Posts by slimboyfat

2910

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars (continued)

by Simon in

jw
friends

uh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.

slimboyfat

You are correct that there are some reasons to suspect that more buyers would have left reviews of his book than for other books. Even taking that into account 600 reviews is still a very high number of reviews and indicates a high number of sales.

Crisis of Conscience is the most high profile ex-JW book ever, people have also been highly motivated to praise and promote that book, it has been around much longer than LE’s book, and yet it only has 35% or so more reviews than LE’s book on Amazon. (Plus another factor, for people who know Amazon well, is that CofC has been around since the beginning of Amazon, when writing reviews was much more common than it is now. By 2017 purchasers were less inclined to leave book reviews than they were in the early days.)

Another factor is that LE’s reviews count has been artificially suppressed because he, or someone acting on his behalf, has succeeded in getting many negative reviews of his book removed from the site over the years. So the actual number of reviews left for his book is higher than the nearly 600 reviews that remain on the site.

He has many more reviews of his book than other near competitors - Eric Wilson has 65 reviews for example. Don Cameron’s book, which was very popular at one time, has 100 reviews. Neil Gardner, a more interesting YouTuber, and probably much better writer than LE has 84 reviews.

I doubt his sales are as low as 10,000 but I can’t prove you wrong. Even if that is the ballpark figure it’s still a phenomenally successful self-published book by any standard.

Again, I’m not arguing it’s a good book. The parts I’ve seen are crap and people who think it’s any good are dumb in my opinion. But the idea LE needs to take lessons on writing a book that sells is for the birds. If the argument is that it’s a crap book despite its success then I’m on board with that. But I don’t think he cares about that.

2910

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars (continued)

by Simon in

jw
friends

uh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.

slimboyfat

Jeff his sales have plummeted since the scandal broke. Before that his book was often number one in the JW category and it was hovering around 10,000 sales rank overall on .com and .co.uk. That implies a few sales on each site a day, multiplied by 5 years (2017 to 2022). That’s without even considering the hype and bump in sales at the beginning and preorders and so on.

Take a look at the number of reviews his book has got. You have sold 1,397 books (that’s pretty good by the way) can I ask how many reviews your books have got on Amazon? The point is that only a tiny percentage of buyers bother to leave a review on Amazon as you must know. LE’s book has nearly 600 reviews on Amazon. Do the math. The only ex-JW books that beat that (as far as I know) are Crisis of Conscience with over 800 reviews and Leaving the Witness by Amber Scorah with 900 reviews.

A very rough estimate of 20,000 copies sold is reasonable. It might be more; I’d be surprised if it was much fewer.

32

Will recent dress-code changes affect the WTS negatively?

by Wonderment in

in a span of a few months time, we have had many unexpected changes announced by the jw organization.

some here have expressed the belief that a great number of witnesses will leave the religion.

in fact, there is a great probability the opposite will be true.. yeah, ancient hardliners will have a hard time assimilating these changes, but the younger generation will likely welcome these changes.

slimboyfat

I am aware of the range of meanings of the word “college”.

The point is that in the UK “going to college” most often implies precisely not going to university but doing a short course at a small institution instead. (“Johnny didn’t make it into university, he’s doing a college course instead.”) So when Watchtower told young British JWs not to go college but that they could do short vocational training instead it sounded like they were saying they should eat apples but not eat fruit. The Watchtower made no effort to acknowledge the confusion this terminology could cause British JWs.

54

If the org. Is being advised by consultants, is a name change in the works?

by nowwhat? in

let's be honest, there's a stigma to the name jehovah's witness.

if they are going more mainstream.

i imagine the first recommendation was a name change.

slimboyfat

If they dropped the name Jehovah altogether I think it could actually be enough to cause some sort of split. Their hierarchical structure strongly inhibits the sectarian tendency to splinter but dropping God’s name might just be enough to do it.

But what could they come up with that still includes the name Jehovah?

Christian Witnesses of Jehovah? - Uses the word “Christian” which the NWT says was adopted by divine providence in Acts

Jehovah’s Christian Witnesses? - They’ve used that a couple of times in the past

Witnesses of Jah and Jesus? - Greg Stafford might have got there first

The Way of Jehovah? - Sounds even more culty

I don’t know. 🤔

54

If the org. Is being advised by consultants, is a name change in the works?

by nowwhat? in

let's be honest, there's a stigma to the name jehovah's witness.

if they are going more mainstream.

i imagine the first recommendation was a name change.

slimboyfat

Surely not. For crying out loud.

But I wouldn’t put it past them.

Perhaps the only thing likely to stop them is they lack the imagination and creativity to come up with a viable alternative.

2910

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars (continued)

by Simon in

jw
friends

uh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.

slimboyfat

Jeff you make many valid points, but at the end of the day he has sold tens of thousands of copies of his book. How many copies have you sold? So who is in a position to teach who, what here? Not trying to be mean, or a LE defender, but in terms of what he wanted to achieve - money and influence - his book was a roaring success. I’m not disputing it’s a rubbish book. I’m sure it’s complete crap. So are many of the bestsellers: Da Vinci Code, Fifty Shades, many self-help books, misery memoirs, pseudo-history and so on, fail to meet the standards of their genre yet generate huge incomes for authors who couldn’t care less if you, or any other expert, thinks a memoir should be under 400 pages.

32

Will recent dress-code changes affect the WTS negatively?

by Wonderment in

in a span of a few months time, we have had many unexpected changes announced by the jw organization.

some here have expressed the belief that a great number of witnesses will leave the religion.

in fact, there is a great probability the opposite will be true.. yeah, ancient hardliners will have a hard time assimilating these changes, but the younger generation will likely welcome these changes.

slimboyfat

What does its etymology matter? It means nothing to a British person. I’d literally never heard the word before. Maybe that’s just me? I guessed what it was from the context but did a google search to make sure.

Watchtower have highlighted once again that while they can translate their message into a thousand obscure languages, including creoles, for some reason accommodating British English is either not worth the bother or is beyond them.

Another nontrivial example is the fact that “college” was denounced for English speaking JWs on both sides of the Atlantic despite the term having a somewhat different meaning in the UK compared with the US. Little effort was made from the Watchtower, local elders were left to make sense and mop up the confusion locally.

32

Will recent dress-code changes affect the WTS negatively?

by Wonderment in

in a span of a few months time, we have had many unexpected changes announced by the jw organization.

some here have expressed the belief that a great number of witnesses will leave the religion.

in fact, there is a great probability the opposite will be true.. yeah, ancient hardliners will have a hard time assimilating these changes, but the younger generation will likely welcome these changes.

slimboyfat

The new rules allow for people who want to keep dressing the way they’ve always done. Many JWs will choose to do so. I don’t think it should be such a problem from that point of view.

32

Will recent dress-code changes affect the WTS negatively?

by Wonderment in

in a span of a few months time, we have had many unexpected changes announced by the jw organization.

some here have expressed the belief that a great number of witnesses will leave the religion.

in fact, there is a great probability the opposite will be true.. yeah, ancient hardliners will have a hard time assimilating these changes, but the younger generation will likely welcome these changes.

slimboyfat

I was at the meeting when they played the Sanderson video. I’d describe the mood as sombre as he outlined the new shunning rules and the new dress code. I don’t know what I expected the reaction to be but it did seem a bit eerie. And can I underline how odd it is to hear Sanderson repeatedly refer to “slacks” as if we in the UK are supposed to know what he’s talking about. Personally I’d never heard the word before this.

There were no sisters in the KH wearing trousers and all brothers still wore shirt and tie, so far.

2910

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars (continued)

by Simon in

jw
friends

uh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.

slimboyfat

I can’t stand his sanctimonious attitude in his writing as if he’s got everything figured out and he’ll tell you what’s what. This from somebody who treated his family like dirt. I don’t know how anyone can read a whole book of that stuff. 🤮