Friday, October 4, 2013
Making certain I will never read your client's book
I recently received an email from someone who said he had translated a historical novel from its original Ukrainian, and would I care to review it?
The email described the book as "one of the most powerful novels that you have ever read", and generally gushed over it (the word powerful was repeated). I wasn't impressed by that, but I decided to check the book out on Amazon. Read a few pages, noticed one too many comma splices and emailed the translator back to say that because of the errors, I wouldn't request a review copy.
He replied,
I looked at the first pages again. Luckily most people who have read the book (including two qualified teachers) don't share your view.
Is this supposed to make me change my mind about reading the book? Or just to make me doubt my own memory/perception/opinion/reading tastes?
Either way, mission unaccomplished.
I replied,
Luckily I don't care who shares my view or not when it comes to the books I review. Please try to query only the qualified teachers who agree with you when you're looking for reviews.
And thanks for providing me with material for a future blog post about people who do authors more harm than good.
Then I blocked his email address.
This is why I don't respond to most requests for reviews. Tweet
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Rule #1: Never argue with a (potential) reviewer. LOL.
When they start gushing on the email, it goes directly to my spam folder.
He's rude and arrogant. A toxic combination if he's representing people.
Oh my! That is just sad.
Maria - Or if you're going to argue with me, at least use a better argument. "Everyone else jumped off the bridge" stopped working when I was eight.
Ruth - Almost as bad, he doesn't know how to punctuate correctly. I'm just sorry for the Ukrainian author, who hopefully isn't very much out of pocket for these services.
Mary - You said it.
Post a Comment