Hello, friends and fans!
Welcome to another “Peek At My Week” for October 2, 2023! Here are some things that happened this past week!
News About Writing & Publishing: This Is The Current State Of Things
Happy Halloween month! I’m looking forward to seeing people celebrating (or preparing to celebrate) the Halloween season all over the place!
- Writing: My main focus at this time is “Freedom Inc” (book 1 in my new sci-fi adventure series, “Threaders“). Thanks to some work over last Monday and some dogged persistence on my part, the story is now sitting at just over 55,900 words. I’m already hip-deep into the newest, third part of the envisioned five for this book. Hopefully I’ll be able to report back with more progress to you next week!
- Audiobooks: I’m excited to announce that the audiobook for “Xanadu” – book 8 in the Quantum Series was just released on September 30! It’s now available on Amazon and Audible.
- Articles: In the past week, I posted “The Microsoft Challenge“.
- What Readers Say: I know I can’t please everybody (so I’m not trying to!). That said, it really pleases me when I see that I’ve managed to do it anyway! Drop me a line and let me know how you think I’m doing – or, preferably, leave me a review on Amazon or Audible!
Bibliography – A listing of all my books:
Other Stuff:
Short-sighted Service Provider Shenanigans
I Wanted To Leave A Review Of A Book I Bought – Amazon Said No
On Thursday, I wanted to leave a review for my friend Alex S. Johnson’s new book “The Fall of the House of Kaimera and Other Stories” – I bought the book and read it – and I wanted to leave him a 5 star review for it – but the Mighty Zon decreed otherwise.
The mighty #Amazon does its best to fuck the little guy over every chance that over-gorged, bloated, greedy billionaire 1%er scumbag Bezos gets. No wonder he can afford his own pet space program.
Not only do they take the majority share of royalties resulting from every sale from the poor author, but they roll all sorts of other obstacles in the way for any of us to really make any progress. And don’t think there are viable alternatives to authors for selling their books – if you don’t sell on Amazon, you might as well not sell at all. That’s how the land lies these days. It’s a monopoly.
Want your book to move up the rankings? Get more exposure? “No problem,” says Jeff, “you just need to hit that magical amount of 50 reviews first”. Right…
Apparently, in order to leave a review of a product you fucking BOUGHT, you need to have spent at least $50 (USD) – in other words R960.36 in the past 12 months. By rights, you should be entitled to leave a review on ANY item you paid money for, regardless of how much money you spent on Amazon in the preceding 12 months!
I always wondered why so few buyers were leaving me reviews – now I know. It’s not the readers, it’s not the buyers – it’s fucking Amazon!
In the nearly 20 years since my first novel “Blachart” appeared on Amazon, it’s only garnered 7 reviews. Perhaps, at this rate, it might hit 50 reviews before I die of old age – if they haven’t already upped the threshold before then.
As always, I’ll keep you posted about any further developments. And remember:
In spite of some of my books having been on Amazon since 2005, not one of them has yet reached the magical 51 reader reviews yet! (The highest number any of them has, is 10 – which is a pretty good number compared to many others, but it’s still not high enough for the almighty Amazon!) I would really appreciate your help on this! Come on, leave a review – it’s free!
I wish you all a pleasant week until next time!