A plea from me and no doubt other writers

[Sergio Luis dos Santos]

I understand very well the "photo book with too many photos". Years ago I was at IPMS-Rio de Janeiro anual contest seated at the Editora Adler table wich had released my book. I remember when one guy told he didn´t liked the book "cos it has only photos... Wow, almost 20 years searching for rare and not published images was not good to him...

[edwest2]

Chris,

I suggest contacting amazon about the 'damaged books count as a review' issue. It is ridiculous but it will not change without complaints. I went looking for a book unrelated to history and saw several "reviews" where people posted photos of the damage on the copies they received.

Sometimes publishers are careful about the difference between a book with photos and captions and one with more detail. A few polite messages to the publishers appear to be in order.

I prefer books with a good balance of text and unpublished photos. The previously unpublished photos book is the winner between similar books. Unfortunately, to some book buyers, it is not their concern if the book took one year to write or 20.

Best,
Ed

[Dan O'Connell]

No matter what you do for your book, some one won't like it.

[Sergio Luis dos Santos]

Every kind of review, a book, a game, a plastic kit, a music, a movie or a tv series will not be 100% honest when the reviewer is unable to separate the technical aspects from his desire.

[edwest2]

Prior to the internet, I went to the local hobby shop, looked over the books and bought what interested me. I was in one hobby shop/hobby game store where I was one of four people, including employees, when that fourth person came in, picked up a book, complained loudly to no one in particular and put it back. He then picked up something else, paid for it and left. That is the natural order of things.

I think it should be kept in mind that on the internet, the few can appear to be the many. After nearly four decades in book publishing, I know that the few are the few, not the many.

[Bombphoon]

I think the whole Amazon reviews section is slowly dying (I don't know why) - there are far fewer reviews than there used to be.

It seems that to try and encourage people to give a grading, Amazon have recently introduced that you can leave an anonymous star rating without having to provide a written review.

I have noticed several seemingly 5-star books been downgraded because people (presumably trolls) have anonymously left a one-star grading without giving a reason.

If people give a one-star or five-star grading, they should have to explain their grading.

(Similarly, it must be a couple of years ago now since Amazon removed the thumbs up/thumbs down on reader reviews and you can only now like a review).

[edwest2]

The rating system on amazon.com has broken down. When anonymous persons can take potshots at each other as opposed to giving a book a proper review, then I suggest amazon use actual reviews posted by actual people on credible sites or from other sources, like newspapers or magazines.

The reviews are now, in too many cases, more like a discussion forum.

[Lagarto]

Some years ago I got a one-star review for one of my P-47 books. It was titled: "Seller knows of deception but does nothing!" and read: "Just to warn everyone the cover shown is Vol.III, which is out of print. I have complained to the book seller of the deception, but to no avail. I guess it's easier to lie and cheat."
Boy, was I furious

[FalkeEins]

..once you hand the material over JJ anything can happen to it. I've just written my first two books..due out soon. My editor/publisher stuck rigidly to the word-count he'd imposed and cut ruthlessly. However once the designer had finished I was able to put quite a bit of the 'cut' material back into the captions where there was plenty of room...

[Jukka Juutinen]

Neil, was the editor limited by page count and "standard" design? If only the former, slight design changes can increase the space for text greatly.