Rant! Why I don't go to the HF forums at Amazon anymore

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Sat November 13th, 2010, 2:42 pm

**gets on soapbox**

In case I had forgotten, this reminded me why those boards are virtually useless - at least to me.

You might be interested in my historical novel, Red Clay, Blood River

Hello!
It sounds like you may enjoy my newest novel, Toward the Horizon.

Please check out my debut novel, an historical adventure: Magician's Spell.

Hello,
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Alison Butler and my novel, The Hanging of Margaret Dickson (based on a true story), has been published on Amazon Kindle today.

NOAH'S WIFE has won ForeWord Review's Book of the Year Award for Historical Fiction! I am SO excited!

Yes, that is the author on that last one.

Hello everyone,

I just found this thread, and see that a few have mentioned their own offerings, so I will do the same. My new novel fits your requirements.

I would love to trade reviews with a fellow kindle author....If you are interested in trading reviews, please leave a comment on my blog at: http://www.suzanneanderson.net/

!!!!

I thank you, dear one, for indulging my own selfish passions for the written word, and for this most extroardinary period in which in which we now find ourselves. Let us hope that 1882 will be a little kinder to us all, and bring with it a renewed sense of purpose and unending hope.

Cordially yours,
Carla René
------------------------
THE GASLIGHT JOURNAL:

All those quotes are taken from only one page of three on that thread

**gets of soapbox**

EC2 · Post by **EC2** » Sat November 13th, 2010, 3:10 pm

I went there the other day Misfit and was struck by the same thought/irritation. It does my head in. It's one of the reasons I so value this list. There is a lovely mix of readers and writers and by and large we talk reading and all the promo stuff is separated off.

boswellbaxter · Post by **boswellbaxter** » Sat November 13th, 2010, 4:37 pm

We can consider ourselves lucky. One of the Amazon spammers tried to join this forum but got huffy about being asked the questions we use to weed out the spambot registrants. (She sent a couple of insulting e-mails to the webmaster address--way to go, honey! That will make me fire up the ol' Kindle and buy your book!)

chuck · Post by **chuck** » Sat November 13th, 2010, 4:40 pm

I so impressed with our friendly authors on HFO.....Helpful, knowledgeable and never blow their own horn.....I might add respectful and always constructive on their mentions and reviews.....

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Sat November 13th, 2010, 5:02 pm

[quote=""chuck""]I so impressed with our friendly authors on HFO.....Helpful, knowledgeable and never blow their own horn.....I might add respectful and always constructive on their mentions and reviews.....[/quote]

I agree, and that really is the best way to sell yourself after all. Goodreads is still fairly clean of this, but they do pop up spamming here and there, although GR is better at zapping them than Amazon is.

Ash · Post by **Ash** » Sat November 13th, 2010, 5:41 pm

Actually, I stopped going to the list because I couldn't keep up. I just scroll by those, but its been awhile - I guess they have overtaken the actual posts?

SonjaMarie · Post by **SonjaMarie** » Sat November 13th, 2010, 5:44 pm

Hi I've read your messages and I think I have something you'd be interested in.....

Good old fashioned humour!

Susan, may I ask what questions you ask to weed out people?

SM

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Sat November 13th, 2010, 5:53 pm

(She sent a couple of insulting e-mails to the webmaster address--way to go, honey! That will make me fire up the ol' Kindle and buy your book!)

Why some writers will never graduate from the self-published category ..... That kind of angry sense of entitlement gets in the way of being able to assess one's own writing clearly and work on improving it. And none of us write like geniuses the first time we set pen to paper, or fingers to computer.

michellemoran · Post by **michellemoran** » Sat November 13th, 2010, 6:13 pm

Why some writers will never graduate from the self-published category ..... That kind of angry sense of entitlement gets in the way of being able to assess one's own writing clearly and work on improving it.

Margaret, I could not agree more. Especially in this economy when publishers are having to take a very hard look at which authors they're keeping or taking on.

boswellbaxter · Post by **boswellbaxter** » Sat November 13th, 2010, 6:15 pm

[quote=""SonjaMarie""]Hi I've read your messages and I think I have something you'd be interested in.....

Good old fashioned humour!

Susan, may I ask what questions you ask to weed out people?

SM[/quote]

For people to complete registration, we ask very simple random questions about historical fiction--who wrote "Gone With the Wind," for example. Unfortunately, a few spambots still get through (it's still an automated process at that stage of registration), but they all get sent to moderation, where a human being (me) Googles the e-mail and user ID to see if they show up on the Stop Forum Spam site or otherwise appear to be associated with spamming. At that point we either delete the user or approve him or her. We've been able to keep out most of the spammers that way. (By spammers I mean the get-rich-quick or Viagra folks whose products have nothing to do with historical fiction--we don't delete authors at that stage unless they're notorious on the web for spamming.)