As some of you may be aware I have written some children’s books, a book of plays, a play about the first RAF death in WW2 in a friendly fire incident and my latest, The Case of the Grease Monkey’s Uncle, a book set in the forties for folk who enjoy reading about that period in time.

Unfortunately, I have received some awful and, in some cases, beastly and personal reviews and every time I report them as abuse another one turns up which leaves me unable to ever sell another book as the first thing you see on the page is the negative reviews, so to this end I have written my own review in an attempt to put right some of the points made in the criticisms. It is not about the money as you will see in the article as the pittance I receive from Amazon should I sell a book is never going to buy a decent round in the pub let alone make me a fortune even if it were to become a best seller.

The problem, of course is that no-one ever bothers leaving a good review and I know I am guilty of this myself whereas people are all too ready to leave a negative one and I had become so fed up with seeing these untruths in the reviews every time I clicked on the page that I got to the point where I don’t care if I ever sell another copy so I have sent the following review of my own, we wait to see if it turns up on the page!

A TRUTHFUL AMAZON REVIEW.

Having written this book in the early part of the Covid lockdown as an amusing way to occupy myself and to produce a book of interest to lovers of the forties, I now find myself lucky enough to be in the same category as some of the authors who are in the Times best sellers list, in that I too have now acquired some fairly beastly reviews of my book which is rather a shame as some of the criticisms are completely untrue.

The first of these reviews appeared some time ago now and included some very personal remarks which were mostly a criticism of the sort of chap they had assumed I was rather than a review of the book. I reported the abuse to Amazon as you are able to have removed any remarks which are deemed to be of a personal nature and I was delighted when these rather unkind remarks were removed, however no sooner had they been removed than another one appeared as if by magic.

I have to admit that I found some of these comments of great use as they pinpointed some misspellings and editorial mistakes which I promptly set about correcting and are no longer in the book. There is also a purely personal opinion of how this reviewer seems to think one of my characters should speak, I would merely point out that this character is a strong willed, confident nude dancer who works at the famous Windmill theatre and I believe the dialogue is more than suitable for her.

This reviewer also felt I should have invested in (a) a good proof reader, (b) a good editor, and (c) a creative writing course and added in a more personal comment, the recommendation that you should not but the book unless you want to contribute to my retirement fund. Now the simple answer to all of these points is that I only earn 29p from the sale of each of the books that are sold which leaves precious little funds for a proof reader, editor, creative writing course nor sufficient funds for a decent fish supper let alone add substantially to my retirement fund.

One can open any of the reviews to see what other products they may have reviewed, this particular reviewer has commented favourably on three waffle products, Mars M&M Dark Mint Chocolate, a tasty tea product, some rather tasteless black stainless-steel cufflinks and a handy guide to spiders of Australia and my book The Case of the Grease Monkey’s Uncle.

I was rather upset with this review and as I felt that as I had corrected the mistakes which were pointed out to me it was unfair to have a review which was full of untruths about the contents of the book, together with remarks about my pension fund which were clearly untrue, however Amazon would not remove them as their algorithm’s did not find these remarks sufficiently abusive to be removed.

Yet again, no sooner had Amazon conducted their review, another rather critical review appeared but at least this one seemed to at least be giving me an element of doubt and yet again when checking the other items reviewed, I found quite a large eclectic group of products but only the one book which was mine, it was almost as if Amazon was putting these people up to it.

I tried again to have these reviews removed and the same pattern was repeated somewhat more positive in that it too suggested the book would have been better with an editor which I am more than happy to concede, however there was no mention as to where I might have gained the funds to employ such a person nor was there a donation to assist me in this regard.

It was never my intention to produce a great literary tome the like of which might be enjoyed by an analytical chemist, nor some great work heavier than War and Peace, or something to rival Shakespeare, all I wanted to write was a moderately amusing tale for lovers of the forties. Might I suggest should you consider giving this book a chance, that you read it and imagine it more as a film, it might then make a little more sense, I have to blame my previous employment as an actor for it being in this fashion and after all you can’t purchase five cigarettes for the price of the book and I can do absolutely nothing with the measly 29p that I receive.