If you are tired of badly behaving authors, join our crew.

No, this isn't some call to action to start bullying authors. We don't do that, despite what one person in particular may think. Here at the crew we love authors. We love their books. We love reading them. We love reviewing them. We love promoting them. We love recommending them.

If you love reading but don't want to deal with the hassle of badly behaving authors, join our crew. Let me and DeeJay deal with any problems that come up. Will they come up?

That's tough to say. I've dealt with a few idiots in the past two years, but thankfully that number is really low. I can probably count them on one hand. Most authors are very nice people to work with. Several reviewed authors have come back for some extra promotion. 

We're known for our critical reviews

What makes our success as a crew even more astounding is that we are known for our critical reviews. We don't give out 5 star reviews like candy. We also don't come out with a lot of 1 or 2 star reviews either, though we don't discourage them if it's necessary. 4 stars are the most common, but there are a lot of 3 stars as well.

We don't sugarcoat reviews. If there's something about a book we don't like, we say so. We describe our rating when we write a negative review. Well, we describe any rating, but especially our negative ones.

Because of our reviews and the reputation we've created (not on purpose, by the way), I'm surprised that we don't get the following reaction more often.

But if and when we do, you don't have to be the one to deal with it. And if an author tried to circumvent the hierarchy and go straight to the reviewer to complain unnecessarily, don't be surprised if we unleashed the power of this blog on them.

That's a warning, not a threat.

But isn't that gagging authors?

I didn't say that we wouldn't allow necessary complaints. If there's something wrong with a review, the author can let us know. If we concur, we'll fix it. If we don't agree with the author, we may discuss it and/or eventually tell them to get lost.

We encourage authors to thank the reviewer. This is common courtesy, though we won't come after you if you decide to skip that courtesy. We understand.

We also encourage respectful discussion. No need to gag yourself, authors, unless your goal is to go after an honest review. That defeats the purpose of asking for honest reviews in the first place.

We don't insult authors

Speaking of which, we don't allow our reviewers to insult authors. I personally read all negative reviews (1 and 2 stars). Semi-recently there was a statement in a negative review that neither I or DeeJay thought was appropriate.

The reviewer had to correct the error before the review was approved for publication on this blog.

Would you like to join?

If all the above sounds kosher, join our review crew here.

If something doesn't sound right, ask us about it. We don't bite, not really. We only snap back if you snap first. And then only if you really deserve it.