The Politics of Book Reviews

“If nobody talks about books, if they are not discussed or somehow contended with, literature ceases to be a conversation, ceases to be dynamic. Most of all, it ceases to be intimate. It degenerates into a monologue or a mutter. An unreviewed book is a struck bell that gives no resonance. Without reviews, literature would be oddly mute in spite of all those words on all those pages of all those books.” 

~ Patricia Hampl 

The reality of the publishing industry today, particularly for indie authors and
writers with small publishers is that gaining recognition in a crowded marketplace with hundreds of new titles released every other month, has become a struggle. Getting written reviews on such websites as Amazon and Goodreads, therefore, is an excellent way of making their work stand out. Unfortunately, though, it can also be the quickest way to get their work trashed, and their reputation as authors tarnished by toxic reviewers. In recent days, stories have proliferated online that some trolls on Goodreads who’ve been posting one-star reviews on books, sometimes without even reading them, have demanded payoffs from authors to remove them.

Authors have no control over what readers think of their work, and that’s fine as long as readers are honest. Honesty, in this context, does not necessarily mean positive feedback, but it also doesn’t have to mean an unwarranted attack on the author. While criticism is an integral part of publishing, a dislike for a particular book does not justify ridiculing its author. In the same vein, a writer’s crave for recognition does not justify paying for positive reviews. Not only does this mislead potential readers, but it also deprives the authors themselves of a fair and balanced appraisal of their work. As the American journalist, Jack Shafer noted in his 2005 piece, Fair Is Square, “… book reviews aren’t yearbook photos for authors to treasure. They are for readers.”

But that appears to be a memo some authors have not received. Not only do they indulge in the now frowned upon practice of review swaps, some, ignoring the reputable review groups on Goodreads, partake in toxic review exchange groups online where, as someone puts it, “anything less than a four-star review is flat-out rejected and considered harsh and unhelpful.” The trouble with this practice is that those who relish being flattered by their fellow authors deny themselves the chance to learn of any structural weakness in their work that might need attention. Since books are written for the public, eventually, real people will buy them, and if they find such books to be mediocre works, not only will the authors lose credibility, but they’ll have to face the disappointment of their readers which might manifest itself in angry one-star reviews on Amazon. If many readers, decrying the deception, leave such reviews, it’d inevitably call the authenticity of the earlier positive reviews into question.

Another negative aspect of certain review exchange groups is that since members do not get to choose the books they must review, some end up with genres they have no affinity for, which often deprives the book’s author of unbiased feedback. It is also interesting to note that outside of these review exchange groups, while authors crave positive reviews from readers, they are sometimes not equally generous in their reviews of other writers’ works. There are cases in which authors take issue with certain characters in a book, and strangely enough, based their review of the book on the bias they have towards the character rather than on the literary merit of the book. 

Now the industry is riddled with so much bias that some readers claim they are no longer swayed by the reviews they read on Amazon or Goodreads. Having bought books on the strength of the starred reviews, only to find the writing quality wanting, a new reality is dawning on many readers. Yet, these starred reviews continue to determine which books are promoted, and to some extent, which ones are bought. Fairness—once the hallmark of literary assessment of 

fictional works—has been thrown out the window, and replaced by an obsession with star numbers, resulting in the exaltation of 5-star reviews as a sign of literary excellence while all the others are considered worthless, except perhaps 4-star reviews which are generally accepted as just fine. One fact, though, remains unchangeable - if a book has no literary merit, its five-star reviews—be they from friends and family or from literary magazines that thrive on paid reviews—can not give it the core it lacks. And if a book is excellent, no single-star review posted by a biased reviewer or by a disgruntled author envious of another’s work can rob it of its substance.

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#MFRWhooks: Young, Carefree and Broke…

 A black man, a white girl, and a deceptive job offer

#RomanticThriller #Interracial #Blackmail 

Femi, a young, black graduate with a First Class degree in Chemistry, has no long-term ambitions until he meets Jessica Rhodes, a blonde exchange student from San Diego. When they land two spectacular job offers within the first week of graduation, their bleak honeymoon is transformed into a dream. Egged on by a free trip to New York to evaluate one offer and a 30-day grace period to accept the other, they are surprised to find their future dangling over a multi-billion dollar cliff-hanger as they hop across the Atlantic. What they don't know is that undisclosed details of the deal will not only pitch them against each other but will also drag them to the place where dreams end and nightmares begin. 

Will their fragile marriage survive the greed, the captivating allure of Black Gold, and that vile, ancient tradition that seeks to determine who should be married and to whom? 

Blurb

He’s black. She’s white. And they think nothing of it until he takes her home...

The scene where the young man takes his new American bride back to visit his parents without having first informed them of her existence is riveting, agonizing, and devastating as he runs unsuspectingly into a titanic clash between his parents’ traditional values and his European education, and this passage stands out as a gem in 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐆𝐨𝐥𝐝.

The Hook - {Book Excerpt}

The splendid country-style bistro named Replay Café was located on Rue Grimaldi in the heart of Monte Carlo. It was a chic spot for high rollers and charming tourists, and its best-selling drink was the champagne-based l’apèritif Stephanie, a compulsive choice for the glamorous people who patronized it.

This evening—the last day of Femi and Jessica’s short-lived honeymoon—the bistro was packed, as usual, with many of its patrons waiting in line for a chance to enter. Notwithstanding the long queue, the honeymooning couple successfully bluffed their way in and found a table at the rear of the café beside a group of young, extravagant tourists, who were guzzling the expensive, sought-after drink and chattering away in French.

No sooner had they settled in than a waiter stepped forward, making them exchange gloomy glances. “Should we stay?”

Jessica’s gaze dropped to the fancy tablecloth. Teeth gritted, she sat still, unsure of what to do.

Femi gazed at her in trepidation, embarrassment oozing from every pore of his skin the way sweat seeps through a runner’s shirt. Short on cash, he realized he couldn’t afford two glasses of the drink though he was eager to treat her to it.

The waiter reached their table. “Hi,” she smiled.

Jessica lifted her face. “L’apèritif Stephanie,” she said in a steady voice. “One glass.”

The waiter glanced sideways at Femi, nodded and turned without speaking.

“We can afford one glass, right?” Jessica mumbled, averting her gaze. “I think it’s better than walking out in embarrassment, don’t you agree?”

“I agree,” Femi’s gaze remained on her face. “One day…” he said.

Jessica waved him to silence. “We’ll share it,” she offered, reaching for his hand on the table. “I understand, okay? Now, don’t give me that look.”

His gaze moved from her face to their clasped hands. He grimaced. “Okay.”

They lapsed into silence until the drink arrived. The surrounding noise increased. Gleeful laughter filled the bistro. Several couples, including new arrivals, chatted, laughed, and kissed. In silence, the duo sipped the drink through two straws, listening to the loud chatter at the nearby table with increasing discomfort.

“It’s the eve of our D-day…” Femi whispered, watching Jessica over his straw.

“Don’t say that,” she rebuked him in a mild voice. “It’s just the beginning. We have two offers on the table; we only have to decide which one to accept.”

Femi exhaled. “We know nothing about this VenChemical Group except that it is based in New York and its chairman is Italian,” he paused and regarded her. “If we accept their offer, we don’t quite know where they’ll send us.”

“New York,” Jessica said without hesitation.

“I doubt it. I was interviewed for their Africa Operations Unit, I’m not sure that’s based in New York.”

Jessica sipped the champagne-based drink and gazed thoughtfully at him. “Well, we’ll be in New York in the first week of your employment, isn’t that what they said? The orientation…”

“Yes, yes,” he nodded. “The orientation program comes first and then the moment of truth.”

“You aren’t considering the NNPC offer first, are you?”

Femi puffed his cheeks in thought.

“I mean, they gave you until the end of the month to respond…”

“I know,” he averted his gaze, pondering the job offer from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation—NNPC—a seemingly simple decision that was somehow enmeshed in the complexity of his craving for foreign currency.

Jessica regarded him. “If you choose the NNPC, I’ll understand,” she hesitated for a fraction of a second. “It’ll be like a homecoming for you, right?” She breathed. “You know I’ll live with you anywhere but if you think about it, the VenChemical Group is offering you a better condition of service and they’ll be paying you in dollars.”

Femi did not respond.

“Listen, seeing as we have until the end of the month to respond to the NNPC, why don’t we play all the cards?”

He looked up. “You mean, going to New York tomorrow to assess the VenChemical offer?”

“Right,” Jessica beamed. “After all it’s an all-expenses-paid trip. If it works out, we stay, if not we go to Lagos and take up the NNPC job.”

Their eyes locked.

She softened her face when he smiled. “Would you have acted differently if I were the one with two job offers on the table?”

“Nope,” he shook his head and a broad smile crossed his face.

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Annus Horribilis

2019 - in Words & Pictures

Unlike many years past, 2019 was a surprisingly shameless year, not so much because of the shocking and sometimes, inhuman things that happened. But because most of them played out in the streets and on live television and in blatant social media meltdowns. 

2019 was the year that uncanny chain of events shoved the world to the brink, from deadliest natural disasters to wars & rumors of wars, to election chaos, to senseless trade wars, to fake news, and to the Brexit madness. It was a year that one could only count the positives on the fingers of one hand. Yet, beyond the turmoil, there were triumphs, like, for example, the U.S. Women World Cup win, and the huge number of women and minorities elected to the U.S. Congress which led to a spectacular takeover of the House of Representatives by Democrats.

Nancy Pelosi at SOTU in February

And the election of Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House, the most powerful woman in Washington D.C. For some, though the positive aspect ended there, for the win set the stage for a clash over congressional oversight powers. In the course of the year, the Robert Muller investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 elections came to an end with no satisfactory outcome for either side. Though Trump was not indicted for Obstruction of Justice, he was not outright exonerated, and some of his close associates went to jail.

Clockwise from top left Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat
from Arizona; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat
from New York; Cathy McMorris Rodgers, 
Republican from Washington; and Lauren Underwood, 
Democrat from Illinois

Immigration was a thorny issue. Children were separated from their parents, with some held in what many described as cages. The dire situation led to one of the most haunting pictures of the year—an image of the lifeless bodies of Óscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez, his arm limply draped over his 23-month-old daughter, Angie Valeria, locked together on the banks of Rio Grande where they drowned trying to cross from Mexico into the United States. 

In Britain, Prime Minister Theresa May bungled her way out of N° 10 Downing Street in tears over her headstrong and incompetent handling of the Brexit drama. On the other hand, her counterpart in the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn didn't fare any better. With no clear position on Brexit, and anti-semitic charges dogging his step, he sleepwalked into a national election on Brexit and spectacularly lost to Boris Johnson. He wasn't the only loser in Europe. The

Megan Rapinoe with her teammates Samantha Mewis, left,
and Alex Morgan after scoring her team’s first goal in the World Cup final.

vice-chancellor of Austria, Heinz-Christian Strache got entangled in a political scandal known as the Ibiza Affair and bowed out in disgrace. In Italy, the far-right Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini shot himself in the foot in a poorly orchestrated palace coup that ended up toppling him. Next door in France, the Yellow Vest's anti-government protests shook the political establishment and put the President, Emmanuel Macron on notice. In Asia, while the unyielding humanitarian crisis raged on in Yemen, protesters poured onto the wide boulevards of Hong Kong week after week. A subway fare increase in Chile led to protests in Santiago, and the tumult of mass gatherings, from Algeria to Sudan, from Bolivia to Venezuela, produced some of the most powerful images of the year. 

A RECAP OF THE YEAR

Cardi B at Met Gala Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 6, 2019,

January: Women wielded power in the U.S. Congress
February: Nancy Pelosi's clap at the State of the Union went viral 
March: A terrorist attack hit New Zealand 
April: In Paris, the Notre Dame Cathedral went up in flames  
May: Attorney General William Barr's congressional testimony set the stage for a confrontation  
June: President Trump made history by crossing the demilitarized zone into North Korea 
July: The U.S. Women soccer team clinched the World Cup 

Motorcyclists ride on a road as haze from
wildfires blanket the city in Palembang, Indonesia

August: A horde of U.S. Democratic presidential hopefuls staggered into the open
September: Wildfires devastate the Amazon as Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas 
October: ISIS kingpin, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in Syria by U.S. special forces   
November: The Chinese principle of one country, two systems tested its consistency in Hong Kong  
December: Trump became the third U.S. President to be impeached 

Brentwood, California,

In the midst of all these, fires burned, from Australia where more than 12 million acres and 1,000 homes were destroyed to California, where about $80 billion in damage and economic losses were estimated. Further, more than 80,000 forest fires ravaged the Amazon Forest, a huge carbon store considered a vital buffer for the world against climate change. The fires, accompanied by deforestation have had devastating effects on this important ecosystem. In Russia, hundreds of fires spread across Siberia, their proximity to cities like Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk marked as alarming. Air pollution put millions of people at risk in Indonesia as well, where the fires were particularly destructive. Schools were closed as smoke billowed out over Southeast Asia. 
 NOTABLE DEATHS OF THE YEAR

There were notable deaths in 2019, among them, Doris-Day, the legendary actress and singer who died at age 97 on May 13 after “contracting a serious case of pneumonia.” The fashion designer and mother of CNN anchorman, Anderson Cooper, Gloria-Vanderbilt, died at age 95 on June 17. Representative, Elijah E. Cummings who died on 17 October left a legacy as one of the most powerful Democrats in the U.S. Congress. Earlier, on July 9, the billionaire former presidential candidate, Henry Ross Perot died in his home in Dallas at age 89. Seven days later, on July 16, the retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens who served on the court from 1975 to 2010 died at age 99. 

Less than a month later, the celebrated Nobel Prize winner, Toni Morrison died at age 88 on August 5. Soon afterward, Peter Fonda, the Easy Rider star died at his Los Angeles home at 79

on August 16, followed, 14 days later by Valerie Harper, the Mary Tyler Moore star who died at age 80 on August 30. In the last month of the year, the first French Bond girl, Claudine Augur, who starred alongside Sean Connery in Thunderball died at age 78 in Paris. Then on December 12, after a brief illness, another well-known name, Danny Aiello who starred in movies including The Godfather Part ll, Moonstruck, and Do the Right Thing died at age 86.  

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#GameChangers

Indie Author & Social Media Bashing

reveals

The Fallacy of Game Changers

  

As events and ideas that affect a significant shift in the current way of doing or thinking about something come to be known generally as game changing, pretenders in various fields of human endeavor have arrogated the title of game changers to themselves.

More than in other walks of life, this trend is increasingly evident in the publishing sector and the social media. The numbers game—views of a Youtube video, likes of a Facebook post, retweets of a tweet, and large followers of an Instagram account—has become the new standard by which one’s appeal and success is determined, causing random stars, erroneously considered game changers, to emerge overnight.

Courtesy of AdvicesBooks

It brings to mind events of a few years ago when the advent of innovative technology simplified the publishing process through cost-effective POD—Print-on-demand—system for paperbacks and the dawn of e-books. With it, many charlatans, interchangeably called subsidy publishers and vanity press sprouted everywhere like fungi. Despite this ignominious phenomenon, the time had come for self-publishing, and when it started to grab huge market shares from traditional publishers, the latter, afraid of losing out on the chance to ‘play God’ went to great lengths to belittle e-books and the technology that produces them. And, along with some traditionally published authors in the ‘exclusive club,’ they bashed those individuals and companies that did anything to enhance self-publishing. The Authors’ Guild, under the presidency of Scott Turow for example, disapproved, in the strongest of terms, when Amazon acquired Goodreads, citing concerns about the creation of an internet monopoly.

As it turns out today, Amazon isn’t the ‘great evil’ it was made out to be. By putting its technology within the grasp of writers, it has enabled an entire new group of successful self-published authors, who take advantage of the new situation with the realization that they don’t need publishers given the lower costs and ease of distribution. And as they say, ‘if you can’t beat them join them,’ now traditional publishers, after pretending for a long time that self-publishing didn’t exist, oftentimes viewing it as means of exploitation of writers, have joined the fray, doing the same thing they cried foul about.

In 2012, Penguin formally entered the business of scamming inexperienced authors with the purchase of Author Solutions, a reviled vanity press, for $116m. Writing in the IndieReader, David Gaughran said that the performance of Author Solutions was so poor that the press release announcing the purchase couldn’t even tout their own customer’s success, listing instead some self-publishing stars including E. L. James, who didn’t used Author Solutions to publish their work. As if that wasn’t alarming enough, Simon & Schuster opened its own vanity press called Archway Publishing, and hired the now Penguin-owned Author Solutions to run it, amid allegations that they bribed writers to lie about their scamming operation. That, unfortunately, wasn’t the only disturbing behavior by a top traditional publisher. Random House too was accused of forcing unfair terms onto writers via their new digital imprints.

Essena O'Neill

In the social media sphere, a recent event involving a certain Instagram model, Essena O’Neill sheds more light on the fallacy of game changers. Catapulted to fame by the selfie culture, with half a million followers on Instagram and a quarter of a million subscribers to her Youtube channel, O’Neill staged an online repentance that went viral but got a backlash from former admirers who called her act a publicity stunt. After benefiting from the synthetic world of social media stardom by posting seductive selfies, she is now tearfully denouncing it as a hoax and a ‘dishonest and contrived’ way of viewing beauty.

"Her problem, and that of many like her, wasn’t, 

and isn’t social media but the vain manner 

in which it is being used."

Built on hype and showiness, just like reality television, the phenomenon thrives, not on substance but on Likes, Retweets, Followers and the ability to go viral. Getting caught up in its guile or being compelled by greed to abuse oneself in an attempt to look like someone else is only part of the idiocy that regulates the game. In real life, succumbing to peer pressure is not considered a virtue and so it is with the selfie charade. Therefore, playing the victim and claiming that she was lost in the ‘Celebrity construct’ isn’t exactly visionary. After basking in this wantonness for a few years, canceling her Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube accounts and bashing social media on the way out to follow the dictates of conscience, and calling on other ‘like-minded’ people to join her in becoming, yes you guess right, game changers, smacks of hypocrisy.

Essena

Her problem, and that of many like her, wasn’t, and isn’t social media but the vain manner in which it is being used, in the same way that modeling isn’t an evil profession but the senseless way some people abuse themselves in order to fit in, is. But isn’t it curious that to pursue her new role in life as a game changer, she created a website where she appeals for financial support, relying on the power of social media to effectively bash social media? It might have been more honorable for Essena O’Neill to quit the game quietly.

The fallacy of game changers is equally evident in the self-publishing industry. As indie authors are increasingly unfettered from the exploitation of the vanity press and the hurtful rejection of trade publishers, the need for visibility and distribution has given rise to a new wave of ‘game changers.’ Claiming to have the interest of the indie author at heart, these egregious benefactors offer services, including paid reviews, aimed at giving self-published authors a high visibility in the book market. As was recently revealed in an Amazon civil complaint filed in Seattle, there are also fraudulent reviewers in the mix who ask Amazon vendors to send prewritten reviews, which they post from multiple usernames and IP addresses to outwit the company’s detection software.

“Amazon strictly prohibits any attempt to manipulate customer reviews and expressly prohibits compensated reviews,” the complaint stated. “Nonetheless, an unhealthy ecosystem has developed outside of Amazon to supply reviews in exchange for payment.”

Based on the above statement, all paid-for reviews are supposedly frowned upon. But there are several reputable media outlets and industry websites that request payment from indie authors for so called professional and unbiased reviews that are generally regarded as authoritative. Some of them have a separate page dedicated to fee-based indie reviews and others claim to offer free reviews but clearly states that such can’t, however, be guaranteed as requests for expedited (read paid) reviews are high.

"Given that the self-publishing revolution is swarming 

with charlatans, fairness would demand that 

all paid-for reviews be treated as bogus 

whether they are from powerful 

review sites charging as much as $500 for 

a ‘professional’ review or from a freelancer 

in a free-for-all marketplace website charging $5."

Now, with competition in the book market heating up, many online shoppers increasingly rely on customer reviews when making spending decisions, but just how much can such reviews be trusted if they are paid for? Given that the self-publishing revolution is swarming with charlatans, fairness would demand that all paid-for reviews be treated as bogus whether they are from powerful review sites charging as much as $500 for a ‘professional’ review or from a freelancer in a free-for-all marketplace website charging $5.

Upholding such tenets of fairness will go a long way to stop, not only fraudulent reviewers, but also certain industry gurus (whose reviews are seen as authoritative though they are paid for) from undermining the trust of book readers and tarnishing Amazon’s brand because, let’s face it, in this sea of bogus benefactors of indie authors, the real game changers, in fact, are Amazon and those book bloggers who post honest reviews (positive or negative) without collecting a dime. 

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