The spring genre literary awards are behind us—the Nebula, the Philip K. Dick, and so on. I pay attention to the awards because I often find books and stories I’ve missed over the past year.
One book I was aware of, but haven’t read, was short-listed for one of the awards and is presently being made into a movie. After the book took the top prize, I decided to check it out on Amazon.com and Goodreads. I’m always curious to find out how the readers feel about a book. After all, a jury of your professional peers and trade journal critics may judge and assess a book, but awards and rave reviews don’t always translate into what’s really, ultimately important to an author—book sales. And book sales are always driven by you, dear reader.
The book is a long one, 600 pages I think. That means the author invested a lot of time, hard work, and inspiration. And the author is a human being who sleeps, eats, and feels.
I started with Amazon.com, where the author’s publisher has proudly posted the award win, and I was shocked to find almost as many one-star reader reviews as five-stars. Apparently there are issues with this book that readers strenuously object to.
Okay. I’m glad readers feel so passionately about a book that they want to vent about how much they hated it. Less glad that they take the time to write a hate review and post it on Amazon, where it pretty much remains forever.
Amazon notoriously checks every detail, so you won’t find profanity in Amazon hate reviews. At least, I haven’t.
But that’s not the case on Goodreads, which Amazon now owns. I was doubly shocked to find the same split between raves and hates for this book on Goodreads, but in just about every hate review, the f-word was employed.
Gee, hater people. That’s really uncalled for and cruel. I freakin’ hate it.
From the author of Summer Of Love, A Time Travel (a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) on BarnesandNoble, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Smashwords, Apple, and Kobo.
Summer of Love, A Time Travel is also on Amazon.com in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Mexico, and Netherlands.
The Gilded Age, A Time Travel on BarnesandNoble, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Apple, Kobo, and Smashwords.
The Gilded Age, A Time Travel is also on Amazon.com in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Mexico, and Netherlands.
The Garden of Abracadabra, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series, “Fun and enjoyable urban fantasy,” on BarnesandNoble, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Apple, Kobo, and Smashwords.
The Garden of Abracadabra is also on Amazon.com in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Mexico, and Netherlands.
Celestial Girl, The Omnibus Edition (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) includes all four books. On Nook, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Smashwords, Apple, and Kobo;
Celestial Girl, The Omnibus Edition (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) is also on Amazon.com in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Mexico, and Netherlands.
Strange Ladies: 7 Stories, five-star rated, “A fantastic collection,” on Nook, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Smashwords, Apple, and Kobo.
Strange Ladies: 7 Stories is also on Amazon.com in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Mexico, and Netherlands.
Please visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Website for all my books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, reviews, interviews, and blogs, adorable pet pictures, forthcoming works, fine art and bespoke jewelry by my husband Tom Robinson, worldwide links, and more!
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Readers are just warning other readers to keep from wasting their money on what they consider a bad book. America employs the freedom of speech to protect hateful speech, and while I agree that swearing is in poor taste, I, as an author, respect readers especially when they feel so cheated that their emotions are flying. I, too, have spent hard earned money on a book because it had many glowing reviews only to find that the book was garbage; stagnant dialogue, one dimensional characters, barely a plot, etc., but it turned out the glowing reviews were from other authors who believe reviews are for promoting authors, when in reality, they are for readers. It is a good thing for the literary world that readers post scathing reviews, so long as they are honest and explain the reason behind the outburst, because the market is currently flooded by everyone who thinks words on a page equate to a book. Hopefully, more bad reviews for terrible books will help redirect the market and separate the authors from the people who put words on a page.
I don’t disagree with you, Aaron. I’ve posted this quotation from Voltaire many times, “I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” If readers feel so strongly about a book that they take the time to post a negative review, that’s certainly their freedom of speech right. I think profanity in a review has no place, though. And readers should realize the author is a human being who invested time and effort, got published, and expects the best. Many negative reviews seem vindictive or nasty, without explanation or analysis.
Agreed; an angry curse without an analysis explaining the reason for emotion is just a complaint and should be ignored.