Hey guys,

Music to write by: “Fall to Pieces“ by Velvet Revolver

Okay, I’ll just come out and say it right now: The reviewing system on Amazon.com is broken. So there, I said it, and I stand by it. Here’s why:

Midwest Book Review posts a lot of reviews on Amazon. Thiry-two thousand of them at last count. Yes, I said thirty-two THOUSAND. They must have quite a range of reviews. Except that they don’t. Every single review they’ve ever done gets five stars. Even self published authors universally get five stars reviews. I have nothing against the self-published, but can they ALL have written a work equal to Vinge’s? I think not.

One argument I’ve heard is that they only post positive reviews, to which I ask, why? Readers rely on reviewers to tell them not only when a book is good, but also when it’s bad. By posting only good reviews Midwest is homogenizing the reading landscape. If a reviewer claims all books are equally good, then their reviews are useless. As for the initial assertion, I don’t believe they publish only good reviews. If they’ve given 32000 5 star reviews (the top tier), can you imagine how many reviews they must do overall? How many books are perfect, 1%? So that means they do 3.2 million reviews and toss out all but 32,000? Sure…

Out of the reviews they DO do, many of them show no actual knowledge of the book itself, other than what can be read in the Editorial Book Description (written by the author). This is often a real good sign that the review is fake. In my opinion, if these guys think they’re doing some good by spamming 5 star reviews, they’re daydreaming.

We’re also not fooled by authors that get their friends and families to log on a give them five star reviews. Even a “Real Name” moniker doesn’t help in detecting them. A good rule of thumb is to never trust a reviewer that’s written only one review.

Especially bad are anonymous reviews that are clearly written by the author themselves (like, for instance, if you review your book using your Writing.com handle. You know who you are, and now so do we).

But the very worst kind of review was the subject of a recent post on Amy Casil Sterling’s blog. Sterling’s book was given a poor review by George Randolph Calverhall. Like the fake-looking reviews written by Midwest Book review, Calverhall’s reviews were all spurious, containing very little information that wasn’t available in the Editorial Book Description. Upon further investigation, Sterling discovered that Calverhall was targetting books by minorities for bad reviews. Personally, I was stunned at the pettiness of this tactic, but, looking at the review, it sure seems like Calverhall didn’t read the book. I could have written that review (Sorry Amy, IMAGO’s on the reading list).

What can we do about this? Amazon needs to post a few of each reviewers stats next to their names, not just their location, or if they are using a real name. They should include the number of reviews the reviewer has posted as well as, and this is key, the average rating of their reviews. Amazon could then use this information to “sort” reviews according to relevance. Reviewers like Calverhall (too many negative reviews) and Midwest Book Review (too many positives) would migrate to the bottom of the list . Even if Amazon doesn’t perform this sort, the reader could, themselves, decide which reviews are relevant.

Readers deserve to know when they’re being hoodwinked and minority authors deserve to have their work judged on merit, not the colour of their skin (Or in Ms Sterling’s case: her sex). The system needs to be fixed. Come’on Amazon, put a fire under it.

Hey guys,

Music to write by: “Under Pressure“ by Queen

I’m not going to cover more ground here on how to avoid getting scammed. There’s TONS of material about that on the web already. But, as you know, part of the mission statement of this blog is to bring those resource to you. So, on that note, I’ll mention three very importants bookmarks no writer should be without.

The first one, of course, is SFWA’s very own Writer Beware. The page is maintained by the folks over at SFWA and contains warnings about larcenous literary agents, predatory publishers, and um evil(?) editors (no relation to the Evil Editor who, aside from some snarkiness, is generally a good guy).

The site is highly recommended. Some must read sections are the Thumbs Down Agency List and the Thumbs Down Publisher List.

And that brings us to our second spot. It’s A.C. Crispin’s and Victoria Strauss’ Writer Beware blog. The blog was definitely the right format for Writer Beware. Many dubious agencies change their names frequently to avoid bad publicity. These two writers have actually succeeded in putting fraudulent publishers in jail, so you know they’re serious. The site should be called “Con Men Beware”.

I’ll just mention the final resource briefly as I’m nearly late for dinner with dad. Preditors & Editors has numerous services available to writers, from agency listings that contain a “recommend” and “not recommended” tag, to lists of attorneys, awards, and publishers. The site also holds an annual “best of” e-awards contest for best zine, best story, best editor–you know, the usual categories. If the awards mean anything other than that the recipient has a strong web presence is up for debate, but any exposure is good exposure, right?

Anyways, that’s it for now. Upcoming posts will deal will tackle Amazon head on… so stay tuned for the carnage!

Hey guys,

Music to write by: “Big Bang Baby“ by The Stone Temple Pilots

First of all, I went back to the old theme temporarily. There were some technical difficulties with “Simply Green”.

There’s been a lot of excitement in astronomy recently. A new planet has been located around the red dwarf star “Gliese 581″. There is much awesomeness in the Gliese system. The star is a mere 20 light years away which means it’s conceivable that an astronaut could reach the planet and return within a human lifetime. Further, it’s not a gas giant like nearly all previously discovered planets. It’s a rocky planet, like Earth, and its orbit is within the “Goldilocks” zone where it’s not too hot or too cold for life as we know it to exist.

Nothing fires the imagination like the discovery of a planet that could support life, so I thought I might toss this out there. What do you think life would look like on this planet?

The planet is twice as large as the Earth, and five times as massive, so that means a large iron (or possbily uranium) core. Think intense magnetic field. Because the planet is far larger than the Earth, gravity would be five times as intense, which means no tall creatures like giraffe, elephants, or even us humans. Think snakes or iguanas. Blood is a problem. Your heart would have to be incredibly strong to pump blood to the head, even in a relatively flat creature like a snake. Spongy flesh like our brain is probably impossible, so maybe a flat brain spread over much of their bodies would have to be the norm. Algae would flourish in this kind of environment.

The system is also home to a “super Jupiter” that orbits so close to the sun that the planet loses tens of millions of tons of gas a year to its hungry parent. This would periodically bake our rocky planet in vast doses of reflected radiation. The only way for life to survive this would be if our planet had a “super-ozone”, or, more likely, is covered in a vast ocean. So think underwater life. This might explain the lack of radio waves (SETI has checked the system twice).

Since the sun is a red dwarf it is much smaller than our own Sun. Our newfound planet is therefore able to orbit much closer in without getting cooked. Its “year” is only 13 days, and we’re not sure if it “wobbles”, which is the source of our seasons. But they’d probably have weather. In fact, it would be intense. Remeber that “Super-Jupiter” we mentioned earlier? Well, it might generate massive tides on our ocean world. It might even set up a kind of “standing wave” that passes with regularity over the surface of the planet. Wouldn’t that be cool?

Well, those are a few thoughts about life would look like on Gliese’s planet. What do you think life would look like? Got a picture in your head? GOOD! Now go out and write a story about it!

Hey guys,

Music to write by: “Starlight“ by Muse

Welcome to the second in my two-part series focusing on Writing.com. As I have already addressed the positives, in this post you’ll get to see just how far into the seething abyss of hatred I can sink (well, maybe not seething, gurgling perhaps). If you think this post is a little one sided, feel free to read the more upbeat post here.

Writing.com only works because writers post their work online to get critiqued, but here’s where we run into one of the more thorny legal issues that any writer needs to be aware of. If you post your work at Writing.com, many editors won’t buy it. This is because when you publish your work at Writing.com, you have to grant them non-exclusive rights to publish your work (or they wouldn’t be able to display it). Thus, your First North American Serial Rights are considered sold. Why? Because they’re called First North American Serial Rights (also known as First World Serial Rights). Your story has already been published, albeit non-exclusively, at Writing.com, so you cannot sell “First” rights.

One of Writing.com’s moderators writes:

Does posting my work on a Web site like Writing.com affect my ability to sell the work later?

Yes. Anything posted to Writing.com may be considered “published.” By publishing on Writing.com, you have granted Writing.com free, unrestricted, and non-exclusive electronic (storage and display) rights to the uploaded content. This is necessary to protect Writing.com, and it is a perfectly reasonable requirement.

Now, clearly, you cannot turn around and sell exclusive electronic rights to another publisher, because exclusive rights would infringe upon the rights you’ve already granted to Writing.com. These rights cannot be taken back by deleting the item or limiting the access to it. But what about other rights?

You retain most of those, and can sell them – if you can find a buyer. You can also sell non-exclusive electronic rights and derivative rights – again, if you can find a buyer. You cannot sell “all rights” because – remember – you have given away “non-exclusive electronic rights,” and that is a subset of “all rights.”

The problem, of course, is “if you can find a buyer.” Many publishers insist on buying “all rights.” Most want “previously unpublished” work. But what you consider “published” and what they consider “published” may be two different things. And it’s always best to be honest, because you can destroy any chances of selling your work to them or to their colleagues in the publishing field if word gets out that you’re trying to pass off “published” work as “unpublished.” Worse yet, you could land yourself in legal hot water by trying to sell rights you no longer own.

She confesses that she’s not a lawyer, but she does cite several legal sources. The full article is highly recommended reading as it applies to ANY site where you publish your work (even your personal website).

Another downside is that the site is only really effective for the beginning writer. Why? Well, the site is full of bad writing (Except, of course, for your writing [I heart my readers]). Here’s why: Writers need to sell their work, and when they do, they are not supposed to have it posted elsewhere. When work is good enough to be sold, it comes off the site. Yes, I said it. Nothing that’s good enough to actually get published is on Writing.com. Now there are exceptions, chiefly among the writers that fudge on the legal issues as mentioned above, or with those too afraid of rejection to sub anything. I used to post my trunk stories and stories that had been published but weren’t for the reprint market for one reason or another at the site. Since I’ve gotten good enough to sell my reprint rights I’ve stopped posting even those.

You are much better off reading any of the professional, paying magazines that are available online for free. If you need critiques on your work, form a critique group (More on that in a future post). And, of course, if you REALLY want to read a bunch of crappy writing, you could volunteer to be a slush reader at any of your local fiction zines. In fact, Catherine Knutsson, associate editor of Shimmer Magazine recommended it at NorWesCon as a great way to see what kinds of mistakes writers make and what kind of plots editors see all the time (more on that in an upcoming post).

Because of the anonymous nature of Writing.com, networking opportunities are few and far between. Sure, a lot of people have made friends at Writing.com, but actual editors are few and far between. For networking, you’re much better off finding a highly trafficked writer’s forum, and posting comments on *cough* a couple of your favourite blogs.

The myth of an editor trolling Writing.com and “discovering” your work is a fallacy. Editors have far too much work in their slush piles. You are much more likely to be approached by a shyster than anyone legitimate.

Writing.com was great for me as a beginner, but now I’ve moved on. The simply fact is that I learn more from reading actual, published writing than writing from other beginners. For me, the positives don’t outweigh the (substantial) negatives. Other critique sites abound, but in your charming narrator’s opinion, your best bet for constructive feedback lies in forming a scathingly honest critique group with other writers in your genre (More on how to do that in a future post).

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little series. Everything I written is just my opinion, but hopefully these posts have given you the resources you need to make your own decision about the site. Let me know what you think!

Hey guys,

Music to write by: “River of Deceit“ by Mad Season

Welcome to the first in a two-part series on Writing.com. There’s a lot of information to cover on this massive site, so I thought I’d break up the post into one section that details the advantages of using Writing.com’s services, and a second post detailing the negatives. (If you missed the pun in the title, I’ll give you a hint: “Pros” = “Prose”. hahaha…I kill me…).

Writing.com is a massive website that provides a lot of resources for a writer free of charge. It’s a meeting place for new writers and the largest critique group in the world.

Writing.com’s website centers around a writer’s “portfolio”, which is a place for writers to publicly post their work and invite reviews. You can using “Gift Points” to entice other members of the site into giving you reviews of your work (Gift Points are purchased or given as payment by writers you review) . These are certainly not professional quality reviews like you might find on Tangent Online. Usually these are short little shots of encouragement, but sometimes a writer will write you an essay on how to improve your work. Unfortunately, as with any site, Writing.com has their share of trolls, but it’s pretty easy to ignore them.

One of the services that I found most useful was the variety of genre-specific newsletters that get sent to your Writing.com inbox every week. Though these newsletters are often written by amateurs, often they contain valuable tips on how to improve your craft and find markets (much as this website does, but without your charming narrator). Some of the latest newsletter subjects have been “Hero’s Journey – The Belly of the Whale”, “Creating the Perfect Victim”, and “Dealing with Rejection”. There’s a newletter for every genre, including fantasy, mystery, horror, …etc. I’d recommend keeping the number of newsletters you sign up for low, or the reading can get a little intense.

Every newsletter, the editor posts their “picks”, which are often just stories that authors have sent them with a “please put this in your newsletter” note. This is a great way to put your stories in front of a lot of eyes and get some valuable feedback from other readers. Be warned, an “editor’s pick” means nothing, so don’t try to use it as a writing credit or even a good sign about the quality of your story, but it is great exposure.

Other activites include forums to participate in, crossword, games, and contests, so if the two features I mentioned above don’t appeal, don’t write the site off. You can get a base membership to the site for free, so I suggest you check it out.

If you thought this post read like an ad, tune in next post for a scathing critique of Writing.com. It’s sure to be dripping with bile, swimming in sarcasm, and rife with righteous outrage. You don’t want to miss that, do you? Do you? I thought not! See you next post!