If anyone is interested.
I got a message from a friend on Goodreads. I think he has a good idea, but my time will soon be strapped with classes starting, work, and kids. I mentioned Booklikes to him, he is going to check it out. I really enjoy his posts and reviews, they are spot on, and he holds no punches.
Diamonds From Dross
I'm looking for readers and authors with broad interests. I would like to tap into those interests with a budding idea I have for a new type of review group. My goal is to find a way of isolating self-published diamonds from dross.
After four years of participating in round-robin 'non-reciprocal' review groups at several websites, I find myself increasingly disappointed in these groups, which more often than not devolve into a kind of mutual admiration society, a club for indie authors that results in high star ratings for unedited, poorly-written works most readers would justifiably reject. These groups, in my opinion, usually serve only to perpetuate the divide between traditionally published novels of high quality and self-published stories that, due to their abysmally low quality, should never have been released.
High ratings for low quality works are dishonest to everyone. They are especially unfair to readers, who are led to a book with high star rating, only to discover boring characters, an amateurish plot, and grade-school errors in grammar, usage, punctuation, and spelling on every page. As a writer, I find this situation personally insulting. I take the time and spend the money to have my works professionally edited. I don't feel my expectation that a novel rise to certain minimum standards is too much to ask. Really, I feel, such an expectation should be applied to any published work.
The Idea
My idea is to create a group, perhaps something like 'Reviews For Readers' or 'Diamonds from Dross', in which books are pre-screened. To reduce the number of applicants, the group would make clear the fact that reviews will be brutally honest. A pre-screened novel full of childish errors would be exposed in a scathing one-star (or two-star) review. Only novels demonstrating minimum competence in written English and storytelling would advance to Stage Two: a full review. Readers could jump in at this point, but the bulk of these reviews would be handled by authors who have already proved their mettle. The proven authors would be incentivized by obtaining reviews of their works from other newbies, not the reviewed author, so that there is no conflict of interest. There would be no reciprocal reviews. This would encourage the newbies to bring other authors to the group. In short order, probably less than a year, the group would become relatively large, and would be churning out honest reviews that more and more readers would find useful. Thanks to the pre-screening idea, this new group for truly honest reviews would become a real asset to the organization hosting the group.
I envision a three-step process for this, so that middling (3-star) novels might receive only one review but 4- and 5-star novels (as determined in Stage Two) would go to a mixed group of readers and writers for a second review. This might even be extended to four levels, so that the 'best of the best' might receive four or five reviews from our little group, thus fulfilling my goal of identifying the diamonds among the dross. What a service for readers! And truly, what a service for excellent self-published authors who would otherwise remain lost in the indie rubbish pile.
If you like this idea, please get back to me. Forward this message to any friends you believe might like to join such a group. If you're interested, let's brainstorm.
All the best,
Pearson Moore
Contact me through my Goodreads page or via Facebook.
His Goodreads page:
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