Blase Eight by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Chapter 9- Me Again

DISCLAIMER

The preceding chapters bear absolutely no relationship to the life, mental or otherwise, of the writer or anyone else sufficiently audacious to consider themselves a possible source.

Any suggestion to the contrary will be considered libelous and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. It’s not nice to laugh in this case, Troll. However, any duplication, use, idle mention or distribution of this material is prohibited and reserved by the writer, unless his written consent has been granted. The situations and people depicted are entirely fictitious, except Vambie’s heirs, who have kindly granted the writer the right to mention her name.

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Chapter 10- Circle Jerk, Cannibalism or Incest

E-book writers are also generally avid readers; or soon become so after joining GFR. This was never true for me as I was always a pathetically slow reader and preferred movies and some degree of competence; as they allow me to keep the same pace as everyone else without having to make any effort.

Essentially, the GFR circle jerk, cannibalism or incest starts shortly after an indie writer decides that he will market his book through GFR. Veteran writers refer to this process as

“doing the Goofreads slog.” Initially this entails the joining of or the establishment of many discussion groups and the

“friending” of as many people one can reach, especially the highest rated reviewers. Depending upon one’s appetite for drudgery, people who do this tail off anywhere from a month to two years after commencement, as they learn two big things. One is that the top rated reviewers will not review your book, for reasons previously discussed, the value of which was also previously discussed; and secondly one soon finds that they will spend hours writing to lonely “friends,” the vast majority of whom will never grace the writer’s pocket with the big two buck royalty triggered by a book sale. Though as is conveniently usual in the book business, there are no reliable estimates of

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return on invested time; but it would appear that one could get a substantially better hourly rate in a Cambodian sweatshop.

When the indie writer comes to realize this, they usually revert to the “I need more reviews” mindset. They focus on others like themselves and do review swaps. Their groups expand over time and they do more review swaps, though usually less than thirty.

So, after a period of excitement wherein everyone involved is cheerfully thinking of how many sales they’re going to get because of all the nice things being said about their book, the indie writer has received 20-30 four and five star reviews from the circle, and no cash sales. The next step for the indie is to keep writing reviews for authors who are not part of the group and didn’t request a review, sometimes taking a big “shot” at an author who has sold 4,000 books.

I’ll stop. The long and the short of the story is that the unpaid indie author has now become an unpaid indie reviewer-commentator; one who “likes” this, that, and the other thing; and no longer is writing any books. ................... Hmnnnnn.

Perhaps circle jerks, cannibalism and incest have their positive aspects.

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