Fake Reviews

The mind boggles. Well, not really, it doesn't. A well known author (no I’m not giving links) writes fake reviews of his books and posts them on Amazon. He gets caught. Not to be undone, other authors (again, no links) hire a company to write fake reviews and post them all across the Internet. The New York Times reveals this. The fake reviews are no doubt still available. Still other authors get their friends to write reviews and post them. Most of the reviews gush about how wonderful the book is. In fact, I’ve read one these books recently and in two words, it was not good. And that’s being charitable.

A hotel hires a PR firm to file fake reviews on TripAdvisor (again, no links). Not to be undone, a hotel offers a free drink to any guest who posts a favorable review on TripAdvisor from the hotel. Surprise, surprise, the hotel has many 5 star reviews. None of them says how expensive and awful the food in the restaurant is. Or that the review was paid for. With a drink. I hope the guests enjoyed their “free” drinks.

None of this should by now be surprising. This is business. This is the everyday world of the Internet. Everybody ought by now to know that this goes on. The story is so familiar and disappointing that it cannot even provoke real anger. It’s just some more dishonest, misleading marketing. Just more shilling. Just more commerce.

But it does present a real problem for consumers, for readers. And for writers and those who run vacation businesses.

How do you know that the reviews of my two books, Tulum and The Dream Antilles, are real?

How do you know that the posted guest reviews of our vacation rental, Nah Yaxche in Bahia Soliman near Tulum, Mexico, are real?

I can tell you this: They are real. Nobody got paid anything for writing them. Nobody was solicited to write them. Nobody received anything in exchange for them.

But forget about me. The important question here is this: can you tell that these reviews are real just from reading them? I hope you can. But I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't. After all, the sole intent of the fake reviews was to fool you and make you think they were real. So real reviews and fake ones look surprisingly alike.

A Review Of Tulum

Diane Gee writes in Wild Wild Left:

David Seth Michaels's Tulum is a read that draws you in, grinning to yourself at the sweet honesty of the workings of the author's mind. I found myself reading ever quicker as the story unfolded, not wanting to break the spell, not wanting my own reality to dare interrupt my foray into Tulum's magical hold. Yet, I neared the end, I slowed, savoring, not wanting it to end.

Set in isolated and beautiful Quintana Roo, Mexico's villages, Tulum is a journey of an un-average man in a relatively unspoiled place. It is pure Mexico, from the quirky inhabitants, to the arbitrary rules of the dog-police, to the bribes and communal sharing by its Mayan residents. His seedy past has drawn him to its isolation, a place to dream and write, yet circumstances entwine him, and suddenly his life changes drastically. You learn everything evolves, from the onslaught of touristas, to a "retired" man's new vocation.

The world of Tulum paints beautiful pictures of both the mystical and mundane parts of human existence, through the ever-suprising and imaginative voice of the narrator. Its a journey of utter honesty, from manly desires for a beautiful woman, to the temptation of profits in the seedy underworld of drug traffickers, to a spiritual journey with an unlikely and bemused mentor.

A little bit Hunter S. Thompson, a little reminiscent of Castenada, but entirely unique, Micheal's storytelling found me rapt in his story, and longing for the next installment. The writing was fresh and guileless, totally self-aware to both the glories and follies of the human mind; whether a lizard basking in the sun, or a wizard drinking tequila.

You will be amused. You will be intrigued. Mostly? You will fall in love with Tulum.

Wow!

A Distant Tree And An eBook Solution

Of sorts.

When somebody buys my magical novella, Tulum, in soft cover, I am always thrilled to sign the title page and to write a dedication on it. To the reader, or to anyone else they choose. That makes the book more personal. And it marks my physical connection with the reader. That’s what is typically done at readings. Maybe it even helps sell books. Maybe the books are more prized if they're signed.

But if you buy my book or read it on Kindle or Nook or on your iPad or some other device as an eBook, you’re not going to get it signed. And you’re not going to be able to have it dedicated. Why? Because it’s not a physical book, and there’s nothing for me to scrawl on. Maybe there should be such an app (developers, are you reading this and thinking about it?) but as far as I know, there isn’t. Yet. So if you buy my book as an eBook, you potentially get shorted. I can't sign it for you. I cannot scrawl a quote from Shakespeare in the book and sign my name. I’m unhappy about that. And I know other writers are also.

So I have a solution. Of sorts. I can have some postcards made up, and if you want a dedication or a signed copy and you bought Tulum as an eBook, I can send you a postcard. Not by email. Nope. That doesn’t solve a thing. No, I will send you an actual, analog postcard via the US Postal Service. With a real postage stamp on it. And best of all, with the horrible handwriting I developed because of in spite of the feared Mrs. Reynolds, my first grade teacher at Hillside Avenue School in New Jersey. Maybe the postcard should be of the cover of the book. Maybe of some other scene from Tulum. I will consider the options.

Meanwhile, speaking of Hillside Avenue School. It’s now called, believe it or not, Walter Krumbiegel School in memory of the tall, deep voiced, mustached principal who was there long ago. Anyway, I was thinking today (I don’t know what may have prompted the thought) about climbing a tree on the front lawn of the school near the entrance. When I was small, when I was an 8-year old, it was so very easy to climb. It was, in fact, the easiest tree in the neighborhood. I imagined that by now, more than 50 years later, it would be gigantic. Majestic. It would be as tall as the school. No, taller. It would have a round, thick base. It would have tremendous, long branches. By now, no 8-year old could easily pull himself into its wide branches. A worry: maybe it had to be taken down because it grew so very large and was so close to the school building. Wrong. Completely wrong. It’s still there. The joke's on me. It appears that it was a dwarf or miniature flowering tree of some kind. Crabapple? Maybe.

How do I know it's still standing there with open limbs inviting children to climb it? You can see it standing where it always was, still flowering on the school’s lawn, just to the right of the stairs, up close to the building.

Now I'm Ready To Be Santa Or A Salesperson

Oh happy Day!! Our friends from UPS just arrived in the muddy driveway, and they brought some boxes with them. I was hoping for the sled with reindeer, but alas. And the boxes weren't wrapped with gorgeous paper and luscious ribbons. No such luck. The boxes were brown cardboard and they had white labels on them. There were four of them. And this is the good part: in the boxes were fresh, clean, new copies of my novella, Tulum. So at long last, finally I have copies of my book in my own hands. Let me say this. This is a good deal different from having them be a click away or having photographs of them. This book seems to me to be real and to exist in the material world.

What will I do with these lovely, new books I find so exciting? First, I will spend some time admiring them, holding them, feeling them and all of their wonderfulness. Smelling them, letting the pages slap each other. Riffling the pages musically. Reading from them at random. And I will also play the two dramatic, archetypical roles in the title of this post.

I will play Santa Clause, and I will write dedications in some of the books and give them as gifts. I will get some of them ready to be stuffed into stockings (forget you read this if you are one of those people). And I may wrap others in gaudy paper. How wonderful is that? I am neither fat nor jolly enough to fulfill this role perfectly, but do not fear. I will make a wonderful, jovial attempt at it.

And I will also play the role of salesperson. No, not Willie Loman. Nothing so full of angst. Not like Mr. Whipple. No. No grouchiness. This role is far simpler. It goes like this:

If you're near Chatham, or in Columbia County, New York and you want a soft cover copy of Tulum, you don't have to go online and click on things and make the postal service bring it to you. You are, of course, welcome to do that, and I love it when you do, but there's now a more personal alternative. You can email or telephone me, or most unusual, talk to me when you see me, and I will arrange to deliver to you from my ungloved hand directly into yours, gloved or not, copies of the book. I will even write in them or not, or dedicate them or not as you may wish. To do this and foster spontaneity, I will put some of these books in my car. That way I will have a few of them with me when you see me live and in person and the many doing mundane and often meaningless things that people do.

I will also reach out in the next few days to some booksellers in the area and see whether they are interested in taking a few copies of the book. That should happen this weekend. So that will be yet another way you can get this book before the Holidays.

Stocking Stuffer

How wonderful it is to launch a complete crapvalanche of commercial crassness!

As my dear friend, Strongbad, would put it, "Stuff alla those stockings with a crapvalanche of zawesome li-ter-a-ture! And buy this here book right now, reader-atis!" Or is that too millennial a reference? Prefer staid public radio to wild Internet animations? You may consider this shameless commerce.

Either way, here's the thing. Apart from pron, the Internet is really a good way to buy things. Everybody knows that. You don't have to go out. You don't have to touch money. You just look it up and type it in and presto chango! our friends at UPS and FedEx deliver it to your doorstep. Pronto! You've been doing this with books, and shoes, and appliances, and everything else for years now. Great. This may be destroying small stores across the nation and turning downtowns in wastelands, but nevermind that for a second. My just released novella Tulum can be handled exactly the same way. Just click and fill in the blanks on the forms and Whomp! There it is. Just like that. Or is that too '90's a reference?

It's like this. The Holidays are rapidly approaching. Every Holiday needs a stocking. And every stocking needs to be stuffed. I think stockings are best stuffed with Tulum, one beautiful soft cover copy per stocking. Don't have stockings? No problem. One beautiful soft cover copy per person.

And I want to make this as easy as I can. Here are the links to get Tulum in soft cover as a stocking stuffer or for any other reason.

Do it now while you can still receive it before the Holidays begin in earnest!

Barnes & Noble

Amazon(where they still don't have a cover foto)

iUniverse(where you can get the eBook in all formats)

And if, like me, you're horrified about the consequences of Internet commerce on retail stores and small towns and villages, and you're lucky enough to have an independent bookstore near you, please by all means go immediately to that bookstore and order Tulum. All of the book distributors can get Tulum for your bookstore. And if your bookstore is really, really special, it can order 5 or 6 copies and put it in the window. Just like that. If you're going the bookstore, just do it soon: this is a process that needs a little lead time.

One final thing. If you buy the book, and you want it autographed or dedicated and signed, I'm happy to do that. All we have to do it figure out the logistics.

Finally, Tulum, The Novella, Is For Sale!!

Today I was pacing the floor and staring at the ceiling (a small leak) because Tulum had not arrived in soft cover form for me to give a final approval, and the process of waiting for it by UPS or FedEx or carrier pigeon was becoming tedious. And I was getting impatient. And obsessing about whether it might be lost somewhere at UPS or Fed Ex or in the mail. But this evening things are much better. It is not because I had a glass of wine. No. A friend discovered that, lo and behold! and to my utter surprise, Tulum was now for sale at Barnes and Noble and that you could get copies to stuff into some hanging stockings delivered to you before Christmas. Hooray! Joy to the world!

Here's the link to Barnes and Noble. Buy as many of these things as you can possibly. Buy so many that the shipping is free. Buy them for everyone on your many lists! Hey, this is America! And Christmas. And this is a great book to give as a gift.

The eBook is not quite yet ready. It should be ready by next week, and will be sold at the killer cheap price of $3.99. But not to worry. Barnes and Noble is selling this thing at cost at the moment. It's not $13.99, it's $7.90. I have no idea how they do that, but if that's what they want to do, who am I to complain? You benefit because that is way, way below retail cost.

I wish this were a Monster Truck Ad with all that reverb. It's not, so you have to imagine it is. Or you could imagine it was a Corona beer ad from Tulum for Tulum. Whatever works.

Coming Soon: Tulum, the Novel

I'm overjoyed. The novel, Tulum, is finally "in production" at the printer. It's going to be out soon as a physical book and as an eBook in all formats. It's the culmination of more than five years' work.

For details on the release and other news about this book, please "like" the "Tulum: The Novella" page on Facebook, and please visit it for news about the release, sales, and photos.