Reviews from Fiver

[Mattie]

I received this in my email today, so not sure if it applies or not. Just thought people should be aware. I left out the source, because I don't want to get into bashing sources.

Take if for what it's worth.

A quick warning to anyone using Fiverr for book reviews. As most authors are aware, Amazon does review activity on Fiverr and lately the word has it that they are looking at incoming links from Fiverr to your books.

WHAT THIS MEANS

If you are using Fiverr to get book reviews and you provide the review a link to your book, and the click it to buy, review etc. Amazon is tracking incoming clicks that originate from Fiverr.

Amazon has also been shutting down reviewer gigs on Fiverr. As of now, I haven't seen this affect reviews, but you definitely don't want to be caught up in that mix.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Jakeeck]

I think their time would be better spent having some kind of screening process for books submitted. It's so saturated with shitty books that it's very difficult to get visibility on there. These people with low-quality books are the ones who are paying for reviews in the first place in many cases.

I say you focus on the source (crappy books). By crappy books, I mean ones with spelling/grammar errors galore and ones that are obviously thrown together just to have something published.

This way, even if someone does pay for reviews, at least it's for a book that Amazon has deemed as high enough quality to be sold, and thus making the reviews less deceptive. If you search for anything in a niche you can find a book that's no better than a pile of garbage, and yet it's on the first page of results for its reviews and the downloads it has gotten because of those reviews.

Can you imagine Barnes and Noble accepting books that people printed right off of their computer? It would be a cesspool of shitty books.

I hope they eventually implement at least some kind of screening/review process to eliminate the trash that goes on there.

 

[GodMode52]

Here's an easy solution http://nullrefer.com , but yeah Jakeeck has a point, people should invest their time in publishing decent books rather than running behind fake reviews lol

 

[SBS.95]

I think their time would be better spent having some kind of screening process for books submitted. It's so saturated with shitty books that it's very difficult to get visibility on there. These people with low-quality books are the ones who are paying for reviews in the first place in many cases.

I say you focus on the source (crappy books). By crappy books, I mean ones with spelling/grammar errors galore and ones that are obviously thrown together just to have something published.

This way, even if someone does pay for reviews, at least it's for a book that Amazon has deemed as high enough quality to be sold, and thus making the reviews less deceptive. If you search for anything in a niche you can find a book that's no better than a pile of garbage, and yet it's on the first page of results for its reviews and the downloads it has gotten because of those reviews.

Can you imagine Barnes and Noble accepting books that people printed right off of their computer? It would be a cesspool of shitty books.

I hope they eventually implement at least some kind of screening/review process to eliminate the trash that goes on there.

Isn't that the whole advantage of Amazon though? That anyone can publish?

I realize that there is some real crap on there, but with the amount of submissions they get on a daily basis, a screening process could ruin one of the primary perks of selling through them. Can you imagine getting a book rejected and not knowing why? If their author support would be anything like their seller support (which, being as authors are sellers, it probably would be similar) I wouldn't even want to think about it.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Jakeeck]

Isn't that the whole advantage of Amazon though? That anyone can publish?

I realize that there is some real crap on there, but with the amount of submissions they get on a daily basis, a screening process could ruin one of the primary perks of selling through them. Can you imagine getting a book rejected and not knowing why? If their author support would be anything like their seller support (which, being as authors are sellers, it probably would be similar) I wouldn't even want to think about it.

Advantage for who? The people who can't put out a coherent book? Yes.

I just think there should be some kind of quality control, but it makes sense that Amazon wouldn't want it that way so they can squeeze out every little sale they can.

As far as getting a book rejected and not knowing why... they could have a set of guidelines that are grounds for getting a book rejected. Don't meet the guidelines? Sorry, try again.

A screening process would only ruin the perks for the people who can't write a valuable book, and those people don't deserve the perks in the first place. I'm not saying it has to be some state of the art book, just one that isn't littered with errors and obvious attempts to bloat page counts.

 

[SBS.95]

Advantage for who? The people who can't put out a coherent book? Yes.

I just think there should be some kind of quality control, but it makes sense that Amazon wouldn't want it that way so they can squeeze out every little sale they can.

As far as getting a book rejected and not knowing why... they could have a set of guidelines that are grounds for getting a book rejected. Don't meet the guidelines? Sorry, try again.

A screening process would only ruin the perks for the people who can't write a valuable book, and those people don't deserve the perks in the first place. I'm not saying it has to be some state of the art book, just one that isn't littered with errors and obvious attempts to bloat page counts.

This is precisely the problem scenario I was trying to point out, and you're flaunting it as the solution?

This happens all the time with big companies- Google, Ebay, PayPal, Amazon, etc. They will take action on something, and you (the lowly user) will wonder what led them to do that. You try to inquire why, and they simply say "Violation of our guidelines and TOS." Meanwhile there are a billion possibilities for what could be wrong, even something really simple- but you won't know what it is. After all, the amount of volume of submissions they get- they don't have time to tell each individual person what is wrong, so they just tell them they are in violation of a rule.

If you think it's possible for a company like Amazon, in today's age of lawyers and big contracts, to have simple guidelines and terms of service like:

a) do this
b) don't do this

...then sorry, I don't know what to tell you except that's a fairy tale. The current system isn't perfect, but if I were you, I wouldn't be so quick to give up seller privileges of being able to just click publish and have it for sale. This is a very powerful tool for entrepreneurs. Sure, some crap gets in, but once they take that freedom from authors you will never get it back.

 

[Mattie]

This seems to be a big buzz right now with the authors:
http://www.salon.com/2014/10/21/bat...s_the_war_raging_between_authors_and_readers/
Problem is people do write a lot of crap in e-book format. I've seen some wonderful books too. Like stated above though, you ruin it for everyone, because if you change things everyone is touched by it.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Jakeeck]

This is precisely the problem scenario I was trying to point out, and you're flaunting it as the solution?

This happens all the time with big companies- Google, Ebay, PayPal, Amazon, etc. They will take action on something, and you (the lowly user) will wonder what led them to do that. You try to inquire why, and they simply say "Violation of our guidelines and TOS." Meanwhile there are a billion possibilities for what could be wrong, even something really simple- but you won't know what it is. After all, the amount of volume of submissions they get- they don't have time to tell each individual person what is wrong, so they just tell them they are in violation of a rule.

If you think it's possible for a company like Amazon, in today's age of lawyers and big contracts, to have simple guidelines and terms of service like:

a) do this
b) don't do this

...then sorry, I don't know what to tell you except that's a fairy tale. The current system isn't perfect, but if I were you, I wouldn't be so quick to give up seller privileges of being able to just click publish and have it for sale. This is a very powerful tool for entrepreneurs. Sure, some crap gets in, but once they take that freedom from authors you will never get it back.

I'm not sure what's so obscene about guideline submissions to you. If you can't follow directions or don't know what went wrong, you troubleshoot it. Try forums or anything you use to troubleshoot. I just think a barrier to entry of 1 instead of 0 would weed out a lot of the junk.

Maybe that just means running every submission through a spell check for too many errors and rejecting based off of that, or too much blank space indicating page count manipulation.

 

[SBS.95]

I'm not sure what's so obscene about guideline submissions to you. If you can't follow directions or don't know what went wrong, you troubleshoot it. Try forums or anything you use to troubleshoot. I just think a barrier to entry of 1 instead of 0 would weed out a lot of the junk.

Maybe that just means running every submission through a spell check for too many errors and rejecting based off of that, or too much blank space indicating page count manipulation.

Really?

You don't see the problems with a spell check? Imagine if George RR Martin ran Game of Thrones through a spell checker- that thing would fail his book, despite it being a fantastic fictional work, within the 1st page. He even stated himself that he uses an old DOS computer to write so it doesn't auto-correct everything. And don't say "that's only an issue with fiction books". There are tons of non-fiction books that spell check would slip up. I don't think terms like "slowlane" or "sidewalker" are in a dictionary.

As for "just troubleshoot it", I don't think you realize what it's like dealing with these big companies. It's not just a matter of "try this, and if that doesn't work, try this and it'll fix it." There are literally millions of reasons for them to deny you, and it's unlikely you will ever find out what yours is. Try dealing with PayPal when they seize your money, or Ebay/Amazon when a customer does a scam return (sends back an empty box.) This is the kind of "support" you can expect when they don't publish your book for a violation.

I'll agree to disagree to this. My personal opinion though- I'd much rather have the occasional crap get published rather than saying "Hey Amazon, how about you put more steps in between me writing a book and customers paying me money for it?" For me, it's all about getting from finished --> 1st sale. I don't want to wait 24 hours for this and 72 hours for that. I want it now. If you're wired more patiently, I could see how you think this could be a good idea.

 

[Mattie]

hmm...you have some good points there. It's kind of like freedom of speech. If we told naysayers to shut up and fault finders, we'd be silenced too. So yes, even grammar, and format, etc, the rules always apply to all of us. So as an entrepreneur, freedom for the people, even if I don't like reading some things. It's always our choice what we read.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Jakeeck]

Really?

You don't see the problems with a spell check? Imagine if George RR Martin ran Game of Thrones through a spell checker- that thing would fail his book, despite it being a fantastic fictional work, within the 1st page. He even stated himself that he uses an old DOS computer to write so it doesn't auto-correct everything. And don't say "that's only an issue with fiction books". There are tons of non-fiction books that spell check would slip up. I don't think terms like "slowlane" or "sidewalker" are in a dictionary.

As for "just troubleshoot it", I don't think you realize what it's like dealing with these big companies. It's not just a matter of "try this, and if that doesn't work, try this and it'll fix it." There are literally millions of reasons for them to deny you, and it's unlikely you will ever find out what yours is. Try dealing with PayPal when they seize your money, or Ebay/Amazon when a customer does a scam return (sends back an empty box.) This is the kind of "support" you can expect when they don't publish your book for a violation.

I'll agree to disagree to this. My personal opinion though- I'd much rather have the occasional crap get published rather than saying "Hey Amazon, how about you put more steps in between me writing a book and customers paying me money for it?" For me, it's all about getting from finished --> 1st sale. I don't want to wait 24 hours for this and 72 hours for that. I want it now. If you're wired more patiently, I could see how you think this could be a good idea.

Good point about the spelling thing; I didn't think of that.

I'm impatient as well, and you're right—adding 24-72 hours between submissions could become a nightmare if you're constantly getting denied.

I suppose it doesn't really matter how small the barrier to entry is anyways, because the real barrier to entry is getting visibility for your book.

 

[RogueInnovation]

Well honestly I think getting your book seen in amidst cr#p isn't hard. If your books is of higher quality it can get out of that quagmire with a few steps.
Make the book readable, have very clear content, very clearly state what its about and keep the book precisely consistent to the example text and identify your audience (and clearly demonstrate expertise).

Once that trust is established, and people enjoy the book, it should raise up out of the junkyard.

I don't know what makes books sell, but its not exclusivity of publishing rights.



However I forsee internet book shops as a possible entreprenuerial opportunity.
I'm actually half tempted, and might go into the venture if I found the right people.
Just sayin...