Book reviews.
I'm very angry because I'm sick and tired of what I see as deception
and dishonesty within the literary community. It's been going on for
far to long and nobody seems to want to pay attention to it or to care
about it.
I love my publisher which is Publishamerica and it's a first rate
Publisher however I have seen firsthand with my own eyes individual
authors that meet on discussion boards asking each other to do reviews
of one anothers books that most always turn out to be four or five star
reviews.
These people then go on every major bookseller website and post these
reviews and in my opinion decieve customers into thinking these are
independant and unbiased ratings of these books from customers when in
fact they are really reviews from friends and fellow authors who claim
to be unbiased but to me it's deception of the highest order and it
stinks.
In my mind it should be put to a stop immediately and these authors
should be made to apologize to these websites and to our publisher for
doing what is known as logrolling. That's when friendly authors
positively review one anothers work.
It's a scratch my back and I'll scratch yours method and I don't like
it one bit. A friend is more likely to help a friend and say something
good even though the work may be bad. Most of these reviews are four
and five stars and it's always the same names so look into it on Amazon
and sites like this and you'll see these authors scratching each others
backs and careers that comes at the expense of the reader in my opinion.
I have never asked for a review from a fellow author because to me it's
unethical to accept a review from a fellow writer that you're friendly
or familiar with. My reviews you can be sure will come from honest and
independant sources unlike those who support and take part in this
logrolling that should be stopped and abhored.
It's time for people to wake up and see the widespread deception in my
opinion and write to these people in order to put a stop to this unfair
practice. It really takes away from and hinders the efforts of honest
writers out there who don't seek to falsify anything or cheat the
system like some in the business do.
Let's have a call for honesty and fairness and a call to stop these
people from what I see as deceiving customers with friendly reviews put
out all over the place from their fellow associates and cronies.
Let's show the honest writers out there in the world that we support
them and their efforts to put things out to the public in an honest and
forthright way and let's put a stop to this pathetic logrolling once
and for all.
Jeffrey Michael Miller
