Wednesday 2 January 2013

One-By-One My E-Books Are Snuffed Out



Last month I commented how a 3-star review on Amazon for one of my e-books cuts its sales by two-thirds and a 2-star review not only ends all sales for that book but freezes the sales of all my other books for a week or more: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/the-importance-of-sock-puppetry.html  Clearly I have been deluding myself in believing I can write competently. One-by-one my counter-factual history books are being given 3- and 2-star ratings. The basis for the ratings is often due to minor errors. Yes, in ‘Other Americas’ I failed to spot that I, or my spell checker, had named the 15th US President ‘John’ rather ‘James’ Buchanan and that I got the area of the state of Rhode Island wrong. I spend weeks checking and editing my books, but like all authors I am not going to spot everything. If Henning Mankell and Philip Kerr have to do without editors when they are leading authors, how can I be expected to employ one?

Now, with e-books it takes a matter of seconds to correct minor errors when people draw them to your attention and a revised edition can be up online within hours. However, this is never enough. The reviewers my books attract condemn a book on the basis of such errors and despite my efforts there is nothing I can do to counter let alone remove such condemnations. The only choice once I receive a 2-star review is to ‘unpublish’ the book, i.e. remove it from Amazon listings or leave it there hoping that someone might accidentally buy it. Basically, however, the moment a 2-star review goes up, it is dead. I might was well bring all the content back here and make it free access, which increasingly I am tempted to do.

All authors make minor errors and in the past with published books these were eliminated by editors. However, as I have noted before, editing is disappearing from even leading publishers. Yet, tolerance of errors by readers is zero, despite the fact that they now pay far less for an e-book than they would have ever done for a new paperback. There are some other challenging bases on which my books are being criticised and killed that it seems impossible to do anything about.

One thing I have noticed is that with my books open to a global market my readers views of what constitutes ‘correct’ English is incredibly varied, yet I am hammered for not using the style that a particular reader wants. I have both been criticised for writing too lengthy sentences with too many sub-clauses and at the same time attacked for writing sentences that are deemed to be so short that they are nothing but ‘fragments’. I have Word grammar check all my writing, so all sentences in my books are certainly not deemed by that system as fragments. For my counter-factual books, being based on blog postings, I sought a chatty style which I thought would be appropriate for a book you most likely would read on the move. Yet, the style is clearly not tolerable in India where it is seen as too serious nor in the USA where it is perceived as too light or in fact, just British, and so simply intolerably alien. I would certainly welcome lessons in how to write in a universal English style which is not going to warrant such criticism from two of the largest potential markets.

There is a further challenge that authors of counter-factual books face in a way fiction authors probably do not. This is the fact that your books are rated to a great extent not simply by the quality of what you write but also by your opinions. I have been condemned for apparently being too hostile to Finland and for giving too much detail of the potential alternate outcomes so somehow smothering the ‘what if?’ aspect. The greatest insult I have received in reviews is to be said to simply be summarising the arguments of Newt Gingrich and in a less competent way. This cut right through me. I briefly comment on Gingrich’s work in ‘Other Americas’ but not to simply take his ideas, rather to strongly contest them. In my view Gingrich’s writing is basically extreme right-wing propaganda wrapped up in a covering of counter-factual writing. I feel I have utterly failed if any reader thinks that somehow I am making a poor quality replica of Gingrich’s work. A couple of years ago, I dismissed the statement by one commentator in ‘The Guardian’ that seeing how many good books were being produced he saw no point in bothering to try to write creatively, despite having been doing it for many years. However, recognising that I am completely failing in getting my message across in my work and the fact that a book will be destroyed for even minor slip-ups among 100,000 words, I have come to the same conclusion.

Writing e-books saved my sanity at a time when I was being bullied, having my house repossessed and seeing the break-up of my family. However, I have learnt that instead it has opened me up to a new kind of abuse. In a matter of minutes a grumpy reader can render useless months of work. Furthermore they can insult to me such an extent that I am going to be offended for years to come and I am aware that there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop this. At the time, getting in to producing e-books seemed to be an interesting thing to do and gave me a motive to continue. However, it has proven to be a poisoned chalice and the price I am paying for this foray is not worth the now clearly meagre gains I made for a short while.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

in a word - cheat. if someone has left an arbitrary review that is damaging your sales, put in a review that returns it to balance. I am not suggesting loads of 5 star reviews, but rather one that restores balance.

As for reviewers screw the pedantic ones. the opposite of love isn't hate its indifference. These people actually care enough to write a responese.

Anonymous said...

I have tried to establish different accounts so that I can buy my own books and then comment on them, but Amazon is wise to this and it is very difficult (though apparently not impossible) to comment with anything but your real name.

Pedantic is just how things are these days. I cannot remember how many published books I have read with major errors in, let alone scores of minor ones. However, in this age of everyone having to be indignant about the most minor point, a couple of errors is enough for your entire work to be dismissed. This is the society we live in and I guess I am simply not up to that level of proof-reading/editing, but then again nor is Henning Mankel, so I am in good company.

The language issue is a difficult one, especially as I have received contradictory criticism. The advantage of e-books is that you can go back and correct and re-write and have the book out again often in fewer than 12 hours. I have tried to break up sentences and to make them simpler as I have become aware that I am increasingly selling to readers from outside Europe. However, then I am criticised that my text is too fragmented.

Whilst I tried to adopt a 'chatty' style for my books rather than a heavy academic one, encouraged by what I drew from my blog, this is seen as inappropriate. Yet, I always run the Word grammar checker over my work and as anyone who has used it knows, it is incredibly fussy about what it sees as 'sentence fragments'. Maybe in the UK we can accept more implied verbs and pronouns, but with Word checking your grammar you cannot avoid but putting in every part of a sentence, surely enough to satisfy even US readers, or so I thought. Perhaps I need to go fully over to US spelling and grammar. I have tried writing for an American publisher before and there are loads more differences than you would ever realise.

The big change with e-books is the power of a single reviewer. If you go to buy a book in a bookshop, even if there have been numerous critical reviews in the newspapers or online, they are not leaping out at you when you go to buy the book. You make your own judgements. With Amazon no-one can buy an e-books without seeing the reviews of others, or, at least the star rating. Given how quickly sales die the moment I get a 2-star review, it is clear that a lot of shoppers only look at that.

The other thing is that, even though I have sold over 500 copies of 'Other Americas' I have no idea how many people have actually read it. From friends I know who have Kindles it is quite typical for people to buy tens of e-books that they never actually read. So, yes, I am probably getting a lot of indifference.

I do not think these people actually care, they are rather out there seeking something to get indignant about; something to show their superiority over. If people spot errors, these days they can email me and I can have them changed and back up by that evening. However, they are not actually looking for better writing, they are looking to show how clever they are in spotting any errors. For them the satisfaction is not a rising quality of writing it is eliminating another writer simply because they can; a couple of errors or a style of writing they do not get on with is enough to score them a victory. They are winning victories over me very quickly. I have had to unpublish one book; I have one which now sells nothing and two which sell a third of what they once did all due to just four reviews.

I know these people feel that they are fighting on behalf of other readers and eliminating poor quality work from the internet. For me it is working wonderfully well. I have lost so much faith in my writing as a result of these four reviewers that there seems no point in continuing. That is frustrating because once I believed I was at least as good as many mainstream authors. Yet, it is clear now that I lack the microscopic perception that would show me I am over the line and actually in the category of those writers who waste people's time and money.

Rooksmoor said...

I have tried to establish different accounts so that I can buy my own books and then comment on them, but Amazon is wise to this and it is very difficult (though apparently not impossible) to comment with anything but your real name.

Pedantic is just how things are these days. I cannot remember how many published books I have read with major errors in, let alone scores of minor ones. However, in this age of everyone having to be indignant about the most minor point, a couple of errors is enough for your entire work to be dismissed. This is the society we live in and I guess I am simply not up to that level of proof-reading/editing, but then again nor is Henning Mankel, so I am in good company.

The language issue is a difficult one, especially as I have received contradictory criticism. The advantage of e-books is that you can go back and correct and re-write and have the book out again often in fewer than 12 hours. I have tried to break up sentences and to make them simpler as I have become aware that I am increasingly selling to readers from outside Europe. However, then I am criticised that my text is too fragmented.

Whilst I tried to adopt a 'chatty' style for my books rather than a heavy academic one, encouraged by what I drew from my blog, this is seen as inappropriate. Yet, I always run the Word grammar checker over my work and as anyone who has used it knows, it is incredibly fussy about what it sees as 'sentence fragments'. Maybe in the UK we can accept more implied verbs and pronouns, but with Word checking your grammar you cannot avoid but putting in every part of a sentence, surely enough to satisfy even US readers, or so I thought. Perhaps I need to go fully over to US spelling and grammar. I have tried writing for an American publisher before and there are loads more differences than you would ever realise.

The big change with e-books is the power of a single reviewer. If you go to buy a book in a bookshop, even if there have been numerous critical reviews in the newspapers or online, they are not leaping out at you when you go to buy the book. You make your own judgements. With Amazon no-one can buy an e-books without seeing the reviews of others, or, at least the star rating. Given how quickly sales die the moment I get a 2-star review, it is clear that a lot of shoppers only look at that.

The other thing is that, even though I have sold over 500 copies of 'Other Americas' I have no idea how many people have actually read it. From friends I know who have Kindles it is quite typical for people to buy tens of e-books that they never actually read. So, yes, I am probably getting a lot of indifference.

I do not think these people actually care, they are rather out there seeking something to get indignant about; something to show their superiority over. If people spot errors, these days they can email me and I can have them changed and back up by that evening. However, they are not actually looking for better writing, they are looking to show how clever they are in spotting any errors. For them the satisfaction is not a rising quality of writing it is eliminating another writer simply because they can; a couple of errors or a style of writing they do not get on with is enough to score them a victory. They are winning victories over me very quickly. I have had to unpublish one book; I have one which now sells nothing and two which sell a third of what they once did all due to just four reviews.

I know these people feel that they are fighting on behalf of other readers and eliminating poor quality work from the internet. For me it is working wonderfully well. I have lost so much faith in my writing as a result of these four reviewers that there seems no point in continuing. That is frustrating because once I believed I was at least as good as many mainstream authors. Yet, it is clear now that I lack the microscopic perception that would show me I am over the line and actually in the category of those writers who waste people's time and money.

Anonymous said...

Alexander, screw those four reviewers! -- I just stumbled across your blog via some ref. to the 1974 alleged 'coup' issue and can already tell your writing is worthwhile. Don't hang yourself, for God's sake, but instead hang with the rest of us who are interested in ideas!

Rooksmoor said...

Well, since then the number of bad reviews has grown. I realise that I had become hooked on the money the books were earning me and to see that halted simply from one person's misguided comments is painful. I am going to come back with a new book hopefully in February and it is going to feature that coup as a chapter.

As for hanging myself I have even managed to fail at that, as noted in another posting here, so for the moment I am not going anywhere.