Reviews and How Not to Get Any

According to the late DJ Enright in 'The Alluring Problem' — a wonderful ‘discourse’* on the nature of Irony — Goethe is said to have said that 'nowadays, books are written only to be reviewed rather than read'.  Of course the ‘nowadays’ he was referring was the beginning of the 19^th Century and while that may or may not have had any truth in it then — he was being ironic — for the self-published author, there is certainly a truth about it now.

In the mire of Amazon (and Smashwords and its affiliates – see next post) there are essentially three ways a book gets in front of the ‘browser’:

• the new releases;
• what others are buying, the bestsellers;
• and what others have enjoyed, the highest rated.

For the unknown writer, without either a ‘name’ or those 'golden stars', a book is lost. Who reads the unread, the unloved, the starless?

When the book is first released, it has a moment when it is at the top of the list, a chronological accident, but this is the 'chance', to be seen, to catch the eye of the buyer. After that, it sinks and only sales, or reviews, will keep it visible to the browsing buyer.

I first saw my Amazon rating when I was 10,000^th. I then watched with dismay, as day after day, I sunk – 168,000^th my last position, until that is someone else bought it – my second sale! - and I jumped again to 22,000^th. (I mean, who browses twenty-two thousand titles? Have they no work to do?).

And of course, the refusal to prime the process, get a friend, a colleague, a ‘collaborator’ even, to rave about your work means you are relying on those who have bought it, returning and saying something nice, hopefully (and Sandra Patterson’s blog, as well as talking about reviews - the good and the bad - also has a link to some interesting research).

Unlike a proper book, you cannot pick up an e-book, open it and read at random (or even page 99 or whatever today’s special number is). When looking at the preview of the book, the sample, your e-reader will start you at the beginning. You could press ‘page down’ a few times, but it is doubtful one would: pressing a button doesn’t have quite the allure of flicking through the pages, an experience almost erotic in its promise, for me at least.

So, the languorous opening paragraph has to be a thing of the past. They used to say you should have a body, either dead or moving rhythmically, on page one; now, with the advent of e-readers, e-published authors should aim for the top half of page one, if not the opening sentence. My poorly written work has neither. Little wonder then that I have not yet made my million.

But a languorous opening paragraph doesn’t mean the book is bad. To rescue the book from this failure to compromise for the medium, one needs others to assure the would-be buyer that it is worth continuing, that the bodies will come, one way or another, and if they don’t, they won’t be missed, the writing is good and the work worth reading.

 

The other reason for a review, the one the writer cares about, is the simple desire to know what one’s readers thought, good or bad. But that is by-the-by in this discussion..

The point I am trying to make is that a self-published e-book, sans marketing, sans stars, quickly disappears. As mine has.

Harrowing? Well, it’s not exactly life-affirming. But that is one’s lot, and I am beginning to think I have made a terrible mistake…

*I call it a ‘discourse’ as calling it a ‘study’, though perhaps more accurate, would make you think he had sucked the life out of the subject: far from it, it is a wonderful read and I recommend it (five stars! though needless to say it was never published on Kindle).