Request for no negative review?

ForumMember Giveaways

Melde dich bei LibraryThing an, um Nachrichten zu schreiben.

Request for no negative review?

Dieses Thema ruht momentan. Die letzte Nachricht liegt mehr als 90 Tage zurück. Du kannst es wieder aufgreifen, indem du eine neue Antwort schreibst.

1LipstickAndHighHeels
Dez. 13, 2013, 1:40 pm

I've just begun participating in the Member Giveaway program (how did I not notice it before?) and received an ebook with a request for review. No problem there (it was mentioned in the MG terms for this book). But the message I received with the book included the following paragraph:

"If you DO NOT like the book for whatever reason,
please send me an email explaining what was wrong,
instead of posting in on Amazon. A private feedback
on this matter would be appreciated. I'll do my best
to make this book better with your suggestions.

which seemed a bit odd to me. As I thought about it, it seems to me that the author is really looking for beta readers. Have any of you run across similar requests? And if so, how did you respond?

Thanks,

2lorannen
Dez. 13, 2013, 1:52 pm

I've seen a few come down the pipeline like this. Authors offering their books through Member Giveaways are allowed to ask whatever they like in terms of where to post your reviews, etc. However, it is both against the rules and technically impossible to add any extra requirements to a giveaway. We pick the winners for Member Giveaways—the authors have no say in who wins, so if you don't do as they ask, you cannot and will not be penalized in any way.

You should feel perfectly comfortable either ignoring these types of requests or complying, however you choose.

3lilithcat
Dez. 13, 2013, 1:53 pm

Rules for MG:

"Reviews may be requested, but not required" and "You may not add any additional terms to the giveaway, per the rules."

It definitely sounds as though he wants to use LT members as beta readers/unpaid editors. And it's interesting that the author asks that negative reviews not be posted "on Amazon". This isn't Amazon!

Frankly, I would simply write an honest review of the book, and post it wherever I normally post reviews.

4MarthaJeanne
Dez. 13, 2013, 2:36 pm

That would make me MORE likely to post a negative review.

5lorax
Dez. 13, 2013, 3:56 pm

Well, I wouldn't post anything to Amazon anyway, and I note that the author made no such request about not posting negative reviews to LT.

If I were feeling especially perverse I would just post a review saying "The author of this book has requested that no negative reviews be posted. Accordingly, I have not done so." Most likely I'd just ignore the request and post whatever I would have anyway.

6Brad_K
Feb. 17, 2015, 11:10 pm

If the author/editor finds that readers are vocal about problems, I can see they would prefer to re-write before reviews get posted in public -- deferring the decision to make changes pending initial reactions. And, trying to tell readers that some reviews were about different versions of the book raises a lot of discord in the market effort -- how do you let a reader know they got the *corrected* version? And which version(s) does a particular review refer to? Gack.

It seems they should have been more forward about their Early Reader Book distributions.