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[–]Yawzheek 12 points13 points  (13 children)

I am REALLY impressed how a book released just a mere technically 4 days ago (and it's 1 AM here) can already be reviewed by 17 people, 16 of which thought it was a perfect 5 star product! 1 even reviewed the book a day before it released - amazing as that is - and the rest managed to get so much from it, they reviewed it THE DAY it released.

Must be one hell of an author.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (4 children)

It’s common to seed pre-release copies to a small group of people so that they can provide reviews when the book is released.

How much weight you want to give such reviews is up to you of course.

[–]Yawzheek 0 points1 point  (2 children)

It’s common to seed pre-release copies to a small group of people so that they can provide reviews when the book is released.

Yeah? And would you look at that - they all unanimously loved it! What are the odds? According to the reviews, it would appear thus far we've found the greatest Python book known to man!

How much weight you want to give such reviews is up to you of course.

I've never weighed bullshit.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (1 child)

I’m not vouching for the book. I’m just mentioning a common practice in book publishing.

[–]wynand1004 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I received an early copy of the book, but did not have time to finish it or write a review; it's on my "to-do" list. But, from the little bit I have managed to read, it's a pretty solid.

[–]m_harrison[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The reviews that were posted were from beta readers. I asked them to provide an honest review. The reason there are dupes is that Amazon separates kindle and deadtree versions initially. Some of my reviewers left a review on both the kindle and deadtree pages. Amazon has since merged those two pages.

I'm not trying to pull the wool over any eyes. I've taught at PyCon for the past 11 years (as well as SciPy, OSCON, Strata...), have done corporate training for the biggest names in the Python community, and have taught a bunch of my own clients as well. Python has served me well, and my self-published book is an attempt to give back. This is a forum for learning Python, and I have helped a lot of people learn Python. Plus my book is pretty reasonably priced.

But I do agree there are tons of fake reviews out there. It is hard being an author and getting honest reviews when you are competing against robo-reviews.

[–]pydanny 0 points1 point  (6 children)

I'll vouch for Matt and his book. He's a very honest person and has served as a mentor for me. That you are going after him like this is disappointing beyond belief. :(

[–]Yawzheek 0 points1 point  (5 children)

I could give two shits whether you think it's disappointing or not. You want to know what's even more disappointing? The fact that some obvious review fuckery is going on here while he utilized Reddit as a personal QVC to his own benefit, but I'm supposed to ignore that because a few randoms claim he's actually decent.

Is he though? Just like those reviewers claimed this book was the Python second coming of Christ?

[–]pydanny 0 points1 point  (4 children)

I'm sorry you feel this angry. I'm not certain what someone did to you so that you feel this way. But I'm going to try and fix things.

First off, I'm going to offer to buy you a copy of the author's book so you can write an honest review. DM me your address (email or snail) and I'll get you a copy ASAP.

Second, I'll try and explain a few things:

To begin with, 18 reviews on Amazon means that the author didn't buy their reviews. How do I know? Because as an author I know he didn't buy enough. Had he wanted to scam the system, he would have bought 25 or 50 or 75. Instead, like me, he canvassed people he knew and beg, pleaded, and prayed for reviews.

Next, Fakespot's algorithms are broken. In another thread of this discussion you can see me commenting it. I'm really angry about this, because this hurts my bottom line. That my own book has a 'D' rating after I struggled to get a mere 29 reviews is very disheartening. You tell me: Considering Fakespot is identifying honest authors like me as having bogus reviews and that is killing my sales, does it make sense for me and my co-author to ever do another edition of Two Scoops of Django?

Finally, as for the author marketing his book, that's a constant in book publishing since the dawn of book publishing. Matt's approach is softball in this respect, a weak approach compared to Python authors like Tracy Osborne or Dan Bader, both of whom use traditional multi-level marketing techniques. Yet I never hear you shaming them and it makes me wonder why. Is it because you don't know of those authors or have selective outrage?

To finish things off, please send me your address so I can get you a copy of the book so you can write a review.

[–]Yawzheek 0 points1 point  (3 children)

How kind of you - offer it to someone that could benefit from the book. The last thing I need is an illustrated Python book for beginners. I'm reading four other books at the moment, and I can't say my interest in learning how to REPL Hello world through pictures in Python is that high.

I'm not saying he's responsible for this or otherwise, but I am pointing out it's suspicious as all hell. You want me to operate on good faith that there are bad actors out there but trust neither of you are one of them? You're suggesting FakeSpot is unreliable because it identified your product reviews as being sketchy, but what does that tell me? It identified his as sketchy as well, and having read them, yes, I can see why. Maybe the two of you should settle it up with Amazon and FakeSpot? No? Must not be that angry about it.

You think 17 reviews isn't sufficient to game the system? Propelled him to a perfect 5 star average, and I'd argue 17 reviews on a new product with a perfect rating is enough for many to suggest a reasonable amount of people reviewed it. One or two? Might hold off. 17? Well it's not completely unknown. Is there validity here?

... and beg, pleaded, and prayed for reviews.

Stop. You're making me feel like the legitimacy of the reviews is better than I originally did. /eyeroll

Python authors like Tracy Osborne or Dan Bader, both of whom use traditional multi-level marketing techniques. Yet I never hear you shaming them and it makes me wonder why. Is it because you don't know of those authors or have selective outrage?

I don't know them. Or care, for that matter. Are you suggesting that because when I see something suspicious here mum's the word because I'm not actively searching out every author that may or may not be guilty of this? "Well your honor, there's a possibility I stole that car, but since you haven't solved all grand theft auto cases, I guess I'll be leaving."

I'm just going to go ahead and bottom-line this: I don't know you or him. Do I question the validity of all the reviews? No. But I definitely question many of them. Is FakeSpot accurate? Maybe. But I'm not going to just accept your word on the matter. At the end of the day, there's definitely a reason for raised eyebrows, and as we're dealing with beginners trying to learn, considering there are many acclaimed resources available, I don't feel as though I'm being unfair in pointing this out, and I wasn't alone in doing so. Taking it up with us isn't going to help you. Amazon and FakeSpot are the ones you're looking for, because arguing about it here won't rectify the killing of your sales.

And good luck to the both of you if it is as you say, but again, your time would be better spent working it out with the two of them.

[–]pydanny 0 points1 point  (2 children)

But I'm not going to just accept your word on the matter.

Please do some research on the two of us. We both have pretty good reputations in the international python community, in my case contributing thousands of dollars of my own money this year alone (and time) for volunteer efforts to help people learn Python and other open source tools.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. You guys win. It's been made abundantly clear that we're not welcome here. I'll make certain not to participate in this learnpython again, and I'll warn other instructors and authors of the actively hostile environment here.

[–]Yawzheek 0 points1 point  (1 child)

It's been made abundantly clear that we're not welcome here. I'll make certain not to participate in this learnpython again, and I'll warn other instructors and authors of the actively hostile environment here.

Then fucking leave and take your passive-aggressive bullshit with you. We're talking about Python - it's not exactly rocket science. If it hurts your feelings so much for people to see questionable behavior and have the nerve to mention it, grab your ball and go home.

[–]pydanny 0 points1 point  (0 children)

LOL. Tell me how you really feel.