Rarity from the Hollow Won an Award!

[robert eggleton]

Thanks everybody for your support, and I feel neglectful. It's just so hard to come home exhausted and then try to promote my first novel with author proceeds going to prevent child abuse. Some forums make me feel guilty about promoting my own novel as if I'm making money or fame. Hell, I'm an old guy with distant memories. You'll be there.

Anyway, the novel won.

Please see: http://myshelf.com/backtoliterature/column.htm

Thanks again.

Robert Eggleton

[BenL]

Wow, Robert, congratulations! :applause:

Promote away, brother. I'm jealous as all get out. I've always wanted to write a book. I believe I have one in me.

Thanks for letting us know.

BenL

[robert eggleton]

Man, I might have really screwed up. You know that I wrote a novel that has received great reviews, and that author proceeds are donated to prevent child abuse. Well, anyway, I went to this newsgroup to tell them about my novel winning a 2006 ebook competition. The people there started an argument about whether I had the right to tell them about my novel -- they called my post spam. The argument lasted a long time.

Apparently emotions got charged -- not mine, as I was having fun and thought it was all a philosophical debate about what is or isn't spam -- and then some of the newsgroup members who have never read by novel posted insults about me and it on the Mobipocket site. They followed the directions for posting reader book reviews, but instead called me names and pretended that they had read the novel. I could tell that they hadn't because none of the posts included any info except from blurbs that authors had written or the reviews. It has caused a five star rating to drop to three already. I hope they stop.

The insults can be found at:

www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/BookDetails.asp?BookID=30929

The newsgroup is:

groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/browse_thread/thread/66691cbc48c52b33/17e4535e57ea3554?lnk=raot - 194k -

This could definitely hurt sales. I feel especially bad about my mistake on behalf of the abused kids I work with in my treatment program. Following is an excerpt of my last post which must have really gotten them the most ticked off:

Thanks everybody. This has been great fun! There were a lot of posts, and many of them were very comical: LOL (I can't believe that I actually know what that means!) several times.

Until the next achievement, such as a new publication or book review, I'll leave you with a question and an admonishment. As you know, I have lots of work to do -- too much to spend any more time here until I have something additional to announce. I sincerely hope that you enjoyed your vents, etc. I wish you all a Happy New Year and good luck with your projects. I'll visit again soon.

Question: Why do you think consumers give a crap about how they heard about a good or bad product? Customer satisfaction is the "proof of the pudding." Nobody much cares if interactive sites raise advertising dollars, or if professional peers think that self-promotion is bad manners, such as mentioning a product in the body of a message rather than the sig line.

Consumers get pissed if they get ripped off, and love it when they find something great, especially if it was not promoted by "big business." Poor products are commonplace, and mostly associated with traditional advertisers. Everyone has gone to a movie, or bought a book, or a medicine that dissatisfied. While true spam contributes to such common occurrences, it is a minor player in the scheme of things. Further, consumers are becoming increasingly wiser and discriminatory when considering all advertising, not just on the internet.

I have been accused of obsession – it’s admitted because I'm raising money to prevent child abuse -- a great cause. If one objectively reviews the posts above, however, the actual obsession has been a nonsensical application of an erroneously applied term -- spam -- to author self promotion, and at the expense of consumers, authors, and you. The evil that you have so vehemently objected to was not me, or the hundreds of aspiring like me, but, a fictional concept endorsed and promoted by the business community to maximize profits off cyberspace sales.

Admonishment: This is especially to Bill Snyder, but not exclusively because others who have not read it have made derogatory comments about my novel. To post comments on the Mobipocket site that advises people not to buy my novel because it was promoted by "spam" was very bad form. The comment section was for reviews by readers.

If one considers manners on the internet, such an action far exceeds any lack of protocol that I've ever considered, much less done. How much off topic could one get? The singular issue for a reader review was (is) whether one liked or didn't the actual novel, not how it was promoted or whether the author was nice or not.

Further, to consider that the poster(s) may have harmed sales of my novel with author proceeds donated to prevent child abuse --well, it's your karma. I don't mind if someone who read my novel posts that he or she thinks that it sucks -- such would be appropriate, but it would be surprising considering the overwhelming positive reception by people who have actually read it.

Robert Eggleton
"Rarity from the Hollow"

[robert eggleton]

Last week, a little girl in one of the group therapy sessions I facilitate told her peers that she was strong enough to testify about the awful things that her daddy had done to her. She's less than four feet tall and skinny.

It made me feel so guilty about deciding to quit my project that I'm going to find some type of solution. I don't think that arguing with people about what is or is not "spam" is a good idea, at least not from my self-promotion angle. I think that it's best as a debate strictly among consumers and I've got something that I can't help but promote and come off too strong.

I've already given the people who called me a liar the info to contact the agency to which author proceeds are donated for verification. I even gave them info on how to verify my own employment at my mental health center. It didn't help.

I gave them my email address hoping that they could verify that I had not posted reviews of my own novel in order to up the rating (an accusation). They responded that some of the reviews were from the same multi-state ISP even if not from the same address and posted a lie on the Mobipocket site.

I gave them the address for the five-year-old contest that named my novel as one of the best published in 2006. They said that it was not a contest, was inconsequential, but didn't put down any of the other books in various genres that were listed.

I'll figure out something. Thanks again.

Robert Eggleton
robert_t@charter.net