Review: Information I Never Knew Existed!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 17, 2014
I am not "a pro reviewer" like a lot of people this book describes. I DO review books, but they are books I want to read. I'm embarrassed to say I never even noticed there was a reviewer ranking :P. And I freely admit that no one has ever offered me cash to review a book. I have not written a book (someday, maybe) but I do "lurk" on a few author sites, and I know they pretty actively solicit reviews.Theo takes you "behind the scenes" of the interviewing community. He tells you about forums (again,  I wasn't aware of these) and the etiquette of giving...and asking...for reviews. The book is well written without a bunch of filler. You can easily read it during a long lunch. To avoid people thinking that this is one of. "those" reviews, I will add that I take issue with a couple of Theo's points.The first concerns trolls or reviewers who seem to write one star reviews as standard operating procedure. He States that this number "is very small." Theo, you need to get out more. There are a TON of these cretins. Hang out on any authors' group FB page and you'll find the complaints are many. I have read books where you can tell the reviewer NEVER READ THE BOOK! What's worse is that some of them travel in packs, and they seem to take great pleasure in this activity. I think Amazon should make it MANDATORY that if someone wants to leave a review of LESS than three stars, they had to have paid FULL PRICE for the book. If you're gonna beach, you should pay for the privilege, IMHO. And to give any OTHER review, you should be a Verified Purchaser. Amazon does NOT do a very good job policing these jerks, and most authors complain about this...come on Amazon, get with it!I have never had an author complain about my review,  but oddly enough, I have had another REVIEWER complain about a review! I gave a book about painting your home 3 stars: the author left out some ptlretty basic--but important--information. While I am NOT a pro painter, I had a father in law AND a brother in law who were...so I know more than just a little bit about the subject. It was not even a mean review! I just mentioned the things. I felt he should have included and corrected the time of day given for exterior painting (if you paint too late, the dew will cause your paint to peel). Another reviewer who had given the book 5 stars and said that it was a complete and excellent guide to painting jumped all over me. I responded that I was glad he enjoyed it, but IMHO any book on painting that fails to mention basic tools such as a brush and roller spinner or using a screen and painting out of a 5 gal. bucket to save time and money on big jobs was not a complete guide. The reviewer retorted that my comments sounded like they were coming from an author who had a competing book...a simple search would have revealed that I had no such book.In the end, the author updated the book and I changed my review to 4 stars...Thanks again for the education Theo, and I look forward to reading more. Full disclosure: i was not asked by the author to review, I was not paid, and the author did not even give me a free copy. I also do not have a book I can pitch here. :)  Read this book, it is worth the small price and you time!!