Wrapping up the Year

This has been a unique year with different freelance opportunities. Some were good, and some were terrible. Honestly though, at least one of the terrible ones has given me fuel to make 2018 amazing and have the last laugh. Does that make me a terrible person? If so, eh. Who cares? 🙂

I’ve learned a lot about the freelancing world and how little respect can be garnered for writers. Random people on Amazon may not mind spending their free time to plagiarize reviews. One freelance company might do a rewrite instead of an edit. Another company might be so unprofessional that I suspect they actually posted their own positive review on Glassdoor because too many people griped about the company on the review site. Again, it might make me a terrible person, but I like seeing that Amazon was kind enough to remove those plagiarized reviews and that those two companies have since been searching for employees, as if they’re running low on writers because of their unprofessional and horrible tendencies. It does me good to know that even a little bit of justice happens in that way.

But what I’ve learned, overall, is that if you find a company that works for you through freelancing, hang on to that company with both hands because finding one that treats contractors with respect and courtesy is hard to come by. I wish I’d known how hard it was earlier so I could have given other opportunities a more thorough chance. I just didn’t know that so many companies would treat writers who create posts for their sites with such little dignity and so much disregard. People read what writers write, after all. That’s kind of important when your site is wanting readers.

I’m going to keep my eye out for companies to freelance with, but I’m going to keep my options open. I plan to enter into each possibility knowing it could fall to pieces so I don’t entrust too much of myself into it, and if it doesn’t, I plan to promote that company as much as I can for being such a rare gem.

Beyond that, I plan to try to carve myself a personal corner next year by starting a business by the end of the year, one that will be based on Etsy. I plan to craft quilts, dream catchers, and candles to start, with room to expand into other fields as well. I’ve already gotten my new sewing machine for the endeavor, and I’m very interested in diving into this opportunity throughout the new year. I’m even thinking of selling fresh fruits and vegetables, but we’ll see how this develops.

I’m going to try and make a point of keeping this blog more current with news about that store as well as possible future writing possibilities, but this post is just kind of touching base to let readers know 2017 will be different than 2018. I’m tired of pouring myself into projects for ingrates and jerks, so I’m going to focus on the opportunities that make me happy and can lead into creativity that can pay the bills. I guess, in essence, that’s the plan for 2018. I want to start on my way to business success in a new way, and I want to be happy. There’s no room for companies that make me miserable in that equation, and I need to just laugh off the immaturity of these previous opportunities and keep going. I mean, honestly. Posting a positive review of your own company in defense? When did you see Wal-Mart do that? So sad…

Anyway, the plan is for a new book to be out by Christmas of next year and for Hazel Rose Hollow (my Etsy shop) to be up and running by then as well. Cross your fingers with me that things go well!

Call to Amazon Action

Ordinarily, you might see an author asking you to leave a review. This time, I’m asking you to report a review on my Amazon account. Please know that I wouldn’t do this if the reviewer just didn’t like my book since everyone is entitled to their opinion on each of my stories. And at the end of the day, if The Hunger Games can get a 1-star review, what book is safe, you know?

This situation, however, is different, and I hope you’ll see that by the end of this post.

You see, I wrote this so-cute-you-could-die love story of a couple of teenagers—Lila’s a dancer, and Austin’s a football player—falling in love. Today, I noticed that my average rating for that book, Jivin’ Tango, had gone down, so I assumed there was a bad rating. There was—1-star. Imagine my surprise though when I started reading the review that talked about dragons and Mohammed, labeling my work “hate speech.” I assure you that there are no mentions of Mohammed or lightning-resistance dragons in the book, so I was shocked.

Knowing you aren’t supposed to engage with a bad review, I still left a comment on this one. Why? Because this isn’t even about my book, and I think people who might be influenced by that review need to know that. The review was just too wild to let it stand and influence without confronting it.

Since, I’ve labeled that review as unhelpful and reported it as abuse, and I encourage you to do the same. Even if you aren’t familiar with the book, I can still prove to you that something is iffy about this review. For instance, parts of it are word-for-word what appear in the “Problems” and “Lesson” sections of the #2 addition on this list. Pardon any kind of vulgar language that’s on this page, but it’s the best evidence I can offer that something is askew.

The idea that people could be this vindictive (and perhaps have too much time on their hands) is so bizarre to me, but it isn’t like I actually am the author of The Hunger Games here. I don’t have a big enough fan base to rally for support so they can point out the review isn’t valid. What happens then is that this stands as ¼ of my reviews with only my comment and evidence saying that it’s different.

If you were just a reader browsing and saw that, would you buy the book?

If you were Amazon and you became convinced that the review was valid, would you un-publish the book?

If you were an employer browsing my Amazon link from my resume, would you hire me?

This is a big deal, no matter how much random vultures like this seem to believe. I’m asking you to please, please, please help me get this review down. Clearly, it’s plagiarized, and it in no way represents my book. I want to put this horrible chapter behind me, and I’m begging you to help me.

Please label it as unhelpful. Please report it as abuse. Please leave a comment stating that the review isn’t valid. Help me let people know it’s wrong, and help me get it taken down.

 

Thank you,

Connie L. Smith