppets) and had their reviews removed, while "celebrity" reviews of the book ended up (with 5-stars, of course) being featured, instead. Eventually the "little people" gave up trying to leave reviews (and the bad/fake/5-star reviews mostly are still there).

I've also seem authors get crazy over reviews that dared to criticize their formatting (or even grammar/spelling -- one author who boasted of "writing" in a single burst, with zero editing or proofing; that might be a great writing exercise, one you pay someone to lead you thru, but shouldn't be a published work you try to charge others for), even though these are valid points that affect the readability and use of the product (whether a print book or an ebook).

There are those, though, that are personal A##hats (although not necessarily online) or whose politics I don't agree with -- whether or not to support them gets into an area that each person has to decide upon for themselves (consider, too, what you answer would be if you didn't know anything about the author, as was mostly the case pre-internet). Even taking a free book is "support", since it can boost their sales later on (it does, though, also give you the "verified purchaser" label if you leave a review).

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by koland

I have to wonder with that many reviews, whether it's actually a decent book (as 5-star is now the new "average", it seems) or the person is really, really dedicated at writing sock puppet reviews. Could they have really found that many real people willing to plant false reviews for $5?

This was the book. I noticed there is one 1-star review added today.

http://www.amazon.com/Damages-ebook/...7551247&sr=1-5