Friday, January 17, 2025

BYOBR: Buy Your Own Book Review

 I foolishly posted a request for reviews of my book in one of my longtime Goodreads Review groups. Sadly, this group doesn't seem to have a moderator and has become a free-for-all. As far as I am concerned, in this particular group, if people are not reviewing or requesting reviews they should be kicked. One person, however, has posted an ad for casinos and it seems that most of those who had a legitimate interest have gone--except the plethora of hopeful authors seeking reviews.

This group was designed for people who like to review books (i.e. on their blog) and who may not have the funds to constantly purchase books for said review. Unfortunately, it has also been inundated with authors who want reviews and who frequently will ask you to swap for a review after seeing you post a book for one. Even though I specifically responded to one of these authors and said I was not interested in a review swap, another one posted and asked for the same thing. I don't ever recommend doing a review swap. I will post on this later. 

Since I did not realize it was no longer a useful, moderated group, the "foolish" was that I offered my email so that I could be contacted for a copy of the book if anyone was interested. Naturally, I was spammed by the members of this group who should have not been members. 

Some of these spammers actually insulted and threatened me--telling me if I didn't want to pay for a review I was not serious about my work. If anyone tells you this, they are full of bologna. Not paying reviewers is standard, but paying for a review to be posted on Amazon violates Amazon's terms of service. 

Now, if you want the New York Times to review your book, paying $20,000+ is standard. However, everyone should realize companies pay big bucks for those, and readers should take them with a grain of salt. There is also Kirkus, which is, I believe, $450. Paid reviews must, by Amazon's terms, be on the page and not part of the regular review section--and real paid reviewers adhere to this. 

The spam I got was all the same: Buy my review. Some people tried to hide it on websites that offered free reviews, but only guaranteed paid ones. This is similar to what Reader's Favorite does, except Reader's Favorite has been around a while, it actually does review books for free, it does not offer to post on Amazon (where paid reviews can get you and the reviewer banned), and it has a real annual competition that you may or may not win if you pay to enter it. Is is small scale? Yes. Is it real? Yes. Unlike hiring Joe Smooth to write a smashing book review for you and then leave the marketing all to you, Reader's Favorite will post the good reviews on their website and in their newsletter. 

Most of you who have been following me know that I review for them. But like all my work, I work for them because I believe in what they do. 

Low reviews are not posted--and some people might take issue with that. I do not because I am not forced to give a good review--whether the person paid or not. I also am okay with this because I never have to post any of my reviews anywhere. Why would I want to post a bad review to my blog? Do I really want to share with you what not to read--or an example of how not to write a book? 

Reader's Favorite and the authors market my reviews. Technically, even when I give a bad review, the author could take the positive things I say and post those without the negative to his/her Amazon page for the book. Reader's Favorite reviews are not in the actual "Review" section of Amazon, but posted on the page by the author instead--in compliance with Amazon's terms of service. 

Another reason I support Reader's Favorite is because a low review should be a learning opportunity for any author. However, with independent publishing posted low reviews can ruin the author permanently. Big traditional book companies who can not only send free books to the New York Times but also get the editors there to read them by paying for a review, or they may have a group of screened willing reviewers who react positively to anything. Therefore, big publishers can get not only bad books to make money but also help bad authors keep publishing their books. That's not fair in my opinion. So, Reader's Favorite offers indie authors a way to screen their own less than stellar books, to learn from mistakes, and to invest in promoting books that get higher reviews. 


Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Warning: Upwork

I have heard people on Upwork complain that Upwork is saturated. I have also heard that Upwork may refuse your profile if they believe they have too many freelancers offering the same thing.

I don't know of any other freelancing website that refuses your profile solely because they think their market is saturated in that skill set. The only reason Upwork would have for doing this is because they want their top earners to keep making them more money. They don't want to take a chance on new freelancers getting jobs for less money to build their profiles and potentially upsetting employers by turning out sub-par work.

However, at the same time, I am sure they have realized they need some new freelancers, so they carefully vet only those who ARE going to work around the clock to earn Upwork its money and only allow those in who have skills that won't displace the freelancers already maintaining their cashflow. This video seems to support that theory--Upwork gives freelancers more "leads" if they are submitting more proposals.

As you know if you have been following me a while, I work exclusively on Guru. I have been thinking about using Upwork simply because job postings are down, and I have been struggling to find steady work. However, since I have always wanted to do my own work instead of slaving for other people, I am not to upset about this. I understand the overall job market sucks right now, so that being reflected on Guru is not surprising. With AI being promoted as the next writing, editing, get-rich-quick-without-investing-a-time deity, it isn't surprising. Perhaps I will post a video on my YouTube about the inside story on these "get rich quick with AI" schemes.

That said, I was looking into expanding onto Upwork, but I have always known Upwork makes it more difficult for new freelancers. It used to be that the less you made on Upwork the bigger the percent they took out of your pay. Now, it seems they have a flat 10% fee for freelancers, but they also charge employers a percent fee as well. This could actually be a good thing since employers have to be serious if they are going to pay to hire someone. The down side is that employers can pay a higher fee to automatically screen out 99% of the freelancers on the website. That's right, the highest paying employers can choose to not see your proposal if you aren't in the top 1% (presumably income-wise). That filters business to top earners and "freelancing" businesses.

Considering all these changes, it seems to have become an exclusive country club instead of a realistic freelancing website. For that reason, I decided against trying to branch out onto that platform.

Friday, January 10, 2025

Closed Door vs. Open Door Sex Scenes

 I recently picked up a book that the author stated had "closed door" sex references. Imagine my surprise when I came across the first open door sex scene in it. 

Unlike "Sweet" romances, which have a variable definition, "closed door" and "open door" sex in novels is pretty well defined. Closed door means the couple goes into the house together or into the room together and the door closes. You see them the next day. Open door means you go in the room with them. 

In this particular book, you were more than in the bedroom with them. This is not an open door blog, so I won't be going into details, but I can give you an example of "closed door" with my Baroness of Surli serial novel. Note, this starts with both of them fully clothed inside an ultra-helio, a futuristic flying machine. He has carried her inside it after rescuing her from thugs, set her down, and then she kissed him. In other words, the kiss he comes out of at the beginning was the first sensual contact between them. 

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When she allowed him to come up for air [from the kiss], he stammered, “Juliabella, please, you are not yourself. You do not want this.” 

“You know my name, but you have not given me the pleasure of yours.”

“Actually, I did several months ago, it is Talrederick, but you knew me as—” Juliabella laid a finger across his lips, silencing him.

“You saved me Talrederick. You are my hero. I most certainly do want this.” With that, she leaned forward and planted slow kisses down his neck. As a moan escaped his lips once more, Talrederick felt his control slipping.

[That was the end of that chapter.]

Chapter 7

Talrederick lay on a mat outside the ultra-helio staring up at the stars. He had always bragged to his men about how strong he was, but tonight, he discovered he was horribly weak. Guilt riddled his soul. 
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As you can read, there is nothing described that goes beyond fully clothed kissing. She kisses only his neck and nothing lower that clothing covers. Then, the screen effectively goes black. When the reader returns to the scene, it is much later, the man is outside (she is inside the ultra-helio). He is upset about what happened between the two of them and blaming himself (as he should have in this case). Although anyone reading the book should know what happened, it would be possible to read just the above information and conclude that he was feeling guilty for kissing her. You will not find the word "sex" anywhere in the book. The reader never sees anyone take his/her clothing off or go beyond kissing--hands, faces, and this singular instance of a neck.  

"Closed door" and "off screen" mean the same things: The reader can conclude your characters had sex, or the reader might also conclude something else happened. One of my beta readers, who apparently wasn't used to reading "closed door" romances, was left confused as to what happened between the passage above. And that's how it should be. 

The problem is that when you are like the author I first referenced and you tell your audience your book only has "closed door" sex scenes, but that is not true, you are going to have someone pick up your book and get angry when s/he stumbles across your very open door sex scene. You have performed a bait and switch and that will cause readers to not only leave bad reviews but also stop reading any of  your books. There are audiences for everything--find yours and market to it by writing accurate descriptions and warnings.