I’m not here today, but I can be found misbehaving with erotica author Leanna Harrow at her blog, authorteasereadings! Come join us!
Cover Reveal: THE PARTNER’S PROGENY by Shelly Arkon
My good friend and fellow author Shelly Arkon is about to release a wonderful short story with a great cover by none other than my brilliant son, Collin. The Partner’s Progeny will be available as an ebook at Amazon in early July, so be sure you get a copy. It’s only $.99–a steal!
Bullies rule … or do they?
For seventeen years, Victoria Sheek has been a paralegal surpervisor at the Law Offices of Pereene, Carr, and Sevino, specializing in injury law. Rumors portray her as a bully. She remains confident that her position will never cease because of close relations to one of the founding partners, Mr. Carr.
Until Mr. Pereene, the head partner, hires Monica Bowman. Smitten with her because of her resemblance to his deceases granddaughter, Melissa, and his memories of her, she can do no wrong.
Which one of the two girls will keep their position at the firm? It takes an unexpected event to decide the outcome of their rivalry….
Shelly Arkon is the author of Secondhand Shoes.
When Shelly isn’t doing the laundry, cleaning, cooking, chasing grandkids, listening to daughter drama (five of them), or lopping heads of hair at the salon, she’s writing beside her two fur-peeps, Sir Poops and Hair Ball, popping an occasional chocolate while her hubby is flipping through TV channels.
She lives in New Port Richey with her husband and two dogs. She’s also a member of Florida Writer’s Association and Writers of Mass Distraction.
Excerpt: SUPERHERO IN TRAINING
Author’s Note: I’ve always loved romantic comedies…TV shows like Gilmore Girls and The Big Bang Theory…the novels of Janet Evanovich…and anyone who knows me knows I’m a huge fan of The Avengers–all of them! A little of this, a little of that, and soon I had the story of Charlotte “Charlie” Markham, owner of a comic book store in a Midwestern college town, and William Harwood, grad student and closet comic book creator whose superhero creation is about to turn the oddball community upside down….
The funeral procession had begun.
The funny part was that nobody had died. Brenda Walker, who lived down the street, had just found out she was pregnant. Okay, in 2013 that’s not exactly the big deal it was in 1953, but Brenda’s ultra-conservative Southern Baptist Republican parents would have disowned her seven ways to Sunday if she’d publicly embarrassed them with an out-of-wedlock baby—so Brenda’s hero of a hubby, who married her in a quickie ceremony the day before he got shipped off to Afghanistan, was conveniently killed in action. Now, she was mourning the death of her hero, who had given his life to save his fellow soldiers. She looked good in black. She’d probably wear it until the baby was born. She’d play the grieving widow to the hilt.
“Who died?”
“Nobody,” I said without thinking. Then I turned around. The guy standing behind me wasn’t bad looking. Not the geeky sort I was used to seeing in the store. Too good-looking. No thick-glasses, no pocket-protector, none of the usual awkwardness. He was tall, smiling, wearing a leather jacket and a baseball cap. He had a backpack that looked to be filled to capacity. Nobody filled their backpacks anymore, I observed. Everybody used tablets or e-readers. I silently hoped he wasn’t a mad bomber or something. I didn’t know what to do if he was. Tony Stark would know what to do. Bruce Wayne would know what to do. Me? I’d just panic and open the cash register. And then he’d probably kill me for not having much in the way of cash.
“Are you lost?” I asked without thinking.
He looked puzzled by the question. “I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “But maybe they are…if nobody actually died….”
“It’s a long story. A long, boring story.” I decided to spare him.
“I see.”
I could tell by the expression on his face that he really didn’t, but he changed the subject then. “I’m looking for the new Marvel releases—Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, whatever you’ve got.” He was still looking past me, through the window toward the faux funeral procession in the street.
“The widow there—she’s the one in black—her parents are very strict, very religious,” I attempted to explain. “She, on the other hand, is, well, a tramp.”
He looked at me and tried not to grin. Tried. But failed.
“She got sort of…knocked up.”
He gave me an odd glance. “How does one get ‘sort of’ knocked up?” he wanted to know.
He could tell I was embarrassed. I could tell he was enjoying it. I wanted to kick his ass, but I had a feeling he could become a regular customer. I was hoping, anyway. I could use all the business I could get. Bite your tongue, Charlie, I told myself. “She was playing Vatican Roulette with the local boys.”
“Boys? Plural?”
“Oh, great. An English major?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Psychology.”
I rolled my eyes. “It figures.”
“So…Trudy the Tramp is pregnant,” he said, guiding the conversation back to the mock funeral. “Her parents think she was married?”
“No. They just want everyone else to think she was,” I said, searching for the comic books he’d requested. “They’d be content at this point if she could just tell them who the father is.”
He shook his head and chuckled softly. “This looks to be an interesting neighborhood, at the very least,” he decided.
“The girls are all in mourning,” I attempted to explain. “Her dead husband gave his life for our country, you know. He was a hero.”
“Was he rich?”
I looked at him. “I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”
He shrugged. “If she’s going to fabricate a husband, she might as well go all the way,” he suggested.
“Nah,” I disagreed. “Easy to fake a dead husband, but if he’s a rich dead husband and her car gets repossessed, that’s going to be hard to explain.”
He laughed. “You have a point.”
I handed him the comic books. He looked them over and nodded with satisfaction, then reached into his pocket for his wallet. He gave me his credit card. I looked at it. William T. Harwood. “New to the neighborhood, Mr. Harwood?” I asked, trying to keep my tone casual. I ran the card through the reader and received a quick approval.
He smiled and nodded. “Call me Will.”
“I’m Charlie.”
He grinned. “You don’t look like a Charlie.”
“Charlotte.”
“You don’t look like a Charlotte, either.”
I hesitated. “What do I look like, then?” I wanted to know.
He studied me for a moment. “An Annie, maybe. A Dorothy, possibly.”
“A Toto?” I asked.
He shook his head, grinning. “Your ears aren’t long enough.”
“Thank Heaven for that,” I said. “Let me guess. You just blew in from Kansas.”
“I had that coming, didn’t I?” he asked. “No, actually, I’m from Vermont.”
“Ah, I should have realized—the New England accent.”
“I just moved here last week. I’m postgrad at the university. I’m just getting acclimated before classes start,” he said. “One of the first things on my list was to find a good comic book store.”
He took the credit card I returned to him and put it back in his wallet, then looked back toward the window again as the funeral procession returned. “Does this sort of thing happen around here often?” he wanted to know.
I laughed. “Better get used to it,” I advised. “It’s a community of oddballs.”
He grinned. “The perfect place for a writer.”
“You’re a writer?”
“Aspiring,” he said.
“Haven’t you published anything?”
“I haven’t finished anything yet.” He was looking toward the bar across the street. “What the—” he started.
I looked, too. One of the regulars was attempting to enter. Tuffy, a pit bull belonging to one of the neighbors, was, as usual, blocking his path. “Tuffy won’t let Fred in until Fred buys him a beer,” I explained.
“The dog drinks beer?” Will asked, surprised.
“He’s got a bit of a drinking problem,” I confided. “He hits all the guys up for a beer.”
“And they buy them for him?”
“If they want to get into the bar, they do.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Depends on how much beer he’s already had,” I said. “Tuffy’s a mean drunk.”
Will looked at me. “Does he…bite?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Tuffy knows where to bite to inflict the most pain.”
He winced. “Ouch.”
“I’ve been thinking of hiring him as my night watchdog,” I said then.
“Good call. He’d work cheap. Get him a six pack and he’s happy.”
I gave him my business card. “Hope your introduction to our more—interesting—residents hasn’t scared you off coming back here,” I told him.
He grinned. “Quite the contrary, Charlotte. I think I’m going to like it here.”
Charlotte? He was going to call me Charlotte?
“Come back soon, Sir Wills,” I told him.
(Also appearing at Windchaser’s Journey ~ Blogspot)
If Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery, What Does it Say About the Imitator?
When I sold my first novel, one of the first things I was asked by my editor and Berkley’s editor-in-chief (at that time) was: which authors did I most admire? Which books did I think my book was most like?
That was easy. I was a big fan of Sidney Sheldon. I’d learned a great deal from reading his novels and was quick to say so. I didn’t realize I’d opened my own personal Pandora’s Box. The marketing chimps took that and ran with it–to the extreme. I was launched as an author of glitzy romances with knock-off Sheldon titles that made no sense whatsoever, when what I had meant was that I wanted to write fast-paced thrillers with an international backdrop. The glamorous backdrops in my first two novels simply suited the plots–it had never been my intention to always look for glamorous settings. But it seemed I’d painted myself into a corner as far as the marketing department was concerned.
I’m still trying to figure out those nonsensical titles. Sheldon’s came from the epigraphs in his novels, but mine? I have no idea. A Time for Legends? I guess that was taken from The Sands of Time. Angels at Midnight? The Other Side of Midnight and Rage of Angels. Dance of the Gods? Windmills of the Gods, of course!
No author who wants a long-term career wants to be a copycat of someone else. Trying to be the next Stephen King, the next Dan Brown, the next J.K. Rowling, or the next anybody never ends well.
I was thinking of this the other day. Collin and I were watching Iron Man 2. Tony Stark found himself butting heads at a Senate hearing with a longtime rival, dorky Justin Hammer. Hammer is a Stark wannabe, but he never quite makes the grade. Why? Instead of being himself, drawing on his own strengths and abilities, he’s constantly trying to be something he’s not: Tony. He fails because he lacks Tony’s genius, his charm, his wit.
Even when he shows up at the Stark Expo with a whole platoon of battle drones, doing a little dance onstage onstage–again, in an attempt to emulate Tony–Justin Hammer just ends up looking foolish. He’s trying too hard to be something he’s not, and it shows.
It never works….
The Hit-And-Run Commentary
Sunday, I had a run-in with another author over on Facebook. (It was in the Writers of Mass Distraction Facebook group, but don’t bother looking for it. The thread ceased to exist shortly after the surly fellow departed from the group. I knew he started it to get attention, and I decided he wasn’t going to get any. At least not at WMD. What he does elsewhere is not my concern.)
I confess, I am sometimes a hit-and-run commenter. I’ll scan the posts, making a few casual comments without giving them much thought. This fellow’s post seemed to be designed for one purpose: to get fellow group members to buy his books. That’s fine, but taking pot shots at God to sell books is pretty lame. I gave the post a less thoughtful response than some of my fellow group members did. I thought the guy was a jerk. I still do.
He had a surprisingly extreme response which, to make a long story short, resulted in his departure from the group. Okay, so I edited my comment–according to him, after he responded. I don’t know. Maybe I did. I didn’t notice. I didn’t really care. I’ve posted responses to comments many times, only to find another member’s comment had come in before mine, completely changing the way mine sounded. It happens. I didn’t throw a hissy fit and go on and on about it, the way he did. It’s not a big deal–but obviously, it was to him. Why? Did he pick up on the fact that I wasn’t giving him much thought?
Another group member later told me later that he had been lamenting his lack of success elsewhere on the site. That explained his crankiness, as did an email from still another group member who recalled his bad attitude the day before, noting that he rarely interacted with the group anyway, only posting to push his books. I don’t recall seeing him there. I knew he was a member, but yesterday was the first time we actually crossed paths.
I am not familiar with this author’s work. I’ve never read any of his books, not even samples. I know nothing of his talents. I have, however, read a few five-star reviews of his work on a review blog I used to follow. The reviewer obviously thinks he’s good. His books sound a bit too quirky for my taste, but that’s just me.
There are any number of reasons why an author might not be succeeding, even if they’re talented writers with well-written books to offer. The website Author Media offers some possibilities and potential solutions. My friend and fellow author Mike Saxton points out that a large number of self-published authors make the mistake of marketing their books to other authors rather than to readers. Everyone has the same objective: to sell books, not to buy them. I’ll buy books from authors who are personal friends, and I’ll buy anything else in genres I enjoy–but be realistic. Nobody buys everyone’s books, nor should it be expected.
I definitely would not buy a book from an author with such a bad attitude.
We all have our ups and downs; we don’t all take our down times out on whoever happens to cross our paths. If we’re to survive in this crazy business, we develop thick hides, we learn to roll with the punches, and we accept the realities of it. Self-publishing is not a career for anyone seeking overnight success. The fact remains that most authors–whether traditionally-published or self-published–have to keep their day jobs. Most don’t earn enough to write full-time. I believe the estimate, when I was starting out, was 10%. And that’s a pretty generous estimate. Furthermore, only a small percentage of those who made a living at it actually became wealthy.
Sometimes, we limit ourselves, our audience by the choices we make. I knew when Collin and I decided to self-publish Chasing the Wind that we were giving up a lot. At a time when most writers couldn’t get one agent, we were fortunate to have multiple agents excited about the book–conditionally. After getting past the “this is a movie, not a book” phase, we found ourselves with another choice to make: possibly removing the spiritual elements of the story to make it more mainstream. Not something I wanted to do. Collin was more receptive at that point. Truth be told, I think he still would be.
One agent, who loved my writing and believed the novel could be a big bestseller, felt it could only work if we took out all the supernatural aspects and made it a sci-fi thriller about genetic engineering. After much debate, we finally decided to self-publish. I would write the book I wanted to write, and accept that it would have a much smaller audience.
No regrets. And no whining.
Check ‘em out:
The Rumors of My Demise May Have Been Exaggerated
Just a week ago, I was contemplating my retirement. I had dropped the ball with regard to marketing my books (I hadn’t even checked my Amazon pages in a while—I just discovered I have some new reviews! Yay!). I hadn’t written anything in weeks. I wasn’t sure I could write anything. I wanted to…it just wasn’t there, and I didn’t know how to fix the problem.
I did know the source of the problem: this old gray mare ain’t what she used to be. My focus is nowhere near what it once was. Just a year ago, my characters were living their lives inside my head 24/7. It was crowded in there, but I didn’t mind. Now, nobody’s home. Not even me, most of the time. Not only was I not writing, I wasn’t doing much of anything else, either…the housework, laundry and cooking weren’t always getting done. More than once, I’d end up scrambling to get Collin something to eat or wash his clothes before he had to leave for work.
Why?
Because I was online—sometimes five or six hours a day. By the time I got offline, I would be so drained mentally, I was no good for anything but sleeping or sitting in front of the TV. It should have been a no-brainer, right? Just cut back on the online time. I’m no internet junkie. I’m perfectly happy with a couple of hours online a day. But in my own defense, this has been discussed among my friends and fellow authors at Facebook on more than one occasion. Too much time spent social networking is cutting into a number of authors’ writing time. It’s an epidemic! Nobody intends to do it. It just happens. You start chatting with friends and the time gets away on you.
I’ve cut back because I have to, if I want to ever publish another book. No more email, Facebook, etc. after lunch.
But that’s only half the problem. Now to decide the direction I want to take. Do I still want to write fiction? Yes. But I’m not sure it’s in the cards. The projects currently in the works have been in limbo for a while. The nonfiction project, on the other hand, is flying along.
I’m not sure I want to bother with print editions in the future. They’re a pain to create and earn very little. In my opinion, they’re too expensive, anyway. I might sell half a dozen copies (total) of each novel—and those are usually to my friend Carolyn, who brings them to me for signing as soon as she receives them. My friend Shelly Arkon does well with paperbacks. I don’t. Ebooks are where I make my profits…so doesn’t it make sense to put all of my focus there?
I had a brief discussion with fellow author Rosanne Dingli on Facebook the other day. Amazon doesn’t allow us to separate our own books from used copies of our backlist books being sold from third-party vendors—for which we get no royalties. I’ve considered switching to a pseudonym so when anyone clicks on the page for my current books, those third-party offerings aren’t there to usurp my profits!
Before I close…The Unicorn’s Daughter is still available for free at Smashwords today and tomorrow. Just use coupon code SP26W!
Final Hours–the Second Time Around (and Free E-Books!)
I knew from the start that Final Hours was going to be a hard sell.
Who would cheer for an adulterous husband, in love with one woman but married to another til the end of the world (literally) because he didn’t have the backbone to end his marriage? I certainly wouldn’t, had anyone else written this book…so why did I write it?
I’ve always loved disaster movies, especially end-of-the-world films like When Worlds Collide, Armageddon and Deep Impact, and I found myself wanting to write a novel that would not be about heroic men and women rising to the challenge of saving the planet, but about flawed, frightened people who would be faced with one last chance to set right the mistakes of a lifetime. The game plan was to write four stories taking place in different parts of the world with four very different people and situations.
It was a good plan, except for one thing: three of the stories didn’t work.
So I ended up writing a short novel (too long to qualify as a novella) about a man who had been having an affair for the past fifteen years and, facing the planet’s final hours, finally makes the decision he should have made years ago.
The reviews were mixed. Some people loved it, others thought it was awful. As writers, we all know (or should know) that we can’t please everyone. Still, I wondered if there were something missing, my failure to convey to those readers what I’d been trying to say with Jamie Randall’s story. Maybe, instead of just telling the story from his point of view, I should have told it from three points of view: his, his wife’s, and that of his conflicted mistress.
I am now working on an expanded version of Final Hours to incorporate the viewpoints of the two women in Jamie’s life. Will it work? Time–and readers–will tell!
PS — To celebrate the addition of Japan into the Amazon KDP market, all of my e-books will be free for one day only–Wednesday, October 31st. Trick or Treat, everyone! Find them via my Amazon Author Central Page.
For Those Who Don’t Mind Sacrificing Trees….
Just kidding!
For those of you who still prefer a bound book, The Unicorn’s Daughter is now available in a paperback edition through Create Space. I’m not quite sure why it’s not up on Amazon yet, but….
Secondhand Shoes Cover Reveal and Giveaway!
Today, it’s my pleasure to introduce a new author (sure to be a bestseller!) and a personal friend of mine, whose first novel will be available soon. It’s also a pleasure to participate in the cover reveal because the cover was designed by my favorite cover artist–my son Collin at Beishir Media!
Secondhand Shoes Cover Reveal and Something Borrowed Giveaway
Today, Shelly Arkon is doing another cover reveal to Secondhand Shoes. She’s also giving away three books from the Twilight series and eight books from the House of Night series. In order for your name to be put in the drawing you must promise to Tweet, Facebook, and Google +1 this and leave a comment in the box that you did so along with your email, which series you would like, and what you borrowed on your wedding day to wear down the aisle. And I hope they weren’t secondhand bridal shoes that didn’t fit like my MC, Lila.
There will be no rafflecoptors or anything like that. She’s pretty much a self-admitted-techno-moron. Next Friday, October 19th, she will reveal two winners over at Secondhand Shoes.
The Blurb
The shoes didn’t fit. It was an omen.
Eighteen year old psychic-medium-germ-a-phobe Lila should have listened to ghostly Gram’s advice the morning of her wedding, “Take off that dress and those shoes. And run.”
En route to the honeymoon, she decides to listen after too many disagreements with her groom. It doesn’t pay to go along to make everyone happy.
Still in her wedding dress and shoes, she escapes out a diner’s bathroom window into the Florida woods despite her fear of snakes and germs with her dead Gram’s direction.
So she begins a journey of finding her inner strength that puts her on a deadly run from her psychotic groom and his deranged friends.
Will she ever get past her fear of germs and snakes? Will she survive her honeymoon?
An Excerpt
A screen stood between me and my freedom. I pushed it. Nothing. I pushed it again. It was one stubborn screen. I took off a shoe, scraping a blister. “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow,” I muttered.
I held my spiked heel like an ice-pick and punched a hole in the screen, ripping the rest with my other hand.
I didn’t want to, but I had to put my shoe back on and get it over with. I jammed my foot into it and stepped. “Ouch, ooh, ooh, ouch.”
The ledge was tummy high. I slung one leg over it, held onto the bottom of the window, got my other leg up and over and shimmied my way out.
There were woods beyond the alley holding the diner’s dumpsters, trees all the way to the interstate’s on-ramp to my right and on down behind the gas station to my left and beyond.
A light wind blew my hair across my face. I looked at the sky. Dark clouds coming up I-75. I looked at the woods.Probably a million snakes in there,I thought.
“Don’t be afraid, Lila,” Gram said.
A half-dozen sparrows flew from around the front of the diner, low to the ground, and into the woods. I followed them in through the ferns bordering the pavement and into the trees. My lacey arm caught on a cypress branch ripping a portion of my sleeve from me.
I walked for at least a half hour. When Max and I left the wedding, it must’ve been mid-eighty degrees. It warmed up since then like twenty more. That was a Florida July for you. The humidity made it almost unbearable. I was sweating, my bodice soaked. The money inside my bra stuck to my skin. It itched. The lace on my one arm and back itched more. I smelled no better than Max did when he got home from work and every winged insect buzzed around me. I smacked at them. A big, black horsefly really liked me. It wouldn’t go away. I thought of Max.
My blisters and toes screamed pre-, mid-, and post-step. The balls of my feet, too. The three inchers got caught in vines, branches, and mole holes. It took a lot to stay upright in the deep leaves. I considered taking my shoes off, but there might be hook worms or some jungle ameoba waiting to feast on my leg muscles, and I needed my legs to get me out of this mess. Mom scared me out of going shoeless when I was little, and I’d never gone barefoot except on Mom’s clean carpets and disinfected floors. I wore shoes or slippers at Cynthia’s. Her mother didn’t vacuum every day. Nor did I taste Pine Sol in the back of my throat at her house.
A hawk flew down out of nowhere and landed on the ground in front of me, tilted its head, and blinked its eyes at me.
The hawk jumped up and down, flitting its wings. He turned and squawked.
“You want me to follow you?”
It hopped onward, looking back at me every third or fourth bounce.
From not too far behind me a male voice bellowed, “Lila!”
Max.
Would You Buy a Book Based on This Review?
As an author, I pay attention to reviews—to an extent. A review in Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Booklist and other professional publications is one thing—but the customer reviews on Amazon and other sites are quite another. Which ones are valid and which should be ignored? I have a few suggestions.
Be wary of any book that gets only five-star reviews. They were likely all written by friends and/or relatives. Watch out for the “sock puppets”—reviews written under fake names, usually by authors attacking other authors. It’s easier than one might think to set up bogus accounts just to take a shot at another author’s work without, as one author suggested in her blog, the risk of retaliation. And definitely be on the lookout for reviews, positive or negative, that are poorly-written. These reviewers are not the best judge of a book’s literary merit.
Here’s an example of one from a reviewer who appears to be barely able to write a grocery list. Would you buy a book on her recommendation? (I’ve omitted book titles and author and reviewer names in all examples.)
For a first novel that (author) wrote I think it was a great novel. It showed romance between two strangers that then learned to love each other deeply (main characters). To me (author) gave great description of each character and helped me get a perfect picture of how they looked. I enjoyed this novel very much because each chapter that I read was interesting and entertaining that helped me imagine everything that was happening like if i was there. The fact that it was double spaced made it easier for me to read and I liked that. Also even though it was short chapters it made me want to read more because (author) knows how to keep the reader hanging wanting to know what’s going to happen next.I am now waiting for the second sequel of this amazing novel that I hope it is soon to come out. (Author) did an amazing job writing this book for a beginner. I hope she goes really far with her novel to show her fans the amazing author she is becoming as she goes on with her talent as a writer.
It was followed by this review. The reviewer in this instance was understandably unhappy that he’d been misled by the previous rave review….
I have been trying to find out more about the author after receiving the book yesterday. Haven’t had much luck…is this a young author?? Middle school, high school?? If a young girl wrote the book, then I understand the double spaced copy, numerous grammatical errors, misspellings, omissions, poor word usage. The dialogue and repetitive word choice leads me to believe a young person wrote the book, and if this is the case I would have had different expectations and perhaps my review would have a more positive tone. If this is the work of an adult, I am at a loss. The reviews listed were all very positive which is why I purchased the book. I can’t bring myself to continue reading it and am quite disappointed. If you are looking for a mature novel, this isn’t it. I have learned to be a little more skeptical of the reviews in the future when looking for my next great read.
The following review was written by someone claiming to be an English teacher. The review is for one of my all-time favorite novels, which was an international bestseller. It was so long-winded, I had to condense it to a few of the reviewer’s more glaring mistakes….
(The author) writes in a flat, unentertaining way… as though he expects his readers to be struggling with English, like an 8 year old forced to read this at school…characters are as flat, unlikeable and unbelievable as a 4 year old’s superhero comic book, used as toilet paper and then unfolded to be read again. Imagine that twin daughters are *polite coughing* evil and good, in the extreme…yet their family is completely unaware of this, for decades. Imagine a wealthy playboy who goes around raping, beating, and sodomizing wealthy women… but goes unjailed, unnoticed, and undisciplined. Having difficulty imagining this? Blame (the author), who thinks you’ve got the intelligence of the average preschooler.
(The author’s) plots are as unbelievable as a 1950s cigarette ad claiming “not a cough in a carload”. In this particular book (small spoiler alert), imagine how you’d feel after reading near the beginning that a white man and a black man in 1800s South Africa could be fairly good friends, without a hint of racism. Now break with reality again, and imagine that two people without tools could pick up enough diamonds on a beach (yep…diamons, lying around on a beach?!) in a few hours could collect enough wealth to compete against–and topple– a millionaire who has 40 guys searching that SAME beach every day, all day, for years.
Notice that above and below this book review are 11 pages of shills and clacquers, using !!!exclamation points!!!, CAPITAL LETTERS, catchy lines…and all giving this crappity book 10/10 stars. Clearly, Amazon has not done enough to keep out the marketing weenies who are posing as real, unbiased readers as they try to sell this steaming heap of rotting firewood to an unsuspecting audience.
And then there’s my very own sock puppet! In spite of the reviewer’s unimaginative alias, it wasn’t too hard to figure out who had written it. From the nonexistent profile to the lack of any other reviews to the brilliant writing (double commas, inappropriate caps and lack of analytical observations), it has “bogus” stamped all over it!
And for the record, the photographer is not a hippie.
Self-made billionaire meets hippie photographer in Earthquake; falls ridiculously in love, never gets the guts to tell his wife,, etc.. Oh, and the Earth is going to be destroyed by a returning asteroid,,etc..A little lame.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe every reader has the right to express his or her opinion of any book, movie, etc. But I also believe some reviews should not be My question to you is this: have you ever received bad reviews written by someone who seems barely literate? Have you ever bought a book based on customer reviews? If so, do you give any credence to reviews that are full of spelling and grammatical errors?
