The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by PixelFish:

I happened onto a Kindle forum early on, and Patrick is right...the strawman is no longer straw. He/she is a fully operational golem cheerfully slagging off on all the authors who ventured in to explain patiently how this was a giant kick in the balls. I stopped commenting because reading comprehension about pricing windows and comparisons to hardcover vs. softcover was low, and I'd've still been typing away. (I did refer people to Tobias Buckell, Scalzi, and Jay Lake in a few posts, and now feel vaguely guilty for the incremental influx of "spoiled rotten author" trolls they may now have.)

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1BA0D6J2GS59/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg32?ie=UTF8&cdPage=32

Apparently Sams is trying to recruit friends to pump up Harriet and the two or three other positive reviews. She alleges a vast internet conspiracy, claims we're all LB Taylor's minions, says LB Taylor and the other neg reviewer are known for doing this, that they did it to Linda Lael Miller among others, and says she's the victim of people trying to shut her up. (This is on her Facebook wall.)

Incidentally she seems to be under the opinion that Amazon should be like her personal site, as in the main thread, she asked why people were coming here to be mean....ignoring the fact that Amazon is a review site, among other things, and that by trying to pressure people to not mention negative experiences she is attempting to undermine the review system's utility for buyers.

I'd feel sorry for her--did earlier--except she has persisted in digging that hole deeper and deeper even after people point out that there is no conspiracy, people just take it amiss when you try to dismiss their experience of your product by calling them illiterates and parasites.

Also, what's up with the assertation that inside the publishing industry hobby reviewers are called "hit-and-run" reviewers? I've never seen anything like that from my friends who do work in the industry, or here on Making Light.

(Honestly, if you have faith in your product, aren't hobby reviewers a good thing--as they tend to talk to other people about the books they're reading and pass them on. Or in the case of sites like Smart Bitches Trashy Books and Dear Author, link similar books if you liked Book X.)

And the biggest irony: assuming Harriet Klausner is a pro reviewer in terms of quality. ( can't help thinking that a person who reviewed books for a living would want their trust as diluted as Harriet seems to want, since she's overwhelmingly positive and about as accurate in her reviews as spam comments on an art blog. ("I love this article--it really goes in depth beyond what I have seen others write about." on a post featuring a sketchbook page. Nope, I don't think you "read" the blog. Nor do I think Harriet reads half the books she writes about, since whenever I come across her reviews on books I have read, there's almost always an egregrious error in plot or character that she gets wrong. It always looks like jacket flap copy to me.)

I just don't get Sams' logic behind her assertion that it's easy to write a bad review, but hard to take criticism about the bad review. I don't see why the review in general needs to be subject to another round of criticism so I can decide whether or not to read the book. The review is not the product I'm interested in--so I don't care about reviewing the review, except maybe in an unconnected circumstance where we may be discussing socio-political stuff. And then I'm probably not going to harsh on Ye Olde Average Amazon Reviewer--there are some reviewers (like Ebert) whose reviews ARE product, but BettyJo from Oklahoma ain't one of those.

The book is the product I care about, when reading Amazon reviews. Not the reviews themselves.

In case folks weren't aware, there's also a Slashdot thread:

http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1475922

Awwww, fuck! Dammit! And a lot of other rude words.

I remember Peter telling me last year that he didn't really fancy going to the US while they were seizing laptops during border crossings and so seeing this news this morning rather shocked me. Likes Charles Stross notes, Peter doesn't seem like the guy who is going to throw the first punch. (He will, however, not take verbal guff from anybody and he certainly is not a cringer. Anybody who implies that he should have watched his tone or been more circumspect is contributing to victim-blaming.)

RE: The Salvation Army link in the particles. I had retweeted that earlier, and had at least two SA folks start tweet-stalking me saying they don't discriminate. (I tried pointing out that saying you don't INTEND to discriminate doesn't mean that you are actually refraining from doing so.)

I don't really see a problem with Carina. I see big issyoos with Horizon. BIG.

Scenario 1 : REAL Self Publishing. Author pays for everything, author gets all the profits.

Scenario 2: Horizon: Author pays for everything. Printer demands half.

It's kinda like Kinko's suddenly demanded money for printing up my zine. (Okay, that's a little extreme, but what is Harlequin bringing to this?)

Jackie Kessler breaks it down here: http://www.jackiekessler.com/blog/2009/11/19/harlequin-horizons-versus-rwa/

I've saved a few good thoughts for Scraps and Velma. Here's hoping for a better future.

I can't help thinking that for structural reasons, it's easier if the first draft is sprawling and massive and full of extraneous stuff. Because somewhere in that is the story, and you have to pare down the fat. But if your first draft is 9000 words that are polished to within an inch of your life, where is the room to trim? If everything is tightly knit, it's harder to rearrange bits of the story to make it stronger.

For me too, I like having room to get a proper run up. The first couple thou words tend to be my weakest, because I'm feeling my way. Once I get a sort of mental rhythm going, the subsequent words tend to flow better. If I'm trying to polish from the start, this rhythm never has a chance to build. I have constipated writing.

Of course, that's just me. Every writer makes their own process. But I suspect the wiggle room is good for lots of folks.

(Or for another whacky analogy, it's like if you're putting the IKEA furniture together and you tighten ALL THE BOLTS the instant they go in, instead of waiting til the whole thing is put together. I did that once and kept having to backtrack like crazy. Better to allow some wiggle room.)

I am FiDaNoing.

Finish the Damn Novelling, to be clear.

Like others here, I'm mid-project, and don't wanna be derailed. But I figure I'll post word counts so I can hang with the cool kids.

1250 words today. :)

My freecycle group seems pretty okay so far. They're moderated but that was partly because we had a large volume of people posting things like "First one to my house can get the ironing board--it's on the curb" without following up on whether it had been TAKEN and ignoring the fact that it created a frantic race which might cut into people's time if they got there and discovered the free ironing board had already been taken.

But I can see how the moderation privileges could be abused....and if people were skimming from the list before hand, that's kinda shady.

I am visible at Home Depot still, but I was once thoroughly chastised by a lady at Lowe's, who seeing me, rakes in hand, walked into me and then yelled at me for "waving the rakes around". I was standing still at the time, not gesticulating, and looking at a selection of flashlights, I think it was. Maybe the rakes had bobbed a little bit when I leaned over, but "waving" was definitely an exaggeration. She and her husband chided me for my thoughtless behaviour and wandered off mumbling about kids these days. I was 27 at the time.

Like many others, I feel that this was premature and would like more follow-through on my hope, please.

That said, one of the early actions of his presidency (and one of the few to take place before the nomination period had ended) was to repeal the Global Gag Rule, a policy of ours that impacted the health of women all across the world. By repealing it, he did open up a way for other countries to promote women's health without worrying that the US would cut aid funding. Invaluable.

Now if he'd just show the same initiative on some other issues.

AEG: It’s marketing my dear. Have you ever noticed how many domain names the Children’s Writing Institute uses? We spend a lot of time on Google pay-per-click for our authors, and we’ve seen at least six names for them, for sure, that go back to their site or a clone of their site. I’m sure you are aware of search engine optimization.

Condescension to his imaginary interviewer. How charming.

Also, that strategy causes brand dilution--which is the point for him, since it enables him to scam a lot of people under various names. Gah.

Love the accusation of identity theft, when it seems that's exactly what he's doing to his employee by using their handle to publish his fake interview.

Angiportus: You're in Seattle? My bf and I were watching the Seattle parade from Westlake's balcony. (Before we found the balcony, we were down on the ground, and all we could see was an occasional balloon perambulating by over the heads of the other onlookers. Good turnout!)

Wonderful news. It's nice to see the system work the way it is supposed to. :)

Sure, I don't NEED to know about 1840s birth control methods, but I personally find that sort of tidbit extremely interesting.

Incidentally I just finished reading The Great Influenza (another Macdonald recommendation) and found a review where the reviewer complained too much about the life stories of the individuals involved in reforming medicine in the United States, when that was the material I was finding fascinating. (Specifically he complained about a focus on Paul Lewis, even though quite a lot of space was devoted Welch, Flexner, Williams, and Park.) Seemingly he missed the point about how this entire circle of physicians and scientists changed the face of medicine in the US and made it possible for them to try combat the influenza, or how their policies were ignored by the Army or Woodrow Wilson. I guess it wasn't the narrative the reader was hoping for, but I found it terribly engrossing. These are the details that keep me on the track when reading historical non-fiction.

I'm sorry about the loss of your hamster, but I must add that I think Agnes is a great name.

Apropos of The Little Drummer Boy, my new favourite version is the Dr. Girlfriend and Monarch rehash of the David Bowie and Bing Crosby version. (The Monarch plays David Bowie and Dr. Girlfriend plays Bing.)

The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend Sing Little Drummer Boy

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