Spreading Like Wildfire

People started to notice the overturn of the old rules of ranking on Amazon. First, there's a new post from our old friend Vick Mickunas, a worthy read as always.

And then, our other old friend, John (of the old but evergreen "Here's a shocker" thread on sfsignal) had a few words to say about the news: "Klausner's tumble from the top...".

"Dear Author" noticed too: check it out.

"Waves of Leavers"

The phrase is Judy K. Polhemus,' a member in good standing of Amazon's possibly most knee-jerk "Friends" voting group, the Guardala Gang. She predicts the departure in their own perhaps sincere, but no doubt bizarre outrage of various personages of the group who've been shockingly reduced in both reviewer ranking and number of countable positive votes. Either Hondo, the HKAS, or now Amazon must be guilty according to their newest claims, personal responsibilty having been laid aside by common consent long ago. Yet one wonders if such departures will be really more of a threat than a promise. In a possibly endless series of farewells, Steve Guardala who led the exodus even before Amazon subjected him to precipitous falls in ranking and "Yes" votes, nevertheless returned to cancel once again his mere content summary - aka "review"- of "Landknechts", apparently in preference to responding to questions about his innocence in vote manipulation by the Ghost and Yours Truly. Others of the group who will punish us all, along with Amazon, by their departure include such worthies as Giordano Hussein Bruno and H.Schneider. Ever a follower, like so many of the commentators on these guys' threads who "know" that a book must be worthless if one of these paragons doesn't recommend it -how clever these followers must be, to know a book's merit without bothering to read it- Judy Polhemus threatens to follow suit. What potential losses to the world of genuine reviewing!! Ave atque vale, nevertheless.

Revolution At Amazon!

On October 23 Amazon changed its method of ranking reviewers. Unfortunately, its explanation of the changes I find largely unintelligible. If anyone has a clear understanding of the changes, a posting to that effect would be much appreciated. Its new way, as far as I can discern, is just about as opaque as was its old one. Apparently the only abuse targeted is positive or negative serial voting by individuals or gangs of Amazon "Friends." Why it retains reviewer ranking at all or whether it takes arms against other fraudulent practices rampant on the site remain issues of concern.

The good news for critics of Amazon's former method of ranking reviewers is the demotion from first place of Our Lady of the 'Speed-read' Trash Novel, Harriet Klausner, and from sixth place to twenty-fifth of Our Maestro of the Inflated Vote Totals, Grady Harp! An added bonus for lovers of schadenfreude is the brutal demotion of one of the chief cyberbullies and pompous asses from the top six hundreds to the lowly six thousands. For all his complaining about the evil influence of the HKAS and presumed negative votes from its members, it was the repeated positive votes either from himself or his own little gang of rubber-stamping yea-sayers which served to hoist this self-important miscreant on his own petard. Sic transit gloria mundi!

Honesty and Amazon

On October 20 an Amazon Top 1000 Reviewer named "The Doctor" commented as follows at the foot of several Harriet Klausner and Grady Harp "reviews:"

"All Amazon customers should know the truth about Amazon's "top reviewers." They are sell outs. They mostly review books they've never even read. They are contacted by authors and their reviews are solicited. Why? It sells products, of course. It has been calculated that Amazon's #1 reviewer reviews an average of 45 books a week A WEEK! Is it possible to read 45 books a week? No, it is not. It has also recently been calculated that the reviews of another of Amazon's "top reviewers" have to have been written by at least 27 different people. Why the fraud? Why the collusion? To make money. Did you know that top reviewers receive free merchandise? That they are even sent free APPLIANCES? It's all a scam people, and most of the top reviewers "reviews" are not even legitimate. They provide positive reviews for favors in return. They also have many Amazon "friends" who get online and provide each other with positive ratings for all of their reviews. Collusion at its finest. Many of them have become a sort of half-a$% celebrity. but it's all a joke, and you shouldn't be taken in by it."

Not surprisingly, "The Doctor's" post was pretty quickly "Deleted by Amazon." Once again we owe Amazon good language for teaching us that honesty in the contemporary business world is an easily overrated virtue.

Et voila

Steve Guardala's review of Landsknechts, after having accumulated a number of interesting posts about the reasons of what happened to him, has finally been deleted.

I guess, having 'deleted-by-Amazon' a number of offending posts by 'Hondo', and despite a number of increasingly unreal but energetic attempts of damage control by friends of the reviewer, it was decided that the commentary still contained too much damaging information (though it was all speculative, of course), and the whole thing was blown away. Hiding traces? Looks self-incriminatory, I fear.

ADDED LATER: The review has been reposted since. A new discussion takes place now, every bit as interesting as before; another delete-and-repost isn't out of the question! :-)

ADDED LATER: All's gone again. Looks like a new method of comment wipeout (doesn't look like a delete-and-repost, at least inasmuch as suggested by the preserved vote counts -- I think I saw it once before). Anyway: whatever the method, comments are gone once more.

Did you see this yet?

Here's a fantastic new book from Five Star Publishing by Sharon Ervin; the title is I believe Reviewer Harriet Klausner gave MURDER ABOARD THE CHOCTAW GAMBLER a five-star rating, although it shows four on Amazon.com. Will you double check that?.

:-))))))))))))

Now here's an enterprising author for you

Or is she a nutcase whacko? You be the judge. Author Chancery Stone starts a post at the Amazon Romance Forums promoting her Danny books to the romance readers, in part,

"The DANNY Quadrilogy is a 4 volume series of novels about the Jackson Moore brothers, part of a Cumbrian (English) farming family.They have a forbidden relationship, thoroughly twisted out of shape by an abusive childhood. Things get horribly out of hand and the jealousies and rivalries end in murder.Please be warned it is a sexually explicit tale with controversial content. However, for those people who live for intense emotional romances and who actively enjoy a challenging storyline then it will exceed your expectations."

Big surprise, most of the regular posters at Amazon took umbrage at the post as these books about sibling sexual relationships is not what romance readers are looking for. I don't know about the rest of you, but from looking at the author's comments on her Amazon blog about these books I'm guessing they're better classified as erotica or porn and not a serious novel on a sensitive subject and certainly for the romance genre.

I'd also like to point out for further reading to those of you who have been banned from commenting at Amazon for inapproprite language, on Ms. Chancery's Amazon Blog her thread titled, "Vanilla Lace. In Yer' Face. " Read it for yourself but be warned, it's highly offensive, and not for the kiddies - I think even our fearless leader Harriet would be embarrased. Maybe not. How stuff like that can get posted on Amazon is beyond me. And if you're still not convinced this one's a fruitcake, here's her website.