How NOT to promote your self-published ebook

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Old Hack

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Some of those extracts are amazingly bad. What a shame. I hate to see writers get burned like this, no matter how badly they've behaved.
 
Old Hack

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Because it's ugly, unnecessary, and damaging.
 
Amadan

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Old Hack said:
Because it's ugly, unnecessary, and damaging.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I can't agree. I don't think someone deserves a dogpile of one-star reviews just because the author is an asshole personally, but if the book is crap and the author antagonizes a bunch of people promoting it, then he's reaping what he sowed -- people will go review the book (harshly) when they normally wouldn't bother.
 
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I've watched many dogpiles like these over the years and they almost always go too far. I've seen clueless writers spam message boards and get kicked to the floor because of it: far better, I think, to try to point out why what they're doing is wrong and leave it at that.

That doesn't mean that I disagree with people pointing out that the book concerned is mysoginistic nonsense: but review the book, not the author; and don't keep on beating him once he's down. Remember what happened to the Greek Seaman author? That was really nasty. It went far too far.
 
kaitie

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I'm with Old Hack. The first couple of people are probably warranted to warn readers. But then things get way out of hand and it just becomes kicking someone while they're down.

Moral of the story: Never piss anyone off on the internet.
 

Momento Mori

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I actually pointed the author here to the discussions on epublishing and self-publishing on one of those threads, but I've got to say that it's a real peeve of mine when self-published authors use the LJ book review communities to promote their books. He's not the first sadly, and he won't be the last.

MM
 

Deleted member 42

Old Hack said:
That doesn't mean that I disagree with people pointing out that the book concerned is mysoginistic nonsense: but review the book, not the author.
Click to expand...

I think this is key; bolding mine.

ETA: I'll point out when reviewing a book that is ostensibly scholarly that the author lacks suitable knowledge and skills, but the existence of people like Smollett, D. H. Lawrence, Orson Scott Card, and the late Michael Crichton have made me realize the importance of reviewing the book, and not the author.
 
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fourlittlebees

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The majority of the reviews reference nothing but the book.

That being said, if you read all the links, this is one dogpile I can totally get behind. This isn't a clueless writer, like the woman who reacted badly to the not-totally-positive review, but a person who has not only spammed communities for personal gain, but also freely admitted that he has sent the same spam to women whose assignations with he used in the book and thinks it's funny.

Have at it, Amazon reviewers. I actually hope those women sue the pants off him in addition to the bad reviews.
 

scarletpeaches

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I notice one of the LJ comments accuse him of being "on a par with romance novels".

Wow. Just...wow. :eek:

I'll put my shittiest first draft up against any of that crap and come out on top, and I don't care if that makes me sound arrogant, because lumping it in with romance novels by virtue of their genre is a highly offensive, untrue, thinly-veiled accusation of "All romance novels are shite!"
 
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So what do you guys think about my marketing plan to pay people to have my ISBN-13 tattooed on their backs above my logo?

Pretty nifty, eh?
 
kaitie

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You have a logo?
 
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