Inside the world of Rob Mclean, Author

Hey Folks, Good news, I'll have a new book out soon. Just finished the first draft. I'll keep the title a mystery (in part because I haven't locked it in 100 percent yet). If all goes well we're looking at late October or very early November. While The Fall of Man trilogy dealt with human nature, our current social and economic woes, and the ontology of existence, this new work delves more into the human response to living within a totalitarian society. Anyway, the first draft is complete and I have to say, I'm quite proud of the final product. I think folks are going to enjoy it. More news coming in the near future, Stay Tuned, Rob

So it looks like Amazon implemented a new policy with regards to product reviews. In order for someone to leave a review they must have spent $50 on Amazon since the creation of their Amazon account. All I can say is Hallelujah ! This move, assuming Amazon actually enforces it and it's not merely a toothless tiger, will go a long way to shutting down the fake review business. Obviously, it has drawbacks as some legitimate readers will not be able to leave reviews.  But as I said in a recent post , the review system is so broken that it was not only verging on being useless, but actually damaging Amazon's long-term viability as a business (which impacts everyone who sells on Amazon as well). The things I'll be interested to see now are: * Will the new filter apply retroactively?  It will be interesting to see if some books with say 50 reviews suddenly drop down to only having five. * Will it adversely affect new authors? A lot of new authors generate traction...

I've heard a lot about Amazon's review system having issues with fake reviews. Amazon has clearly acknowledged it is a problem and has gone so far as to sue vendors who pay for reviews . But I saw an example today that makes me think the system may be broken (pun intended, you'll see why) beyond all repair. A book was released which you can view here . Forgive me for not actually naming the book in this blog post as I don't want to generate free publicity for it by adding to its visibility in Google search returns. Anyway, it is crystal clear that the book is horrible. Readers feel ripped off and fume about how horrific the editing is. Now, one has to take bad reviews with the same grain of salt as good reviews - as any book can be maligned for no valid reason (perhaps someone has a personal conflict with the author in real life and decides to attack them through negative reviews).  Which while not the focus of this post, is another area Amazon falls short in - ...