An Author’s Meltdown

Jacqueline Howett

Who likes to be criticized, no one, but this is truly one for the books. (No pun intended)

Novelist Jacqueline Howett wrote a book called “The Greek Seaman”, and BigAl’s Books and Pal’s gave it a little review.  BigAl said some very kind things about the book, such as “If you read The Greek Seaman from the start until you click next page for the last time I think you’ll find the story compelling and interesting.” and “At times, you’ll be engrossed in the story when you’ll run across a flowery description of the emotions Katy is feeling about her situation or her husband.”

Thing is, Ms. Howett is not impressed with the review, as BigAl took exception to the grammatical, typos and grammar issues, such as “Don and Katy watched hypnotically Gino place more coffees out at another table with supreme balance.” and “”She carried her stocky build carefully back down the stairs.” My first thought is, I get what is being said, but WTF?

This innocent little blog review was blasted by Ms. Howett in the form of comments saying that BigAl should of reviewed the second copy of the book, which brings up the question, why was the first copy released in the first place with apparent errors.  My understanding of reviews, is that finished products are generally supplied to the reviewers, or if a product isn’t fully completed, the company advises the reviewer of this, and the reviewer is obligated to say that they are reviewing an unfinished product.  I’m not just talking books, but electronics as well, heck, RIM has been showing off the PlayBook in an unfinished stated since August of last year, and every single review on it has stated that it’s the unfinished product.  (Books and electronics…ahhhhhh……sorry drifted off for a second.)

Ms. Hewitt starts off her displeasure with BigAl by posting reviews from other sites, such as Amazon, BigAl responding to her displeasure, and Ms. Hewitt proclaiming her book is great and demanding BigAl to remove the review from his blog.

BigAl is big enough to even state to Ms. Howett “I would encourage anyone who thinks the story sounds interesting to sample the book. Read the first few chapters and decide for yourself.”, with Ms. Hewitt finally getting fed up by the whole thing, and posting “Fuck Off!” a couple of times.

Now that is grammar I understand.

To read the review and all the glorious conversation goto BigAl’s Books and Pal’s here.

Related Articles

• What Not To Do If You’re An Author (presurfer.blogspot.com)
• Self-Published Author Can’t Handle A Bad Review (blogs.forbes.com)
• How not to handle bad reviews (guardian.co.uk)