14 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Zsuzsa
Zsuzsa
1 year ago

It happens because people don’t bother to look at their “completed” covers.

Seriously, a pair of functioning eyes would eliminate about half the covers on this site. (Admittedly, the other half cause people to WANT to burn their eyes out with acid, so maybe there’s a correlation there.)

War Goat
War Goat
1 year ago
Reply to  Zsuzsa

Self-publishing is also seen by some people as a money-for-nothing (and your chicks for free) operation. All you have to do is put your book on Amazon and wait to become the next J. K. Rowling success story.

Hitch
1 year ago
Reply to  War Goat

Seriously, how can you NOT look at your own sales page? How…cavalier is that? I don’t care if it’s money for nuthin’ and your chicks for free…you’d think that somebody would STILL look.

It’s truly gobsmacking that they don’t.

Axel Grease
Axel Grease
1 year ago

NO DIGNITY

Blue
Blue
1 year ago

It’s not an Amazing Adventure, it’s a Bizarre Adventure D:

Hitch
1 year ago
Reply to  Blue

No, but it’s an Amazing SUMTHIN’, that’s fersure.

Marc
Marc
1 year ago

Can you believe the inside of “book” is as bad as the outside?

Syd
Syd
1 year ago
Reply to  Marc

I do believe, I DO!

Hitch
1 year ago
Reply to  Syd

It’s very…self-exploratory, let’s say that. I don’t think he really expects anyone other than family to buy it.

Marc
Marc
1 year ago
Reply to  Hitch

It’s extra cringy because the author has been on Reddit talking about buying Amazon ads for his books. No awareness of quality. There’s only one winner in this situation: Amazon.

Zsuzsa
Zsuzsa
1 year ago
Reply to  Marc

But apparently we “have to forgive [him] for this” because he “wrote the first draft when [he] was but Eighteen [sic] and still living with [his] mum.”

(Every now and then I offer up a prayer thanking God that Amazon didn’t exist when I was eighteen and that nothing I wrote back then will ever see the light of day.)

Hitch
1 year ago
Reply to  Zsuzsa

Yes, I’m with you on that. I too would have lacked the self-awareness, at 18, to have NOT published my drivellicious ramblings. It’s embarrassing enough that I sent out manuscripts in my early 20’s to publishers and agents. Thank God, most of those folks are now dead. The thought of a book being available for eternity…cringe.

I see this all the time on the KDP forums, too–people with horribly-done books, talking about advertising them. It’s…soul-crushing. Do you LET them spend money that they’ll never get back? Do you tell them that the books aren’t ready?

98x out of 100, when you do the latter, they become infuriated and lash out. That never seems to work. I’ve tried to encourage people to just NOT REPLY, so that we’re not “guilty” either way–encouraging someone to spend money that they likely can’t afford and will never get back–or pissing on someone’s dreams by telling them how horrible their book is. (sigh).

It’s really problematic, if you have any care about doing “the right thing.”

EricL
EricL
1 year ago

How much adventure can a flower have? “He arose from his flowerbed to realize that the sun was already out. It was a good day to photosynthesize.”

Hitch
1 year ago
Reply to  EricL

There’s a fun little fantasy/alternate-reality series, in which Doc Holliday has lived for hundreds of years, resides in a section of the world that has “monsters” (fae, etc.) an all that and his roommate is a plant. A plant that was cursed–used to be a man. He sadly doesn’t get much adventure, either (the plant. Doc gets plenty!).