Swapping books - a devil's deal

"I will read your book if you read and review mine." This is an example of author's deal when it comes time for reviews.

Reviews is hard to get. If you sell books, it is still not guarantee you will get reviews. If I could get a review for every book I sold, it would be great. People will buy book to collect it on the shelves and leave it un-read. Or, they will read but not rate it.

Many reasons are for not getting reviews, but some people don't know where and how to write reviews or are not eligible.

That is the reason why authors will turn to other authors, with a proposition for review. The danger of such review is on Amazon rules: author can't review other's author books on request.

I love to read indie authors and they inspire me, but I have my circle and I never accept offers to read someone I never heard about.

Once I got a proposition :" Hey, I saw your review for XX author, can you write it for me, too?" I ignored it.

When you have a deal with other author, Amazon might delete your reviews. You can get warning to break their rules. If you don't get any punishment from Amazon, you can have a conflict with author. Some authors don't understand how is to have a big TBR list and a lack of time. Everyone thinks their book is the most important.

Sometimes it happens that a person will start read a book, but you will not get a review because the reader doesn't like the book. This is not uncommon thing. I have some books I started to read, but never finished. If I see the book is hard read and boring, I will not waste my time. I love to use books as the way of healing. If I read something exciting, I will forget my problems.

Reading must be a pleasure, not a homework.

Comments

Should we respond to negative reviews?

Recently I had a discussion in my social media about negative ratings. There was a situation in Goodreads, where I got two negative reviews on my two books. The point was in the way how the ratings were set up. First rating for my book "Body in the waves" was placed under 5-star review from another reviewer. While the reviewer praising my book, the troll came under to say "This is really bad book." Second rating was described as " Poor author needs writing lessons." Both reviews broke standards of reviewing, because there is no visible evidence that book was downloaded in Kindle unlimited or purchased. It was a clear troll act from a new page, without a profile photo and with a nickname. I reported this to Goodreads and they responded me they are processing this. Meanwhile, I heard from other authors that Goodreads failed to do anything about trolling. In these terms, Goodreads should delete such profiles and forbid the access because of breaking rules. T...

Why is refund damaging indie authors?

I understand someone can be disappointed with a book. It is like I was disapointed with my trousers online and returned it. What makes a difference, my trousers were 40 euros. The book was 2.49 cents. This makes return funny, because what can you do with this money? Some readers don't understand story behind the refund. The author will get minus royalties. - 0.13 c in my Kindle report, that will vanish when someone else buy the book. The situation happens. Someone accidentaly clicked and bought a book. A random customer wants a refund. Maybe it was not a random move. Maybe the customer clicked, bought and did not like the book. When you don't like the book choose another options, instead of damaging authors. Write a negative review. Write negative one star rating. Don't purchase another books from this author. Or, maybe to reconsider and read it, again? If you write negative reviews or rate it with 1 or 2 stars, you are making a favor to authors. You are moving algorithms i...

Rebelious rules by Kristina Gallo

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