ŷ������

I mean, it is a good place to have your book reviewed. I guess your expectations were a little high coming in? I've met some really great people here and received some great feedback on my writing too, but I never expected ŷ������ to be my land of milk and honey.

And consider how many tens of thousands of indie authors there are. If only just 1 measly percent of them are rude and pushy, then that's thousands of rude and pushy authors testing the patience of the top reviewers here. It's understandable that people aren't the biggest fans of unknown indie authors and that ŷ������ would rather side with the readers, the people for whom this site is really all about, than the authors.

The important thing to remember, I think, is that GR is set up as a place for readers, not marketers.

The advice given online to new authors, especially independents, is to use GR as a place to make your name known. But that's really misguided advice. Six years ago when I really started using GR it was already a place that was swamped by authors trying to sell their wares. That's about when most groups started getting really restrictive on where you could post self-promotion. The amount of it was so much that it became essentially spam.

And the biggest issue was really that a lot of these authors were doing nothing but trying to sell (they contributed nothing to the quality of content on the site). Why would anyone want to go to a site where it was nothing but sales pitches? It basically defeated the purpose of the site: a place set up for readers to review, track, and discuss books they've read.

I understand the frustration because I came here looking for an audience, too. But I've come to accept that this is not the place for selling. I've stuck around for the conversation.

Lupon wrote: "Alright, so let's try to collect some money for a hundred-dollar giveaway, maybe that’ll work. Yeah, right.
let’s speak some true facts about that too, shall we? It seems people around here are getting high on winning giveaways. How else can you explain a guy who enters a thousand giveaways (yeah, you heard right) and doesn’t read a single book? I mean think about that for a little while. After winning say, five hundred times (!), the guy goes on and enter another 500 more and still doesn’t read a single book! I mean, what the freak is that? And I’ll tell you, he doesn’t seem to fall so far off, cause most people don’t seem to read the books they win."

First: yes, the ŷ������-Kindle giveaway system is horrible. The main reason is so Amazon doesn't lose the money they'd gain by selling those books instead - and the easiest way is to have the author shoulder the cost.

My personal opinion: those people are an internet form of hoarders - they want to get stuff and the feeling of getting stuff is way more important to them than actually using the stuff (does not only apply to books). It's similar to the people hunting for discounts.
Similar case for illustration: I had a friend in high school, he was pirating every single game and movie he knew about even though there just aren't enough hours in a day to watch/play a quarter of it - I'd consider him an internet version of an irreparable kleptomaniac.
Conclusion for this part: if people are interested enough, they'll pay for it as long as they believe the thing is worth the price tag.

Lupon wrote: "I mean, ok, if you start reading a book and you don’t like it, I’m all in favor of dropping the book. I never read books I don’t like. But at least say something. Tell us you couldn’t stand it, so bad it was."
For many people, it's too much effort, especially in these days. I was told in a statistics class that when a product contains a 'please rate' request, less than 5% of people will respond - even if it's a numeric scale that requires minimal effort (or, in this case, it'd be a star rating). And while this is discouraging for the author, we have no other option than to suck it up, unfortunately.

And, one thing to always keep in mind: Loud minority. It's the loudest people you'll remember, even though they are few - because they're the loudest. Because you won't notice the countless silent users (like many of us) who don't rant and rage - because they don't rant and rage. It's like a baby on a plane. You will remember the screaming brat, not the other 300 passengers. Even though it's one of 300 passengers.

Re: the comment about traditionally published authors being rude to indies, some of them definitely are, but certainly not all of them. At the same time, I have to say I think the traditional publishing industry is not doing well; its whole cost structure needs to be revamped and I see few publishing companies taking the steps needed to address it. From an economic standpoint, I'm not sure what kind of future traditional publishing has. For that reason alone I am happy to be indie - I'm learning a lot of things that the trads have never had to learn and might have a difficult time adjusting to. So we are really the cutting edge!

Well, got.catch up on all these replies. Thanks you all for replying, anyway. Well, Peter youre absolutely rigbt, I guess my expectations were pretry high. But you know they get your expectations high, too. All the talking about ŷ������, 90 million reader and all. But yeah, despite my best efforts and having suffered enough drawbacks to make a mule kick, sometimes im still stupdly optimistic.
I'll catch up with the others comments along the day, pretty busy at work.

Hi, Micah, your post was really enligting, to know where all this hate comes from exactly. I'll coment more later on

I joined ŷ������ as a reader and was surprised when authors started popping into discussions about the group read and recommended their own book. It's obnoxious. Others tried--and still try--to nominate their book for a group read, or they have a shill do it. Most groups have rules for authors but it's obvious which authors have not read them. So, look at it from a reader's perspective.

As far as someone dropping a book, not finishing, etc., no one owes an explanation. For one thing, it opens the door for the author to pop in and disagree and start arguing: What do you mean? Didn't you read xxx?

I looked for stats on how many author profiles there are in GR and I couldn't find anything. I do wonder about it though. It might be scary.

Youre right Micah, Im sticking around now for the same. Afterall, I did make valuable friends in here. Still am.

Great reply Thomas. Theres definitely thay high goong with goodreads. After the won it, they drop it.
As for the baby on the plane (great analogy) with me that is partialy true. I really am very glad to have met a lot of people in here, and I tend to forget the bad ones quickly, so long as they leave me alone. But they sure raise hell.

Well, Aileen, praise to God then! Halleluia!

Hi M.L, those behaviours from Indie authors, specially when done in a rude insistent manner are really terrible. But for the giveaways, I think the writer deserves a minimum of consideration. If you had the time to apply to his giveaway, then why not offer some feedback? Thay would be only corteous. Afterall, is not the goodreads who is giving you the book, but the author. I would surely have that consideration.

Lupon wrote: "Afterall, is not the goodreads who is giving you the book, but the author. I would surely have that consideration."

Maybe they don't realize that - or don't know that there's an actual cost to the giveaways? If I wasn't on the road to becoming an author one day, I doubt I'd pay much attention to how costly the giveaways are. And maybe some people just aren't sharp enough to realize it's the authors giving away the books instead of them being generated from thin air...

Yeah, I agree. I bet many think its the sacred ŷ������ that is giving them away for free. (Sorry for the sacred :), couldnt help it)

The Indie books I'm most likely to buy/read are the ones from authors who are nice to me / interact with me on Twitter. It's an added bonus if they're on KU because I have a KU subscription. Though for some being on KU is more of a disadvantage than an advantage. It just depends on the writer.

The books I'm least likely to buy/read are from Indie authors who are constantly posting their ad over and over and over again without interacting in any other way, or who direct message me an ad saying "BUY MY BOOK" as soon as I follow them back. That's the reason so many groups have such strict rules about self-promotion. It can actually drive people away.

As to reviews, prior to posting my own writing, I almost never gave reviews or feedback. It wasn't until I joined Wattpad as a writer that I started to recognize how important it was to leave a review/rating/vote. This was because I didn't understand how the business worked. In short, I didn't really know that my reviews mattered.

A lot of people don't leave reviews because it simply never crosses their mind that their review might be the best (or worst) news an author gets all week. I think the same goes for books they win as giveaways. If you don't do much legwork into researching what you just won, you have no idea whether that was a book produced by huge publishing house or a self-pubbed indie surviving on ramen noodles. If you don't know that you SHOULD be check, most won't.

There are also those like myself and my co-writer, who buy books impulsively only to leave them sit on a shelf somewhere for months or years. I have an entire bookcase worth of books that I haven't read (and I still buy more). Jay reads thrice as much as I do and probably has double the amount of unread books. And those are just the physical ones. Not counting audio books or ebooks. Probably my own book is on a similar shelf somewhere. And that's okay.

I've found a few readers on GRs. No not dozens or scores, just a couple. But it's a couple more than I would have had if I weren't on GR. I'm taking baby steps here and overall I'm quite happy about it.

Sorry for this ridiculously long post.

I joined ŷ������ mostly because my friends (readers mostly, and they've read my books as well) encouraged me, plus a Google marketing person (I bought a 30-day marketing package) suggested it as well as BookBub. Mostly I read non-fiction but write fiction. Turns out mostly I try to help indie authors and have helped some, and hopefully Lupon as well. I just wish indie authors would stop worrying about getting reviews/ratings here or Amazon, wherever...learn to write better and market the book!

Blog. Create a website-domain name. Social media. Post on Medium or other similar site (I plan to do that soon...I love to write!). On your blog or site post "snippets" of genre catergory or character or setting, whatever. Another method that works for me is posting comments with links to the site or books on various commentary sites (I use sites that discuss pop culture since my books are about a rock band, as well as spiritual sites). Go to writer sites and get involved...ŷ������ really is mostly for readers. Figure this one out yourself, explore. Hope this helps.

I have been an indie author now for some time, and the first thing you learn is, you are not alone. The second is, it is very hard to get what you write in front of people who may well enjoy it because there are the odd million other books out there competing for their attention. ŷ������ is what it is; live with it.

About a rock band? I liked that. But Deborah, so you don't think reviews are that important?

I think reviews are important, but quality rather than quantity is more important to me. I’d be thrilled with a large quantity of reviews, of course, but a handful of quality reviews (the kinds where people let you know your story truly reached them or lives on in their thoughts) are even more important to me.

I joined ŷ������ to find a group of authors like this one. I didn't even consider selling books on here. I don't give away a lot of books because most who take the free books don't bother to read them. I have close to a 1000 on my kindle to read. I haven't taken any new ones in quite some time.

I know there are places on here that allow you to advertise a book, but...it will be filled with authors. Use ŷ������ as part of your platform to get noticed. Use groups like this one to learn more about writing and publishing.

I've learned to have low expectations so I'm always happy if I get more than I expected. Works.

Opinions have been stated. Cases have been made.

Whether or not you believe ŷ������ can help you as an author or not, we are here able to share our experiences with many many other authors because of ŷ������.

I'm going to go ahead and close this thread because I believe the point has been made and I don't want to see a spiral down into berating ŷ������ - the place that graciously allows us to chat with one another for no cost.