Review the..reviewer

[Samothdm]

I've only had one thing reviewed by you, because, well, I've only written one thing.

But, as someone else said, I think that the reviews are helpful beyond just giving people an idea of what they'd be buying. As a writer, the review helped me zero in on things to work on while I'm writing my second book.

As far as a "review of the reviewer..." I don't really have anything bad to say. I sent you the book, and then reminded you a couple of weeks after when I didn't hear from you, and you reviewed it by the next day. You handled everything very professionally and I felt had a very unbiased view when you reviewed my book, unlike a certain reviewer on another site who shall remain nameless.

 

[HellHound]

"Cheaper" wouldn't surprise me, but "far cheaper" does. 128-page pdf is 64 sheets, and I'm sure you'd send the "print" version (because every good publisher has a b&w print version), so ink use is relatively low. It costs $1.84 to send a package (in a standard manila envelope)via media mail, under two pounds, from New Hampshire to Los Angeles.

In crothian's defense, he's one person making a request, not demanding a revision of the industry standard. You don't have to send out 20 copies.

In my defense, printing a 128 page book at home costs me roughly 5-6c a page... and duplexing is not an option with my crappy home printer. Media Mail is not an option in Canada, and shipping a manila envelope that size would cost me $5.10 from Canada to Crothian.

Meanwhile, having the same book printed, bound and shipped from my US Printer to Crothian would cost $4.90 - cheaper than the shipping alone from my home.

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

Thanks you for reminding me. I totally flaked on this over the weekend but I just added it and it can be seen here:
It was no problem adding it but occasionally some things just don't get done and then they get forgotten about. I'm sorry about that, it never should have taken this long.

Don't worry about it, dude. I didn't think it was too long, to be honest. Thanks for your help, and I look forward to your review whenever you have a chance.

Hope you like it!

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Edit:

ARRGHHH!!!

I just added The Blind Path as a product under HMP's listing, and I made a mistake in the URL for the product image, AND I forgot to add a link to the demo. How can I fix that?

 

[Crothian]

You should be able to just re edit it all and fix it that way.

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

Cool. Thanks!

 

[Warden]

We've only had four reviews done in total (that weren't comments on RPGNow), and half of those have been from you, Crothian. In fact, for our last one, Combat Options: Initiative, you did us a great favour by rushing to get it done before we were hoping to get it released.

For anyone paying attention to this thread, I did an interview with Crothian this past weekend and will hopefully have it edited and posted on our site within a couple of weeks.

 

[Crothian]

What do people think about their books getting delkayed reviewed so I can review something not sent to me, but something I boiught and want to review? I haven't done that for a few months and they were ENnie books. I get so much to review that I have little time to really try to fit anything else in as I've always felt that I should give first consideration to items sent to me. And so far that's what I have done. I usually do them in order but I have been doing things out of order a bit.

For instance the Arms and Armor 3.5 I reviewed the day I got it because I read it all the way through the day I got it. Its easy to do a review once I read the book so I just went ahead and reviewed it that weekend.

Now a days I am a bit behind in the reviews. Last month at this time I got a rush of like 10 products in a few days so its really been over bearing. Right now I'm only sitting on 22 products......sigh.....

I'm trying to aim for X reviews a week as a good number to always get done but I'm not certain what X should be. Now I seem to sit and get a few out then don't get to them for a while. The goal is to make the number of reviews more consistant week to week.

Just more random thoughts to hopefully give a bit on insight from this reviewer.

 

[HellHound]

Honestly, Chris, it is my opinion that you shouldn't be expected to review everything you have been sent as an usolicited review copy.

Now, SOLICITED works are a different matter, but the fact is that most book reviewers receive a LOT more unsolicited product than they actually review, and I think you should do the same instead of burning out on the job of it. It isn't worth getting burned out over receiving free PDFs.

Maybe start looking around on the various reviews of PDF products currently being done, and pick out another reviewer or two that you think does a good job, and consider contacting a few of them (just reply to their reviews for the ones who aren't also posting to this community) and recruiting them to help you. Then contact the peopel who send you unsolicited material and ask if they would like to either send the material to this staff, or if you can send them copies yourself.

Delegation is a key ability.

 

[Crothian]

I'm not getting burned out. That's the odd thing. And I have in the past attemtped to find peope to help with the reviewing but that only yielded a few extra reviews and then they were done if that.

 

[Cassandra]

Our new company and product have been added to the d20 Reviews list; thank you Crothian. However, we'd like to make some adjustments such as adding the product cover and our logo. Where can we find information on how to do this?