Lately I've become somewhat obsessed with the people who have bad intentions with the read-marketing trains. There are several and several kinds; one or two are even admins, and still don't recognize the value of plain dealing.

By plain dealing I mean, I read yours, you read mine, or, I read yours, you read somebody's. Maybe they got stuck with mine and really didn't want it. But it seems to me that if they put their book under mine, they agreed to read it. And many times they still don't.

I think phones could be responsible for this and I think that, if it's a review site in particular, they feel that if they give me a review, it doesn't matter. Like I don't really care about the reads, only the review. And that's partly because they could read my whole book and I'd still only get less than fifty cents. But in fact, I care about the reads more than the review. I have enough reviews. I'm looking for readers. So when they stiff me, I'm taking it personally. Often they stiff me for the review too. Why am I acting all honest on these sites? (I read their whole book and give a review)...don't know. To me, I'm a plain dealer.

So what I've found is that, over time, I don't feel good about leaving my fives all over the place for people who are basically dishonest. I'd rather just get the five out of there, or better yet, make it a four or even a three, if they're going to be rude about it. Notice I don't say two. A two, I figure, is a personal insult, a slap to the face, a disrespect. A two is even worse than a one, if that's possible, although mathematically it's not as bad. But my situation is this; I'm not mad enough to slap them in the face, but I'm too mad to let a five sit there and walk away. I'll take them down a notch or whatever I have to so that I don't hold anything against them anymore.

It's like anything else - you want to keep good relations with the people around you, just on general principle. You never know when you might need them. I've made a lot of really close friends doing this and I value them. THere are a lot of other people who I value but I intend to keep good relations with them, too, as much as possible. The shysters, why do I even need them? The less I invest in them the better.