What on earth is wrong with publishers these days?

[Dana_Jorgensen]

Firstly, anyone who begins a post critizing other publishers in a public forum.... well... it's poor form, to say the least. Am I one of those "dilettante, plaguing" publishers? See, we're already off to a bad start.

Are you one of the annoying dilettantes? That all depends upon whether or not you happen to be capable of learning anything from this. RPGnow will in the future have a tool allowing for vendor rebuttal to comments, and with the way things are now, it is a tool that would disappear weeks after being introduced due to misuse by all these new amatuers-turned-publisher. Best to raise the issue beforehand rather than when its too late.

I don't know if you realize, but this is also belittling to James. He got "conned"? He runs the site, he makes the calls. I could say that you're just being snotty at james, but that would be rude. Almost as rude as saying that James got "conned," implying that your judgement about your review is better that the guy who runs the site.

Ummm... If a review is nothing more than my opinion, why would anyone else's judgment of it be better than mine? The whole point of the original post was to help publishers understand that when a review is made, people are just calling it as they see it and publishers should be seriously reviewing the factors that presented that appearance to begin with, rather than reacting with the indignant and combative nature so many have been exhibiting of late. The only time a bad review is a personal attack is when the reviewer's words can't possibly be construed as a poor choice of words 9i.e., they come right out and spout off about their hatred of the author or publisher or related policies).

Also as a publisher, its probably not good taste to place negative reviews on other publishers comments section especially when your products are directly competing. Although one could praise you for saying upfront that you may be biased, one could also see a "bad taste" form of marketing by mentioning your product in another guy's comment sections.

What if someone else mentioned my products in a competitor's comment space first? Or if a competitor refers to their own products in my comment space? I think that at that point, it becomes fair game for me to do the same as well, since not doing so is no longer to my benefit.

This is the point where I'm beginning to wonder why you're pointing out people who may have behaved poorly. Whats the point of this post? Is to highlight a few peoples misjugements in public and hope to shame them into behaving professionally like Mark, or Hound do?

There are two ways you young'uns are going to learn. Either you heed the advice of those who walked the same road before you, or you learn it through the school of hard knocks once your own actions sign you up for classes.

Man, there's nothing more professional than talking about private e-mails in public forums.

There is no such thing as private email. The FBI reads your email. The NSA reads your email, The CIA reads your email. Your ISP reads your email. Your employer reads your email. Hell, if you're married, your spouse or children probably read your email, too. And there is no legal expectation of privacy placed on business email. They guy signed it as business email. Even if he hadn't there's still a fair chance someone outside the pair writing the mails would have viewed them as well.

The same can be said for message board posts, so I hope you don't try to defend yourself, that would be sooooo unprofessional.

I don't see a need to defend myself. I think my goals for this thread are self-validating. However, I do see a need to clear up some areas you seem to have failed to think through completely.

Dana, don't speak poorly of your peers in public if you can avoid it, that's the first rule of professionalism. It just makes you look bad, even when they're behaving poorly. As a customer, you have the right to leave comments, but as a fellow publisher, there are also other consequences of your behavior that you must consider when determing the manner in which you post your comments. If you really want the publisher to put out better stuff, privately e-mail them and give them some advice/help. You may be the mack daddy when it comes to guns, but this post and your comments are shooting you in the back.

I don't speak poorly of those I consider my peers. And in general, I don't consider many new publishers to be my peers. They need to earn some scars first, so to speak. When I've been writing and publishing for over 10 years, why would I consider someone in the business for all of six months a peer? And as for my comments on RPGnow, while I do compare competing products to my own, I also make the effort to compare them on neutral grounds as well, against other similar products. Nobody else even attempts this. I go to far greater effort than most to be fair with my reviews than most, though admittedly, it is getting harder by the day to find decent D20 products.

 

[philreed]

I don't speak poorly of those I consider my peers. And in general, I don't consider many new publishers to be my peers. They need to earn some scars first, so to speak. When I've been writing and publishing for over 10 years, why would I consider someone in the business for all of six months a peer? And as for my comments on RPGnow, while I do compare competing products to my own, I also make the effort to compare them on neutral grounds as well, against other similar products. Nobody else even attempts this. I go to far greater effort than most to be fair with my reviews than most, though admittedly, it is getting harder by the day to find decent D20 products.

NOTE: I am only asking.

What products have you worked on over the last ten years?

 

[jmucchiello]

There is no such thing as private email. The FBI reads your email. The NSA reads your email, The CIA reads your email. Your ISP reads your email. Your employer reads your email. Hell, if you're married, your spouse or children probably read your email, too. And there is no legal expectation of privacy placed on business email. They guy signed it as business email. Even if he hadn't there's still a fair chance someone outside the pair writing the mails would have viewed them as well.

Even so, Internet etiquette states you don't air private emails in public forums. That is how professionals (especially those in the same business) treat one another.

I don't speak poorly of those I consider my peers. And in general, I don't consider many new publishers to be my peers. They need to earn some scars first, so to speak. When I've been writing and publishing for over 10 years, why would I consider someone in the business for all of six months a peer?

Because you're gracious and welcoming, glad to see your industry grow, and helpful to those coming behind you. After all, someday they may eclipse you and if you aren't nice to them when you are "bigger" than them, when you need them in the future they may return the snotty attitude.

And as for my comments on RPGnow, while I do compare competing products to my own, I also make the effort to compare them on neutral grounds

This is ironic. How can you be neutral if you have "competing" products. You state yourself that there products work against you. Your attitude in confrontational. This means you cannot be neutral towards them. If you truly wanted to be neutral, you'd call them "alternative" products or "complementary" products

Nobody else even attempts this.

Most of us whippersnappers recognize our bias and avoid leaving comments on "competing" products.

 

[jgbrowning]

Are you one of the annoying dilettantes? That all depends upon whether or not you happen to be capable of learning anything from this. RPGnow will in the future have a tool allowing for vendor rebuttal to comments, and with the way things are now, it is a tool that would disappear weeks after being introduced due to misuse by all these new amatuers-turned-publisher. Best to raise the issue beforehand rather than when its too late.

I guess I'm an annoying dilettante. I haven't "learned" anything from this post (anything that will help me be a more "professional" publisher) and think that if there's a problem at rpgnow.com james will fix it because it's his business. If i don't like what he's doing, i'll be certain to drop him a private e-mail as opposed to commenting snarkily on public messageboards.

Ummm... If a review is nothing more than my opinion, why would anyone else's judgment of it be better than mine?

Because it's your opinion on another person's website.

The whole point of the original post was to help publishers understand that when a review is made, people are just calling it as they see it and publishers should be seriously reviewing the factors that presented that appearance to begin with, rather than reacting with the indignant and combative nature so many have been exhibiting of late. The only time a bad review is a personal attack is when the reviewer's words can't possibly be construed as a poor choice of words 9i.e., they come right out and spout off about their hatred of the author or publisher or related policies).

I agree. I think you could have easily made this point without all the name calling.

What if someone else mentioned my products in a competitor's comment space first? Or if a competitor refers to their own products in my comment space? I think that at that point, it becomes fair game for me to do the same as well, since not doing so is no longer to my benefit.

It wouldn't change a thing. If someone behaves poorly against you, you're not "free" to behave poorly back. That attitude is unquestionably unprofessional.

There are two ways you young'uns are going to learn. Either you heed the advice of those who walked the same road before you, or you learn it through the school of hard knocks once your own actions sign you up for classes.

Referring to me (and others) as young'uns is just as about as insulting as you could be, if you're not aware of it. I don't have the time to be patronized by someone who thinks that anything but what is said determines value of opinion.

There is no such thing as private email. The FBI reads your email. The NSA reads your email, The CIA reads your email. Your ISP reads your email. Your employer reads your email. Hell, if you're married, your spouse or children probably read your email, too. And there is no legal expectation of privacy placed on business email. They guy signed it as business email. Even if he hadn't there's still a fair chance someone outside the pair writing the mails would have viewed them as well.

I can see that you have a slim, if any, grasp of ettiquite based upon this thread, your response directly above, your plugging of your own products in someone elses comment section, your other posts on other forums, and your attitude in general.

I don't speak poorly of those I consider my peers. And in general, I don't consider many new publishers to be my peers. They need to earn some scars first, so to speak. When I've been writing and publishing for over 10 years, why would I consider someone in the business for all of six months a peer?

Reality check: if they publish, they're your peers. There may be income, quality, media type, logevity, and volume differences, but they're your peers, even if you don't want them to be.

And as for my comments on RPGnow, while I do compare competing products to my own, I also make the effort to compare them on neutral grounds as well, against other similar products. Nobody else even attempts this.

Nobody makes the effort to compare their published products to their competator's products in the comment section of their competators products? Well, we agree there.

joe b.

 

[pigames.net]

Admittedly, RPGnow is rather odd in its provision for consumer comments. Unfortunately, you can thank Amazon.com for that oddity. Only after amazon added buyer commentary did some of the rest of the big internet retail outlets start doing the same thing. RPGnow probably added the feature as a means to expand the the company image as a legitimate bookseller when compared to other online retailers.

RPGNow's comment system is actually a function of the [open] eCommerce software which they use. It's been heavily modified, however.

 

[The Sigil]

{snipped my own post} We need less acrimony.

To paraphrase PT Barnum, you can't please everyone all the time. You can please some of them all the time, and all of them some of the time.

These are very wise words for anyone, anywhere to remember.

You're going to get bad reviews occasion. Learn to live with it, because no matter how great you may think your work is, there will always be someone who doesn't like it. And remember, reviews are done from the point of view of the reviewer.

Again, true enough.

They are telling you how they see it. What you know about their claims has nothing to do with it. And last but not least, any efforts spent trying to defend your work will just make you look like a fool at worst, ans an unprofessional snot undeserving of future purchases at best.

Not quite true. If a reviewer makes a factual error in a review, a simple statement such as, "the Rule X that you said 'was referenced on Page 23 but didn't appear in the book - which removes value from the entire section' did in fact appear on Page 24," you don't look bad. As long as you're pointing out incorrect FACTS, rather than disputing opinions, I think it is not at all out of line to defend your work against an erroneous (different than negative) review.

{snipped my own post} We STILL need less acrimony.

We're all here trying to learn from each other. Each of us has ideas that can be added to the creative commons. Some of us are more prolific than others. Some of us are better able to express ourselves than others. Some of us have a better handle on the mechanics of a game than others. All of the ideas have at least some merit... and at the end of the day, I consider my peers to be all of those who are contributing game material and/or feedback about such... because they, like me, are trying to improve the gaming experience for all. Let's try not to look like pots and kettles arguing about one anothers' relative light absorbency.

--The Sigil

 

[Tim Tellean]

We appreciate all reviews and take all the comments seriously, we posted errata up to correct our mistakes. My one gripe is too few reviews and to much personal opinion and not even substance, when a reviewer starts out with "I don't normally review modules" you can almost feel the dread. Sometimes we as publishers feel a need to respond to correct or ask for more info. from a reviewer. As my previous post asked "What do I need to do to get noticed" all reviews are gold even bad ones should help us all to get better.
http://www.ptgamesinc.com

 

[ES2]

Okay, as a customer and potential writer and publisher someday, I will say that I would find it wrong and not professional at all if another publisher who wrote a similar product as my own left a comment in my products review space, regardless if its a positive or negative comment. If I wrote a book of guns for d20 Modern and somebody else wrote a similar book, I would not write a review in that persons review section, and I would hope for the same.

Also, if I write a book and somebody left a review that practically implicated me of copying out of another source despite the fact that I did not even know about the other books and had not looked at them, you can bet that I would defend myself against those accusations. If it caused sells of my book to drop because the reviewer was wrong factually in the review, then I would be pissed. We aren't speaking about professionalism, we are then getting into common courtesy and respect for others. If the reviewer is wrong with his/her facts and its pointed out to them, that reviewer should apologize for being flat out wrong and change the review, not continue to argue about it.

I can say that I will not purchase the Big Bang Books for d20Modern after reading these posts. Now, I will wait for something else to come out.

 

[Maraxle]

Okay, as a customer and potential writer and publisher someday, I will say that I would find it wrong and not professional at all if another publisher who wrote a similar product as my own left a comment in my products review space, regardless if its a positive or negative comment. If I wrote a book of guns for d20 Modern and somebody else wrote a similar book, I would not write a review in that persons review section, and I would hope for the same.

I am definitely with you there. Reviewing a competing product is unethical at best. I think it's no better than writing a review of your own product.

I can understand purchasing a copy of a competing product so you can compare yourself to what's out there, but you should never leave a review.

 

[Blacksad]

I am definitely with you there. Reviewing a competing product is unethical at best. I think it's no better than writing a review of your own product.

For reviews on a seller website, I agree.

But it wouldn't bother me if an author made reviews of competiting products on their website (like Monte Cook) or on ENworld, if it is stated in the review or comment section (at worst, it would allow to take a look at the other reviews of the competiting product).