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No April Fools’ joke apparently: The REAL Cheryl Kaye Tardif warned against Amazon zapping book reviews
April 5, 2009 | 5:04 pm
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By David Rothman
I’ve just gotten a Tweet from Canadian suspense writer Cheryl Kaye Tardif. She thanks me for my TeleRead post about Amazon’s war against authors—the evil souls donating free reviews of other writers’ books in return for a little publicity.
Via Twitter, the note came from a cherylktardif account listed with 709 followers. So I’m 99 percent sure this is not an April Fools’ joke.
Reviews of other people’s books—with signature lines mentioning the reviewers’ own books—are a major way that authors use to gain publicity on Amazon.
If Amazon permanently takes away that tool and keeps zapping authors’ already-posted reviews, just how much can publishers (not just writers) trust Jeff Bezos and friends?
Not just a problem for the small-fry
Adapting some old wisdom, here’s my warning to Random House and the rest:
First they came for Cheryl. Next they may come for you.
This is why I’ll keep fighting against Amazon’s attempts at becoming a monopoly, and why I’d warn publishers against trusting Jeff Bezos with e-book standards and proprietary DRM. He’ll use every tool at his disposal to advance the interests of Number One, regardless of the damage to the publishing community as a whole. ePub, anyone. Yep, it isn’t perfect, but it’s going to get better and better, and even now you can do more with it than you can with the Kindle format.
Speaking of ePub: I’ve warned about the need for the IDPF to develop easy and affordable creation tools for ePub. Moriah Jovan is planning to write a detailed essay on the current hassles.
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Hi again…hehe…this is the REAL Cheryl Kaye Tardif. Really!!! (So glad to know I’m real…)
Your update was great, and I promise you and your readers I am not joking. In fact, I wrote my own update on this debacle at The Write Type ~ Multi-Author Musings blog, which I created a few years ago.
http://writetype.blogspot.com/2009/04/update-on-my-battle-with-amazon-over.html
In my update I posted quotes taken from my email correspondence with Amazon. Ya might want to check it out!
Okay…now how to prove I am who I am….hmmmm…
Well, I was born and raised in BC. Lived for 2 years in Bermuda. Father was in the Canadian Armed Forces, and I’m married with an 18 year old daughter. And if you think I’d waste time trying to find out some author’s facts just to joke around, you’re way crazy, my friend!!! hehehe
P.S. I’m giving away almost 60 prizes in my Twitter Contest. All you have to do to enter is follow me on Twitter. http://www.twitter.com/cherylktardif
Contest details: http://www.cherylktardif.com/contests
(Oh, and if I wasn’t really me, why would I bother promoting all these links? hehe)
From the REAL Cheryl Kaye Tardif,
author of Whale Song (now in negotiations for a major film)
http://www.cherylktardif.com
Hey, I tried to leave a one star review on Amazon before and it didn’t get posted. I did the same negative review of the same product only gave it four stars and it was posted instantly. So. Buyer beware, they also block any negative reviews.
I noticed precisely what you’re talking about. I read quite a few books and for relaxation watch DVDs. For about a year, I’ve been reviewing them on Amazon, often mentioning a book I’ve written on a related topic. It seemed to be a good trade. Amazon got a good review from a knowledgeable source, while I got some much needed exposure.
A few months ago, I noticed that in some cases, although my name and book title remained in the review, the Amazon link had been stripped out. It’s erratic. Some books are almost alway cut, others aren’t. And the last time I checked it seemed to be US-only.
To understand why this is happening, we should keep in mind that, like individuals, corporations have unique personalities. That’s not a controversial idea. Not long ago, I heard one of Adobe’s founders speak on its various mergers. Some mergers worked, he said, because the two corporate cultures were complimentary. Some did not.
To understand Amazon, it helps to look at a personality trait called Asperger’s Syndrome. Wikipedia’s description is as good as any:
“The lack of demonstrated empathy is possibly the most dysfunctional aspect of Asperger syndrome. Individuals with AS experience difficulties in basic elements of social interaction, which may include a failure to develop friendships or to seek shared enjoyments or achievements with others (for example, showing others objects of interest), a lack of social or emotional reciprocity, and impaired nonverbal behaviors in areas such as eye contact, facial expression, posture, and gesture.”
Note the parallels:
* “Difficulties in basic elements of social interactions.” Virtually every group involved in creating and distributing books is confused and troubled by Amazon’s behavior. The fuss over text-to-speech in the new Kindle, for instance, demonstrated that Amazon hadn’t even talked with major publishers about an important new feature that would affect their business.
* “Failure to develop friendships.” Most authors need Amazon to distribute their books. But the number who consider it a “friend” seems to be declining rapidly. David and my experiences with reviews is a good example. Why are they not only doing this, but doing it in such a sneaky, underhanded way?
* “Failure… to seek shared enjoyments or achievements with others.” Is there anyone doing business with Amazon who is happy with the relationship, who feels like they and Amazon are achieving something together?
* “Lack of social or emotional reciprocity.” Amazon is not only the 800-pound gorilla of book distribution, it seems to be blind and deaf to the pain it is inflicting on others, particularly small bookstores.
Is Amazon is suffering from Corporate Asperger’s Syndrome? It’s certainly something to consider.
[Posted with both discussions of this story.]
OMG to the “Author” who posted above. I was reading and thought, well he/she’s being very polite about the whole thing. Until I got to the ASperger’s line.
Thank you for the laugh. Trust me, I needed it after this past week!
Cheryl Kaye Tardif
(oh yeah…the REAL one) lol