Paid review, a harsh lesson, what do you think?

[Igor]

To cut the long story short, I had my book reviewed as part of the publishing package, and boy was it an unpleasant lesson. Throwing money down the well, as they say. I did read several other threads here discussing this very topic, even came across what KatG had to say, and a lot of other useful info. I wish had this information at my disposal when I chose the reviewing service as I sure wouldn't have chosen it. Well, you live and learn.

Anyhow, you might want to enjoy reading a bit of drama, and my take on the matter.
Bottom line: no problem getting a negative review, I just want one that actually lets me do something useful.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/life/the-be...ad-review.html

And some more reading:

http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33024

http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34810

What do you think? Fire away!


Cheers,
Igor

[kissmequick]

Hmm

Well, for one, reviews are not there to give an author feedback - they are for readers. If you want feedback, then get a beta reader or post for critque somewhere.

Two, your blog post comes across as rather defensive. It's not a good review (in either sense), no. But I don't see it being abusive at all. It's just one person's opinion. Paid for or not (and paid reviews are not a good idea IMO) that's all it ever is.

I've had far worse/more useless reviews than that.* Just accept that it will happen and move on. And remember, sometimes a bad review pushes sales. The things the reviewer hated might be just what I like.


*my fave is on audible for a book under my real name, rather than my pen name. To aid reviews, audible asks a few questions for readers to answer. Q: Which scenes would you delete and why? A: All of them. At least she was honest! Really that is all you can expect from a review, an honest viewpoint.

[Sarunus]

I'm compelled to agree with kissmequick on pretty much all counts.

On a side note, at least you got a snippet from the review that is useful as back cover fodder:

Ljubuncic's descriptions of battle crackle with life

I've always said that if my first fiction book gets savaged in the reviews, I might just put snippets from those on the back cover as a sense of self-deprecation. From this review:

CLICHED CHARACTERS!

DWARF ASSASSIN!

(I've never seen or heard of a dwarf assassin either to be honest, so I'm not sure how he's cliched)

GRAPHIC CARNAGE!

RELIGIOUS ALLEGORIES!

Again, bad reviews happen, even bad reviews with little in the way of constructive criticism. That's just the way the cookie crumbles. I'm sure it's frustrating to pay for a review and not get something of quality, even if the review pans the book. If you're aspiring to be a serious author, I would suggest that lashing out against a bad review looks like sour grapes and really isn't very dignified.

Hey, take even what I say with a grain of salt. In the fiction realm, I'm as amateur as it gets, but that's my 2 cents.

[Igor]

Interesting points, some good food for thought. I am aware of the defensiveness in the post, but I could not think of another way to convey my opinion on the spirit of the review rather than its content. Or come as lashing against the review rather than the review's mission. And apparently, it's a tricky task, given your feedback.

BTW, it's not so much disappointment as a professional expectation.

Still, useful to hear what people have to say.

Igor

[kissmequick]

And apparently, it's a tricky task, given your feedback.

It is, which is why it's often called the Authors Big Mistake

TBH, the only positive way to respond to a negative review in my opinion is to own it. Hey, look, this is my review!

A few examples

Oh, John Ringo, No! This links to a really scathing review of a book. The author then linked to it on his website and said, iirc, something along the lines of 'He's got a point, you should all go read it', thereby driving up hits on the review site (leaving a happy reviewer), and also showing a bit of self-depreciating class.

This one cracks me up every time. And the author response (post 23) is sheer class.

One author (wish I could recall who) makes a point of digging up the worst reviews of his book and putting them on his website, with a line that goes something like 'This are the worst I could find. Enjoy!'

And for a parody of what can happen if you fixate on reviews....here. Swear to dog, seen similar happen...

If it helps, go and look at amazon reviews for your favourite book. Because any book you love, someone will hate. I guarendamntee it. And that helps put it all in perspective

[Igor]

The reason I wrote about it and didn't hide it was exactly that. But now, the task got really challenge - how to convey the right message without sounding like a crybaby.

In a very attention-who.. kind of way, I do want the negative reviews too. It would be weird if they didn't crop up. It's the expectation that they be delivered with a vomit comet flair rather than just 10-min-per-assignment disdain that I got, woe my precious dollars!

So the challenge ... btw, that John Ringo article is bloody awesome. Wanna read that now. And that's how reviews are written!

Regards,
Igor

[kissmequick]

You'll note in the links I put that the author at no point argued with the logic or opinion of the reviewer.

I think there's your difference.

[Igor]

Got it ... just need to get over the bad customer support trauma

As they say: when you pay for fun, it'd better be funny.
Wait, no one says that, just invented it.

Precious advice, thanks! I will wind this thread into the comings and goings of my attention-seeking adventures in the future.

Igor

[kissmequick]

Heh, it takes time to get used to reviews (and it sure must sting more if you paid for it!). Just remember they are only one opinion, and even a bad one like this could give you good information/advice re going into your next book.

[Igor]

Most of the other reviews gave me some pointers for the second book. I've completed the first draft and now working through it, making small amendments as a result. This specific one, actually, it leaves me with no action to take and fix, which is what makes it such a loss for me.
Igor

[kissmequick]

Well it gives you some things to think about, or to try and see from a different angle

The lack of linguistic variation for ex. Now, yes, your countries are in a smaller area than the US. But the US is one country that was primarily - initially at least - colonised by a bunch of people from one country - Britain - who all spoke the same language. Different countries do tend to have different languages - it's not about distance, but about culture (for instance, in a 200 mile radius around where I am currently sitting you will find countries speaking French, Flemish, Dutch, Welsh and English. Even in England, two people from the West Country and Newcastle will speak very differently). So that might be something to think about - at the very least, if there isn't much linguistic variation it should perhaps be addressed as to why. Are they all descended from people who spoke one language but sub divided into separate countries later? Would thinking about this help give your cultures more depth, do you think?

So you could think on why perhaps he didn't like the things he didn't like? Where's he coming from? You don't have to change anything, of course. But it might be a useful exercise to think through.

Any review that details what they didn't like and why can be useful.

[kmtolan]

Yog's Law applies here to. Don't pay for reviews - solicit them at best. In any case, understand that this is not where you go for critiques. Reviews are strictly for promotions as far as you (not the reader) are concerned. Granted, though, that enough scathing reviews could warrant pulling your work from the market in order to save your reputation (otherwise considered as author brand). Assuming you have self published.

I may discuss aspects of a review with the writer, however in the end it remains their opinion to which they are certainly entitled. In some rare cases you can successfully get the review removed - I would think a paid review should fall into this case as you would be in a customer relationship with the reviewer

Kerry

[Igor]

If I had known in advance, I'd have skipped it. But that was part of a deal almost a year before the book came out, and a lot of has changed since. Anyhow, a valuable lesson for future endeavors.
Igor

[KatG]

Hmm

Well, for one, reviews are not there to give an author feedback - they are for readers.

Well no, that's what regular reviews are for. Paid reviews are a different type of story. A paid review is a PR effort. You pay the money and you get a positive review, one that may not be glowing and which may contain some mild criticisms -- in order to make it credible -- but which promotes the book. And then the company doing the paid reviews -- which is acting as a PR service -- does as part of its job posting of this paid review in an agreed upon number of key sites. And for this service, they charge large gobs of money. There is absolutely no reason to pay large globs of money for a nasty, negative review. And what seems to be further happening from these companies from what we've heard from clients so far is that the book is often given to reviewers who don't know the field the book belongs to, have no interest in the work and may have not read all of it or possibly just skimmed a summary. They're under no obligation to prove that the book was read.

They are, however, under an obligation to provide a credible, largely positive review and post it in the agreed upon places. This company did not provide the service it was supposed to provide.

I'm very sorry to hear that Igor got scammed. And I think at this point that it is pretty clear that these companies are running a con and taking advantage of a lot of authors who are entering the self-publishing market with very little understanding of how fiction is sold. Instead, they try to market their work like they've heard other products are marketed. And this makes them very vulnerable to scams like this. Additionally, as we discussed, paid reviews put authors at risk because if it's found out that the author paid for the review or the review does not sound credible to others -- even if it is positive -- then the author will not be viewed favorably and may have created bad word of mouth. Readers don't want to read paid reviews. And no, pro and prominent reviewers getting ARC copies or electronic files to read the book -- many of which they don't end up having time to read -- is not the same thing.

Initially, when electronic self-publishing went nova, authors in the market faced a lot of skepticism and found it hard to get their work reviewed anywhere. Most reviewers are dealing with several thousand books a year from publishers and weren't interested in wading through hundreds of thousands of self-published works too. So that made this particular venture popular -- we'll give you a review and circulate it for pay. But the places that we've been told these companies post the review are places that anyone could put up a review in, like Amazon. You could get your friends to do it for free. So really, it's a scam and it's a particularly malicious one when you take several hundred dollars from an author and destroy his book in a review. (The upside -- again, I don't think many people ever read these reviews anyway and a negative review is not the end of the world.)

As I said before, I think if you want to spend the money -- and there's nothing wrong with doing that -- then it's better spent on buying Internet ads and other promotional efforts that have been shown to work with fiction readers, like events, and are not about presenting fake testimonials to those readers. But paying $200-300 to a company that cannot even do the PR effort they're paid for is, unfortunately, a waste.

But yeah, everybody makes mistakes. It's a learning process. But I have to say, after hearing this, I really do not like these companies and would be happy to see them run out because they are cheating people.

[kissmequick]

Tbh I'm in two minds about the whole thing re paid reviews

If a paid review guarantees a good (ish) review then it's not worth anything because it isn't honest.

But then again, Igor didn't get what he paid for


Then again if he asked for a review for promo, then it isn't for feedback, right? Different animal

Dilemma, no?

Hence I was treating it as A Review. Because in a career, you're going to have to deal with them.


As it was paid for, Igor might have recourse to complain (privately) to the people he paid, perhaps publicly say he got scammed without defending his text (never comes across well). But the point about his blog posts still stands. If he'd complained purely about the paid for aspect, that's one thing (but then it smacks of why did I get an honest review instead of a glowing but not honest one, how very dare they? Did he pay for a good review, or a review? Is the 'good' part in the T&C? If it is, is it worth anything?) The blog post as is, is another. And not a good plan, tbh.

Again, tbh, I've heard a lot of dubious stuff about teh paid for Kirkus reviews - their non paid ones are still pretty respected, but the others....no.

If Igor has learnt a thing or two (and others reading this) then all to the good.