Give Us a Hand, Luv

Thriller Guy has a lot of writer pals, and they write a lot of books. Some of you astute readers may have noticed, particularly those pals with books, that TG doesn’t review these books or recommend them. There’s a reason for that.

A careful read through the TG archives (a perfect activity for a rainy Sunday afternoon) will show that back in the beginning days of this blog, TG did review and recommend books. The response from TG’s friends and readers, 90% of the time, was very distressing for TG. TG reviews thrillers. Whenever he would put up a review of a thriller he thought particularly interesting (often not just because it was well written, but for other reasons) he would get emails and comments of this variety: “Allen, I read that book you thought was so great. I thought it was terrible. Really, did the hero have to kill all those people? Who wants to read torture scenes?” Etc. The problem being, most of TG’s friends were not thriller readers, and many who did think they were thriller aficionados really weren’t, having only read a few favorite mainstream thriller writers and certainly no military thrillers.

There seems to be a universal need in most people, who when told a thing is good, will then look for all the bad they can find in it. Sitting here in his basement lair, even though he is mere feet from the air conditioner blower, TG can hear the outrage cries from his blog readers who are all shouting, no, no, not me! I would never be as narrow-minded as that! I am always un-biased and fair.

No you’re not. And TG learned pretty quickly to quit recommending books, because all the feedback was about how the books sucked and TG was an idiot. TG certainly didn’t want his friend’s books subject to that sort of knee-jerk, uninformed criticism. So he quit making recommendations.

Now I’m going to make a recommendation. TG’s pal Larry, who is often mentioned in these blogs (TG’s last blog, see below, was a re-blog of one of his from his The Non-Fiction Novelist site) has put a novel he’s written on the Amazon Scout program. Essentially, writers put up books, with Amazon’s approval, on a site where readers can go, sample the books, and then vote if they think the book is worthy of publication. If the writer gets enough votes, and if Amazon agrees with the reader’s assessments, they then publish the book under one of their publishing imprints. Rather than me trying to explain it, you can go to Larry’ssite and read what the program is and why he’s decided to give it a try. 

 TG is always on the side of writers, and always interested in the brave new worlds of self and independent publishing, so he’s very curious how Larry’s foray into this particular publishing gambit is going to work.

Here’s what TG wants you to do. Go to the Amazon Scout page that features Larry's book. While you are there, nominate the book.

Quite frankly, TG does not give a shit if you read the excerpt, nor if you like thrillers, or what you think of what you read, if you read it. TG thinks the book should be published, Larry thinks the book should be published, so why not do everything we can to see that it gets published? This is good for writers and for readers alike. These sorts of programs will all help to break the stranglehold that Big Publishing has held on the world of books for the last 200 years. Larry will keep TG apprised of the progress of the endeavor and TG will pass along this information.

Think of it this way: someday you may write a book and want to see it published. Why shouldn’t all of us help you be a success?