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Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 244
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Have you seen this? Seriously. This is not the marketing/promotion strategy to adopt.
http://booksandpals.blogspot.com/2011/03/greek-seaman-jacqueline-howett.html
I for one will be adding this blog to my blog roll.
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Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 279
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I did see it, and I think you saw my resulting tweet about it! I do feel a bit bad for the girl, she seems pretty young. I wish someone would disconnect her internet for a while until she cools down.
I bookmarked it for the train wreck entertainment value. I'm a rubbernecker, what can I say?
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Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 279
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Someone finally disabled commenting on it. It went viral and everyone was weighing in.
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Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 214
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Seriously? OMG, see, that's the downside to opening your work up to the public without a solid edit. I feel for this poor woman. She probably just had a story she wanted to tell.
How on earth does something like this go "viral" anyway? Don't you really have to work at that?
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Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 279
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You have to work at it when the entertainment value isn't there. I saw that link about fifty times in an hour through facebook and twitter. It's like Charlie Sheen...you know that ship is sinking fast and the last hurrah is going to be epic so you don't want to miss it.
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Joined: 2/27/2011
Posts: 353
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I'm glad to see you guys aren't jumping on the bandwagon to mock this woman. Yes, it was absolutely wrong of her to confront a reviewer for giving her what was actually pretty important feedback, ie, if you are going to self-publish, understand that you will be judged on everything by your reader. So a good life lesson learned. But there was no need for people to keep leaving more and more hurtful comments. The blog owner should have shut down the comment thread long before he did.
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Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 279
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http://ereads.com/2011/03/greek-seaman-runs-aground-on-treacherous-typos.html
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Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 214
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Alas, news made "Smart Bitches Trashy Books."
Author could have probably generated far more sales had she graciously thanked the reviewer and acknowledged the flaws in her work. I'll buy a book from her ... I don't have a Kindle, but that''s never stopped me before.
I'm not entirely convinced that she would have suffered due to the poor spelling and grammar, at least not in sales.
One of the more astute blogs explaining the success of "bad writing" (whatever that is these days) puts the blame on readers:
http://www.selfpublishingreview.com/blog/2011/03/25/bad-writing-doesnt-matter-anymore/
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Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 244
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I totally agree that the hurtful and mocking comments were uncalled for. It was like watching an accident happen in slow motion or something to see this all go on. I can't count how many times I saw this tweeted and re-tweeted. I won't necessarily comment on reviews, but I will definitely peek back at the blog from time to time, see if anything piques my interest.
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Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 214
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Aw man, this is how bad it gets ... now a forum of *journalists* are discussing this. How --?
I think it would be crazy cool to offer to edit her book into a thing of rare beauty. Ghostwrite it myself, if I had to. Have her put it back up, revised. Just to make the people who dinged her on Amazon just for the helluvit sound like idiots.
If I had the time, of course ...
Seriously cool. A little nefarious. Possibly some good karma in there, too.
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Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 279
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@LisaMarie
I hope someone does that, that would be very...epic. It would take a better person than most to do that, can you imagine trying to edit for someone who goes all spaztastic like that? That would put your Karma into permanent positive. You could spend the rest of your life killing kittens and still be maxed.
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Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 214
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" ... can you imagine trying to edit for someone who goes all spaztastic like that?"
Actually, I can do more than imagine it, LOL! I sometimes do editing for doctoral students for whom E is a SL (as well as their egos). Now, if they are willing to trust that you'll make everything shiny-perfect, that's another matter.
Still tempted ...
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Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 279
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All the power to you LisaMarie, I couldn't do it. That is right up there with teaching middle school students on my 'careers never to get into' list. Then again, I switched from human medicine to veterinary medicine because of my extreme inability to deal with people whining. It seemed like a wise career move. I can taking biting/scratching over verbal complaints any day of the week.
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Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 412
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Lisa, i've been doing a lot of editing work as well, and love the idea. Rock paper scissors it?
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Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 214
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Hey, I'm game if you are. Between two or three people, it shouldn't take that long to do a basic edit. I've not seen the structure of the novel itself, so I'm not sure how that can be improved. Could be that *heavy* editing (ya know what I'm sayin' here?) is required.
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Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 412
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so, who wants to try and contact her with an offer?
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Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 214
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I've been thinking about the best way to approach this.
I'm wondering it simply taking her first chapter, editing it to perfection, and sending it as "peace offering" might be the appropriate way to go about this. Just to show that good faith is involved.
Actually, I live to make novels like this readable. And I would like nothing more than to prove that a the work of an indie writer *can* be polished to industry standard, no matter who it is or what they write. 
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Joined: 4/27/2011
Posts: 1
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man, that comment thread is intense...you think she sold any extra copies as a result? i mean, folks got pretty heated but maybe some compassionate lurkers and folks like yourself took pity and gave the book a taste. a happy(ish) ending? 
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Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 412
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umm, i didnt. heh. got scared.
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