Mary J Blige, Thanks for that. Tell your mother that if she writes a review of my book, it will make my day. For the record, most of the experiences I have regarding my books are positive. So, it's not all bad reviews and people Facebook flaming me and saying they want to kill me. I didn't want to leave that impression. But every once in awhile I like to share with the ex-JW community the craziness I occasionally experience because I think you all will understand it the best and will usually have words of reassurance that I need too. This is so I don't regret publishing my story to the entire world.
Brock Talon
JoinedPosts by Brock Talon
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36
Today I got a review that left me scratching my head - what do you make of it?
by Brock Talon inas a published author on amazon, i'm used to getting negative reviews from time to time.
it goes with the territory and i'm ok with it.
writing is an art form, so no art is liked by everyone.
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36
Today I got a review that left me scratching my head - what do you make of it?
by Brock Talon inas a published author on amazon, i'm used to getting negative reviews from time to time.
it goes with the territory and i'm ok with it.
writing is an art form, so no art is liked by everyone.
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Brock Talon
OnTheWayOut, That was an interesting way of handling things. I suppose we each have our own way as an author. I personally try to resist the urge to comment on my book reviews at all, but I wouldn't say it was wrong to do it. I've just read in a number of places where responding to reviews, especially negative ones, can backfire on an author. By the way, three other people have already answered that review with their own comments and the reviewer didn't respond back to those people, so I doubt my responding would have served any useful purpose.
runForver, Yes. Totally. This person cannot say they were not warned.
tiki, Well, it was worth my time reading it, but probably not yours.
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36
Today I got a review that left me scratching my head - what do you make of it?
by Brock Talon inas a published author on amazon, i'm used to getting negative reviews from time to time.
it goes with the territory and i'm ok with it.
writing is an art form, so no art is liked by everyone.
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Brock Talon
OnTheWayOut, well, that's an idea, but I don't like to respond to reviews on Amazon. It's generally considered a bad idea by most authors. (Conventional wisdom holds that we are supposed to be above such things... so I don't break rank from that.)
Fortunately I have this forum and Facebook to do the occasional venting about the trials and tribulations of being an ex-JW book author. For example - I found that same extreme review in English this time on another book site. Boy, this woman really must hate me to post it twice under two different names...
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36
Today I got a review that left me scratching my head - what do you make of it?
by Brock Talon inas a published author on amazon, i'm used to getting negative reviews from time to time.
it goes with the territory and i'm ok with it.
writing is an art form, so no art is liked by everyone.
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Brock Talon
TD, True, dat. I was one of those people myself at one time, so I'll give this poor woman a pass.
Steve2, I really appreciate the thought. I think leaving the review up with, along with the comments some folks are making on it on Amazon is a better (**ahem**) "witness" than anything else I could do. And as I've stated before, these kinds of 1 star bash reviews seem to make the book sell better for some odd reason, so it doesn't really hurt anything in the long run.
I'm also tickled whenever anyone mentions my work in any context along side Ray Franz... a man whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.
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36
Today I got a review that left me scratching my head - what do you make of it?
by Brock Talon inas a published author on amazon, i'm used to getting negative reviews from time to time.
it goes with the territory and i'm ok with it.
writing is an art form, so no art is liked by everyone.
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Brock Talon
Scully, yeah. I thought all those things myself.
Kairos, ha!
Simon, My thoughts on that as well. It's like I said at the end of Journey to God's House:
Neither do they really love. Not others. Not even each other. Their so-called love is based on merit only. If you do what they like, they'll put up with you. If not, they'll drop you without hesitation and not feel a thing about it. I'm sorry to say it, but this kind of behavior is simply not love.
When I was a Witness, I was just like them too. But, I couldn't see that what I was doing was wrong. As a rule, Jehovah's Witnesses simply can't see this about themselves in the same way a person with bad body odor usually can't smell themselves.
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36
Today I got a review that left me scratching my head - what do you make of it?
by Brock Talon inas a published author on amazon, i'm used to getting negative reviews from time to time.
it goes with the territory and i'm ok with it.
writing is an art form, so no art is liked by everyone.
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Brock Talon
Sir82, I agree totally.
ToesUp, Yes, they just can't see the conditional relationship... usually until it's too late!
Regarding not taking the review by Beth personally, I don't.
But, what about this review I found on an Italian website (through Google Alerts). Would you take this one personally if you were me? Somebody translated my book Escape from Paradise into Italian and this person called "TheSurvivalMama" wrote this review about it (named in Italian "Fuga Dal Paradiso").
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36
Today I got a review that left me scratching my head - what do you make of it?
by Brock Talon inas a published author on amazon, i'm used to getting negative reviews from time to time.
it goes with the territory and i'm ok with it.
writing is an art form, so no art is liked by everyone.
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Brock Talon
Xanthippe, You're so right. It IS ironic that she doesn't have to be perfect to be a JW, yet still doesn't feel she is good enough to be one. I thought Christianity was about accepting the undeserved grace of God and just believing in a savior, not waiting to be "good enough" to accept said savior to be baptized. What good is an all loving, all accepting savior if you have to jump through hoops to get saved from your own weaknesses so much that you can't make up your mind after 5 years? This works-based faith the JWs espouse really gets my goat.
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I'm writing a novel!
by punkofnice ini'm up to about 30k words at the moment and still going strong.. i don't expect it'll ever get off the ground.....at least i'm going to try though.. i'm thinking of 6 months time and looking at the route of self publishing.
yes, i want to be a publisher.. it's very violent in places, has violent sexual scenes and very strong language.. it's everything the watchtower(r) said i should avoid.....i wonder if my authentic self has exploded into freedom?.
if you want more info or wish to read a snippet let me know.. i can't think of a title and have changed it several times, at the moment it's called 'boomshot.
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Brock Talon
Good for you Paul! Nice reviews too. I hope you sell a million. -
36
Today I got a review that left me scratching my head - what do you make of it?
by Brock Talon inas a published author on amazon, i'm used to getting negative reviews from time to time.
it goes with the territory and i'm ok with it.
writing is an art form, so no art is liked by everyone.
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Brock Talon
notsurewheretogo, You know, it's interesting that Amazon doesn't have an actual policy you have to have read a book to review it. I hate it when I read someone's review of Crisis of Conscience or some other great book and they start out with "well, I haven't read this book, but...." and then go on a rant against it based on what they think is in the book. This is like posting a movie review on Rotten Tomatoes from watching a few commercials and hearing your workmates talk about a movie at the water cooler. Anyway, I wish Beth would post here too...
Doofdaddy, yup. But it's taking it to another level to go public with this. That's the disturbing part. She felt the need to post her self loathing and angst as a review.
ToesUp, yes, exactly. The interesting thing here is she is getting the love bombing, but for 5 years now. Isn't that a bit long to be studying without committing? How long can the JWs keep this up? She's obviously not "in" enough to know what the religion is really like, but not "out" enough to see it clearly either.
Username, thank you very much for the compliment. I'm so glad my books entertained you. I hope they made your day a bit better and strengthened your resolve that leaving the Watch Tower was the right move.
In the light of what Username said about prospective purchasers, I want to tell you all an interesting phenomenon about the occasional bad review for an otherwise well reviewed book: they can actually increase sales. I noticed this with Journey to God's House a few years ago when I first published. When absolutely everyone was giving it good reviews the sales figures were OK, but after somebody posted a 1 star review blasting the book (which I admit kind of hurt my feelings) I noticed it spike to #1 in the genre and stay there! Then, after awhile and many more good reviews, it went back to OK and then another bad review and it spiked again. Weird. After publishing Escape from Paradise, I was especially watchful about this because it got only good reviews at first, but once the first bad one hit, the sales spiked for it too. So, I want everyone to know that I really don't care about the 1 star bad slam reviews like that. They don't hurt the book at all... maybe they help it. (Although I suppose any book that got only bad reviews wouldn't survive...) I brought this up because it really hurt me to see a person who the book could help the most, a person studying with Witnesses who should get a more rounded exposure to the real truth, just pan the book with a blind obedience to a horrible religion, at the same time saying it isn't a cult, with the goal to indoctrinate her child in the same way! To me, this is frightening and sad.
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36
Today I got a review that left me scratching my head - what do you make of it?
by Brock Talon inas a published author on amazon, i'm used to getting negative reviews from time to time.
it goes with the territory and i'm ok with it.
writing is an art form, so no art is liked by everyone.
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Brock Talon
JeffT, thanks and I PM'd you back.
Disposable Hero, Yes. I was thinking that myself. I don't like to respond to reviews on Amazon, but I wanted to be able to point her here so that others can respond to her in order to break her from the propaganda spell. She is actually aware that some consider her potential religion a cult, but is STILL GOING FOR IT! And... making sure her daughter will be taught it. Terrifying.
punkofnice, thanks for the offer. I'll think about it. The thing is, my books have been out for years now and I don't think one review is going to change anything for them one way or the other. I actually don't care about the review itself that much, it's more of the fact that this is the type of person I wanted to help with my books. It was so obvious to me she didn't read it or she wouldn't have said the things she said. I am frustrated that she is going to ruin her life and that of her child with the key to remedy that right in front of her.
TheRebel, Ha!
KateWild, Exactly! How can we help her? Aaaaargh!
