Harper Collins Publishers today published a statement on its authonomy book-review website concerning Vineet Bhalla ('Klazart') and the great voting debacle.
"48 hours ago none of us had heard of Starcraft. That was before Klazart posted his book on the site and started to invite support from the Starcraft community. His efforts were spectacularly successful and he has reaped the rewards of these newcomers’ support. We do not consider his actions to be breaching any site rules and his book will not be removed by us."
The statement goes on to say:
"We are willing to admit that the recent events have shown up real flaws in the algorithm behind the talent-spotter ranking. Some excellent suggestions have already been made and we’ll be considering these."
A number of writers have already left the site - a vast number have stayed but are grumbling away on the forums.
Meanwhile, the book's number 6 on authonomy with over 1200 votes. Some 2,000 new users joined the site over the weekend and have yet to vote for anything.
Is this most controversial of books any good? Will it get anywhere? See for yourself: it's here. What do YOU think?
4 comments:
Ram only needs to have a massive clock blasting a defeaneing 12 midnight beats in his head (or between his ears) to be exactly like Edgar Freemantle of Stephen King’s Duma Key. Also an amputee whose missing arm is always itchy. The description is very similar, I wouldn’t be surprised if Klazart’s was ‘inspired’ by Duma Key.
As for the rest of the book...well...didn't feel intrigued enough to keep reading. Sorry to everyone whose literary future my opinion is going to destroy.
Dubai - interesting you say that... I have never read anything by Stephen King (just don't like horror), but maybe I will now check out Duma Key
Many people wish they could have the support he does. However, I still think that no one should back a book without reading it because this does nothing to help the author.
I started the book yesterday, but was in a rush. I'll have to go back and read when I have some more time to really make up my mind about its merits.
I read two chapters and I enjoyed it. It was no worse than books I had read that had previously got to the editor's desk (my opinion obviously for what that's worth) and better than quite a few of them.
I have no problem at all with the way he got to the top. He did exactly the same as previous autho grafters - he just did his grafting on other platforms and then brought them to authonomy in one go.
authonomy is part of the whole internet not a fortress.
I have stopped 'playing' the authonomy game and taken my work off the site. My novel is now on its own blog and my poetry is still in its original home at poetry4fun.blog.co.uk . This way if people read and make comments (hopefully they will) they will have no axe to grind and I can take them at face value.
Maybe I'll go back when I have 3,000 followers - but probably not LOL
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