This is a lousy 1 star review. If you agree, vote it down. Comment if you wish. I did.
No... Not the book.... the money-grubbing fake out.
I WAS going to buy this book... but my intel finds several reviews indicating this book ENDS IN A CLIFFHANGER.
We will all now take note the none of the raving 5 star reviews mention this little 'unfinished book' tidbit. Funny thing, no?
I know it's a good way to secure future book sales, but I believe it to be entirely unethical. I hardly want to give my money to authors with such craven tactics. Do you?You see, I have a big problem with any author who markets thier work as a 'book', when it is, in fact, unfinished, and moreover, they always intended to it be that way. Too bad for me, right?
Yes, many writers write 'series', but it is understood that each 'book has a beginning, middle and ENDING, complete unto itself.
That is not what this 'book' is. It has a beginning, middle ... and buy the next book to find out what happens next, friendos!
Again, I want to emphasize I don't have an issue with the 'serial' format. Many famous authors did this such as Dickens. The main difference being that Dickens didn't promise a book when he was only selling chapters.
MEANING: don't market a book as a book, when it doesn't have an ending. Amazon I am looking at you: the the customer has a right to be fully informed about the purchases.I feel like this whole page of 5 star reviews comes off as some cheap infomercial fraud. How an author wants any part of their reputation sullied by a shell game is beyond me. "The Truth in Lies" (not irony with heavy, heavy sarcasm) is not a book: it is a draft. No matter the promise of professional editing, the shill remains the same.
The worst part of this review is that the person did not purchase the book. He/she wasn't complaining about what they found when they read the book.
No, the book was not read. And that's the greatest book reviewing sin on the planet. Authors are chastised for purchasing reviews (legit or not), so I don't think reviewers like this should get away with it.
The reviewer talks about an incomplete book being unethical because the author is trying to secure future sales. I get it. He/she's pissed. They don't want to have to purchase multiple books.
All I've got to say is don't start Fellowship of the Ring. It doesn't end well.
If the book had been super short, I might have agreed with the reviewer...to an extent. But the book is over 300 pages. 300 pages for 3 dollars is not a bad deal. Actually a pretty good deal.
And the subtitle of the book (on the Amazon listing, not the cover) uses the word saga. Whether the author is using that correctly or not is beside the point. What matters is that there will be more books coming, my guess not just one sequel.
Does the reviewer expect the author to write an entire saga and not sell the individual parts?
Is he/she expecting to pay $3 for 300,000 words?
In any case, if this reviewer were to listen to my opinion (which is highly doubtful), I would say leave cliffhanger books alone and only buy/read books that are advertised as standalone.
And even if the book in question doesn't have a proper ending for a book in a series, cutting the story off in the worst possible way, writing a one star review when he/she has not read it is not the way to tackle the problem.
Don't review a book you haven't read. And don't give a book one star simply because it has a cliffhanger. Many of us like the cliffhanger ... because we know more is coming, and we're excited about it.
What do you think?
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