Only true genius can sting like a butterfly! So go for integrity, not false praise

Writing is a really difficult business and to get to the top is like climbing a rope ladder … you hang on for dear literary life as it twists and turns and tries to throw you ‘into the valley below’.

I’ve been lucky – all my working life I have made my living as a writer, a journalist, an editor and, latterly, a broadcaster and TV pundit.

But, throughout, I’ve hung on for dear life to that reeling-spinning rope ladder.

The problem is you never know which way the trade winds of your chosen craft or sullen art are going to blow!

There are some things you need as you are cruelly buffeted day-in-day-out and they include determination, tenacity, talent, ability, imagination, knowledge, faith – but above all you need integrity.

Let’s face it, there aren’t many Henri Charriere’s around – the writer who stung the world like a butterfly. But then he was imbued with some basic elements of genius and was a brilliant story teller.

One major place where integrity is lacking is Amazon and its review ‘boxes’.

Would-be writers, many of whom can’t actually write, are going on social media to tout for false reviews and offering to review somebody else’s work in exchange.

Most people must really agree that ‘touting’ for reviews is unethical…

How can it be anything else? ‘You review my book and I’ll review yours…’

It really invalidates a review in every way possible. Who’s going to point out the failures of your work of art if they want you to be nice about theirs?

How can you trust a ‘commissioned’ review to be truthful and honest?

Now, that’s not to say it’s never happened in traditional publishing. Of course it has. But it was and is still frowned upon. Quite rightly.

And do you know, it actually misleads your potential readers before they buy your book. Why would you want to mislead your readers of the future?

Sadly, because Amazon is allowing this to happen, the ‘con’ brings in to question every review on arguably every book advertised on the world’s biggest bookshop …

I reviewed books for a number of years. I got paid independently by the publication which commissioned the review from me.

I was never in cahoots with the author.

And that gave me the autonomy to say what I believed.

If you do a ‘deal’ on a review-for-review basis, both reviews are suspect.

Please don’t go down another road to the destruction of the written word … learn your art and believe in what you do. Make your work the best you can, employ a real editor with a real background, study the world of words, how to create, how to move, how to excite. How to tell stories.

And choose the integrity of the fact somebody wants to talk about your work. Don’t offer favours for reviews.

It is just an empty wind blowing nobody any good, and not a rope ladder to the stars!

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