Author and Reviewer Etiquette

The Discord was an amazing idea. It brings the community together and gives a way to reach out for non private things that an author can answer at their own convenience. Also gotta agree with the 5 star reviewing system, for content as advanced as a book is, if there is one thing you feel iffy about you won't put it down to 4 stars, while instead 9/10 could have conveyed your feelings better.

Really enjoy the honesty and lack of bullshit in your vids. It's balanced and makes a lot of sense.

I’m only now coming to this review, very late - what a fine discussion! I’m so tempted to make a response video!

I am impressed by the reasonableness and thought put in to this video. It gives a thorough look at a number of trends that I've found concerning across all media about the scrambling of a long time border between readers and reviewers. I think it goes beyond books into all facets of art - music, videos and short form content, movies, visual media, etc... I do think there is a place to react to a creator's bad personal behavior, but review sites are not it. We are all human and will likely color any review with personal knowledge about bad creator behavior, but we shouldn't just jump all in for these review bombs. Just, if you can't separate the author from the work, I would say - don't review it - you can't provide an objective view. I know I would specifically avoid reviewing certain works because I can't separate the work from the author's actions. Social media has made the world get "smaller" but I don't think we have figured out yet as human beings how to handle the power and responsibility of these highly volatile platforms. I don't think they should go away, but we definitely have been doing a lot of fumbling in the dark as to how to make these tools a positive thing for people - with no help from the platforms themselves that definitely stoke outrage for more views.

I'd consider a 3-star review good...

I had a friend who helped me a lot with some historical work for my writing. His partner wrote a book and self-published. I asked, "Did you get an editor?" He answered, "No. That is her JOB! She does it all day." I got an advanced autographed copy from their country to mine. I read it right away as it was a subject I like in books. 3 parts. Part 1 about 20 pages. Part 2 about 30 pages. Part 3 was the rest of a 300 page book. There were typos, bad grammar and punctuation. In the review, I said that that Pts 1 and 2 could easily have been done in flashback or, because they were interesting, filled out a lot more. Plus the errors made it hard to read. However, the whole idea in the book was good and I really did enjoy the story(ies) and was looking forward to more. Let me say here, that on one page, just the top half, there were 15 errors. Turned out, in their country, she got the reviews there and immediately got it edited for mistakes, not the parts, and the copy I reviewed on The Big A, was the second printing being sold. While I had people who thanked me for explaining as they got a bit confused, the majority of comments were from their friends and they smeared me with everything they could get away with and A took it down. Plus, my friend has blocked me and hasn't spoken to me for several years now. Personally, I love constructive criticism, it is how we learn. But I was bounced off of 3 Facebook pages because he asked them to. People see what they see. I, too, check the lower star reviews because they are usually the real ones about errors, bad language, too much nudity, etc. All the stuff you don't get from tolerant readers who know how to skim read. I really did enjoy this vlog today. Thank you.