AND THE AUTHOR RESPONDS.....URBAN FICTION CONT.

 Browsing through Urban Fiction, I decided to download three books. Of the three, two were unreadable because they were so bad. The grammar and English were that of an eight year old and even I've seen plenty of them do better. 

I enjoy many genres and with some of the great covers and interesting storylines, (not to mention many of them are priced at .99, I decided to give this genre a chance since I don't read many authors that write there. 

It made me so angry, mostly at the educational system. I don't know these writers at all. But we come from such great writers like Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, is THIS acceptable? 

My father was illiterate but he didn't have the oopportunity that we did, growing up as a sharecropper in the early 1930's. Why is illiteracy acceptable today in 2012? Why do we turn a blind eye to authors that write books devoid of English and peddle it on Amazon for profit? Why is this acceptable?

I left my review here....

ME:
I tried to enjoy this book but had to delete it after reading it. I could not understand much of what was going on because of bad English, run on sentences, and no concept of elementary grammar. It was that bad. The author can paint a picture and tell a story well if they just understood the rules of grammar. Too bad, because the story had great potential.

 This is where she responded and it got ugly.

First she responded to a review I made on someone else who agreed with me.

 no you need to get some glasses or maybe stay out of urban fiction all together its sad how people are so judgmental when they haven't got a clue . I do think editing is a must with anyone's novels but to be so sadistic and leave a nasty review for anyone it just shows where your mind is . I have seen all your reviews and you seem to be a bitter person maybe you should stop reading all together. ---AUTHOR NAME DELETED

Then she responded to my review below in the comments section.....

Initial post: Dec 9, 2012 10:35:33 PM PST

AUTHOR NAME DELETED

says:

of course you have an opinion like money so you are able to use the both but as for your comment I find them to be down right stupid and very untrue. you need to maybe try getting a class in reading 101 sad and down right horrible

You just replied with

1 of 2 people think this post adds to the discussion. Do you?  

---

Your post, in reply to  on Dec 10, 2012 6:45:19 AM PST
You edited this post 

 

  SONYA says:

Instead of taking the constructive criticism ( I take you to be the author, no?) and making the book better, you decide to resort to name calling. I can hardly understand your reply because it's NOT in English. If you're going to be serious about your craft, you need to perfect your English. It's like someone who wants to be a Doctor but they have the slightest clue of Anatomy. It just can't be done.

Even your author's bio is riddled with errors! That should have NO errors PERIOD! It tells the audience to expect the same in your books. Readers are persnickety when it comes to grammar and English. You, as a writer, should know that.

Learn to be humble and listen to the criticism of potential fans if you would like to go far in this business. Otherwise, you're wasting your time. Read other great African-American writers in different genres and learn from them. Study English and pick up "The Elements of Style" by William Stunk and see how to really craft a story.

This is not an insult, but your material is unreadable. I'm sorry. Reading and studying is the only way to get better as a writer.

And I find it downright insulting for you to tell me to get a reading class when you can benefit from a writing class. No matter how mad a reviewer makes you, never attack your audience. I learned the hard way that this looks very bad on the author. It's upsetting to get a bad review, but even Stephen King will tell you (as he's said in a few interviews) you get mad, you scream, don't respond, and keep writing.

Keep writing dear. It will get better.
Peace

PS. I can help you edit your Author's Bio to get rid of the errors so that will be cleaned up. I'm from the "Chi" as well. 

 Hopefully our discourse will end here. Hopefully she will do some reading of her own and get better as a writer. I'm not on a mission to help everyone learn English, but it's disappointing.

Reviewing Reviews #1

(I may do a series of reviews that I come across in the future for discussion purposes only.)

I write reviews on Amazon and read many before I decide to purchase  a book. I do look at the low rated ones as well as the five star.

Contrary to popular belief, many of the reviews, good or bad, are written by people who have nothing to gain out of writing them. But there are a lot of undeserved low ratings as well as some overinflated great ones.

First off, who is to tell what one person believes is a five star review?


"A five-star novel is a work of exceptional literary genius. I am not an English major (or minor), and I am only medially well-read. But I know a five star work leaves one breathless, both emotionally and intellectually. After finishing such a book, it is impossible to initiate intercourse with another literary work for some time. An example of such a book would be Blood Meridian, Moby Dick, The Brothers Karamazov, or the like. I am not part of the kindle revolution, but I'm not a total stick in the mud, either. C'mon people, this is not a five star work. Of course, being the internet, all things exposed to popular mediation are subject to the extremes of wild fanboy(girl)-ism, or Swift Boating, but can't we have some objectivity here?"

Wow. Everyone has their own system where they grade things differently. Obviously the reviewer here felt that the book in question was nowhere near the literary genius that it needed to be to garner so many five stars. This person gave the author three stars which is fair but I cannot rate a book based to YOUR liking just as you can't for me. Why don't people understand this. The rating is justified but rate a book according to its merit and don't bellyache over other people's ratings.

 If you start your review off with, "I don't understand how this book got so many five stars...." YOU'VE LOST ALL CREDIBILITY. Go sit in a corner until you agree to play nice with the rest of the children....

Here is a bit more of this "review".....

"I feel like an 11th grade English teacher who has given an assignment to the class, and am now reading the work of the brightest pupil in the class. Yes, it was handed in early, every objective was completed, and the margins are properly aligned (although there were at least three grammar/spelling/syntax errors, one the result of a functional spell-checker and non-functional human editor)." 

This is based on conjecture and assumption. What makes this reviewer so justified in feeling the way that he does? The review sounds almost PERSONAL, which a review should never be. It should be related to the work at question and not based on some imaginary hallucination in which all he does is insult the writer.  He wants us to be objective? Try being unbiased. Did he actually sit there and count the errors, then analyze them? Volunteer work would be an amazing start for people like this.

In this strange, wonderful, but sometimes dreary world of writing, it takes a lot to please your audience. Everyone wants you to write characters that they and only they can relate to in every way. Take this review for example.....

 "My first issue with (*******************)  by J********** is the language barrier. The book is a sore reminder that British English can be quite different than American English. The sample that I read is littered with British terms and slang that take a while to figure out the meaning from the context. For example, a father refers to something as "f_g." [Amazon did not post original review due to inclusion of this word.] Obviously, in American English this is a derogatory gay slur. But for British English, it (I think) refers to cigarettes. There are many such instances where the American reader will have to pause and figure out what the author means by a certain word and its usage. Your average American reader may not have that kind of patience. I deduct one star in my rating for this reason."

This reviewer is actually complaining about the author using British words instead of American. Now the writer is actually BRITISH! The author lives there! How should she write? Should the author had written an American version where the characters speak with a Bostonian accent that smokes cigarettes instead of fags?  I mean you have to at least know that if someone asks for a fag on the street, they're not asking you if you are carrying a homosexual person in your pocket! 

For goodness sakes, when the 2012 Olympics were in London, many newspapers, blogs, and television shows had segments where they explained the differences in British and American words. Not all Americans need a British/English translator to read Brit Lit and it's insulting to assume that the writer needed to include it. Isn't it a prerequisite to at least study English Literature in schools? 

Take a look at this gem, albeit from the same review....


 My second issue are the characters themselves. The author appears intent on making EVERY single character (at least that I encountered in my sample) possess an unlikeable character flaw. While flawed characters may smooth the path towards interesting scenarios and story lines, this also turns off the reader, who CANNOT associate himself with ANY character. The bottom line is that if the reader does not like the characters, why would he care to read what happens to them? I deduct a second star for this reason.

Really? I don't read many books where the characters don't have character flaws. I can't point to a person on Earth that didn't have a character flaw...especially an unlikeable one at that. I guess the author that received this unlucky review needs to go to the store and and purchase a crystal ball. 

Then she should create characters based on what this reviewer feels as acceptable. Here is the thing about writing. You won't relate to ALL the characters and sometimes that is a beautiful thing. Without it, you wouldn't have the insight or knowledge from other people's points of views, concerns, dreams, destinies, etc. 

Literature would be pretty boring if it were that way. Writers write characters the way that they see them, plain and simple. You're going to relate to some and others, not so much. It  shows diversity and will create a pretty interesting storyline if you ask me. When you read, you are walking in someone else's shoes for awhile. You are not going to agree with all their choices or decision making in the book. Guess what? There are people in your life that don't agree with YOUR choices and decision making. Does that mean that they are right and you are wrong?

I can't relate to someone who has lived a criminal past for all of his life and decides to go rob a bank. Sure he has a mother that is dying of cancer and she needs money for treatment, but I couldn't relate to committing a crime just for that reason. I can relate to the sympathy that character would have for his mother's health, as so would a lot of people. But what about the reader that absolutely HATES his mother? 

They couldn't relate to robbing a bank to save a person's life that they totally detest. Hell, they may even be happy that she won't be on this Earth for long and decide to jump for joy. They may even relate to robbing a bank! People who think like this should probably resort to writing their own stories instead of only looking for characters that you can relate to. It would be nice, but nice doesn't make interesting reading.





".....I was very excited to buy this book for my Kindle Reader but...$17.99...are you kidding ? In this economy ?"

Okay that book is very expensive for Kindle but then again, this isn't a review.


"I have only read the sample, but that all it took for me to be disgusted."

READ THE BOOK. THEN JUDGE! I can understand not wanting to read the entire book because it doesn't catch your fancy. That's perfectly fine. God knows I have hundreds of books that I stopped reading that didn't interest me in the slightest. But then, that makes me NO longer ABLE to write a fair review on the book. In this case, I don't write a review at all. It's just like those people that say, I don't read Romance books but downloaded it anyway and hated it! 

Really? You don't like Romance, downloaded it anyway, and were horrified that you didn't enjoy the subject matter.  I have been surprised by reading genres that I have no interest in and was pleased. But then again, I go into reading...say a Western, and fully expect myself not to be able to follow because I don't read books of that subject matter. 
  
If one is really good and blows my mind? That's awesome. All that states to me is that the writer writes with universal appeal. I study Astrophysics. If I wrote a book that only PhD professionals can understand, then I'm obviously not writing to the layperson. But if I write that same book so that a ten year old can understand? Congratulations. That is a book that has universal appeal and can attract people of all backgrounds. 

It doesn't mean, however, that the first book for the PhD's isn't any good. It just means that people with PhD's or someone that is into science and technology would be able to understand it. A writer with universal appeal has the ability to make a lot of money and become extremely successful as well. 

It is hard to sit down, write something, and finish it. It's even harder to listen to criticism, but that can only make someone's work better. It's unfair to write a review that has nothing to do with the actual product. If your professor graded your paper that you worked so hard on, just to give you an F because you didn't use the right pencil or paper that they would have preferred. It's one thing if your professor ASKED you to use a certain pencil or paper but another if you learned that in hindsight. 

Just something to think about folks.
 

Amazon, Reviews, and Twelve Year Olds

 Bad reviews can be hard to take at times, but unfair reviews shouldn't be tolerated at all.

I've done some research and learned how one bad review on Yelp could totally destroy someone's business, even if the review isn't fair. IN the link that I provided above, the author illustrated a perfectly good example of the unreasonable accommodations that most people are looking for.

Take for example Amazon.com. ePublishing has been a wonderful thing! It has taken the publishing decisions out the hands of the big publishing companies and given the power back to the writers. Writers, that could wallpaper their walls with rejection slips from the powerful literary agents and publishing houses, can now bypass that and take their books straight in the hands of the voracious readers. With the Kindle, many people are turning off their television sets and getting comfortable with a good book again. The E-Publishing business has opened many opportunities to writers that didn't exist in the past.

Now the bad. There are many publishing companies that refuse to market their books on Amazon for a variety of reasons. One of them being that people can write a review on your book without having purchased it! Now it's fine to review a book that you may have at home, purchased through other avenues, but is it really in your author's best interest to have people randomly writing reviews on books that they've never read?

Most people would argue and say that one bad review may not hurt you. That may or may not be true. But it could be devastating for an author that is starting out in the novel writing world. Many reviewers have stated that they look at negative reviews first before they read the positive. Again, I'm not advocating that there is anything wrong with this, but if the review is based on nonsense, then the review shouldn't stand.

I read a negative review once because the author dedicated her book to God. What did Amazon do? They let the negative review stand, even when it had NOTHING to do with the actual book.

Amazon is full of hit-or-miss reviewers complaining about books for a plethora of reasons; many being grammatical, syntax, or punctuation errors (the funny thing is, lots of those reviews are filled with grammatical, syntax, and punctuation errors themselves). Some even for book covers, formatting, or just down right mean and personal reviews that have no merit.

Oh yes, ePublishing can get pretty nasty! There was one romance author that went so far to track down a three star reviewer, that she had the reviewers address and place of employment. (Hey, people act really strange when you mess with someone's income)

Does Amazon have an obligation to authors or its buyers? Or both?

Personal attacks, reviews that are obscene, harassing, spiteful, or books that were NOT purchased by the reader should not be allowed on Amazon. Again, many publishers thought Amazon was insane for allowing some of these ridiculous negative reviews on their products stand.

ePublishing is a wonderful thing. Without it, some of my books wouldn't have seen the light of day. Amazon should probably revise their guidelines to get rid of some of these awful reviews. It's not fair to the author and ultimately, not fair to the reviewer. They just may pass on a fabulous find just to save a few ridiculous reviews.