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Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Author to Reader: “I am think you skimmed the book”

posted by on April 16 at 10:31 AM

Galleycat has a link to a story about a romance author who hunted down a reviewer named “Reba” on Amazon who gave her book three stars. She sent an e-mail to Reba telling her she didn’t read the book correctly. (Sic)s throughout:

I think perhaps, as Anne posted, that you are a bit too much in love with Challon, and thus resistant to Damian. It does me credit that I can create a character who conjures such loyalty from you.

I am think you skimmed the book, sitting in an auto place, worry about big bad men sniggering, and didn’t bother to see why the characters did things, just took surface reactions. You are keying into Aithinne’s POV, which at many times is not accurate to what was really happening.

As for accusing Athinne of asking Dirk into her room - he is MALE. Male do silly thinks when they are upset and jealous. This is so TM - Typically male. Men do silly things at times of high emotions. Damian is human, not perfect.

More of the letter is here. Reba has removed her review, but other readers are discovering that this romance author has a history of intimidating her reviewers.

RSS icon Comments

1

I think my new career goal is romance novelist. If whoever wrote this 'letter' can be published, I bet I could totally kick ass.

Posted by Abby | April 16, 2008 10:35 AM
2

What a scumbag. Come read in Seattle so I can throw rotten fruit at you.

Posted by Fnarf | April 16, 2008 10:38 AM
3

Girl still has issues with that whole Fabio and the duck incident. Let it go!

Posted by orangekrush | April 16, 2008 10:52 AM
4

I am think this TRN (Typical Romance Novelist) can haz ghostwriter...

Posted by Geni | April 16, 2008 10:54 AM
5

Romance today is dominated by hard-drinking, drug-addled, two-fisted authors who would just as soon drop you as look at you. You don't step up to a romance novelist unless you're prepared to fight.

Posted by elenchos | April 16, 2008 10:57 AM
6

it's not like this is the only case of authors responding to reviewers on amazon. this is a common occurrence in forums etc.

Posted by tiffany | April 16, 2008 11:04 AM
7
Posted by Bellevue Ave | April 16, 2008 11:36 AM
8

Hey, visual artists do this all the time. You don't like it, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!

#3 - oh shit, I forgot about that. I wish I had the time to churn out 900 pages of crap built around the Duck Hitting Fabio on Rollercoaster premise, which would also adorn the book jacket.

Posted by Dougsf | April 16, 2008 12:26 PM
9

I work for a publisher, and authors all get their panties in a bunch about negative reader reviews on Amazon. Some of the more clueless ones ask us to have them "removed". I get really tired of having to explain free speech to (ahem) authors.

Posted by Amazonian | April 16, 2008 12:50 PM
10

I went to Amazon to look at the reviews for this book and they are pretty funny taken in this context. The first one begins:

This is my third posting of this review, it keeps getting deleted. I just want people to know that this book is not as good as everyone is making it out to be.

Posted by inkweary | April 16, 2008 1:00 PM
11

bitch, please.

Posted by scary tyler moore | April 16, 2008 1:49 PM
12

So, if @10 is correct, apparently you CAN get bad reviews removed?

Posted by Fnarf | April 16, 2008 2:37 PM

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