Thursday, September 23

Author Anne Rice responds to reviewers on Amazon with glorious rant

In an unprecedented move Anne Rice has responded to her critics in the reviews section on Amazon for her book "Blood Canticle (The Vampire Chronicles)". All I need say is; it's long, it's ranting and it's absolutely wonderful. Do yourself a favor and read this review wether you like Anne Rice or not.

Amazon.com: Books: Blood Canticle (The Vampire Chronicles) scroll down to "From the Author to the Some of the Negative Voices Here, September 6, 2004"

Press coverage

While there is still a small chance this may be an impostor you can verify that these are actually Ann Rice's words by checking out all Anne Rice's Amazon reviews and the below quoted article from the Toronto Star. I suspect more articles will appear on google news in the following days as the mainstream media may pick up on this.

From TheStar.com - Vampire queen versus Amazon
Writer Anne Rice, whose extravagant fictions about vampires and witches have made her famous and rich, vents her anger at readers who dare criticize her latest book Blood Canticle on the Amazon.com website and ends her lengthy, single-paragraph tirade by giving her home address in New Orleans and promising refunds to the disgruntled.

'And if you want your money back for the book, send it to 1239 First Street, New Orleans La. 70130. I am not a coward about my real name or where I live,' she writes in a message posted Sept. 6 in response to the harsh criticisms and expressions of disappointment from dozens of readers. 'And how glad I am that this book is the last one in a series that has invited your hateful and ugly response
On a side note. (warning customer experience rant)

Amazon! if you would PLEASE respect your customers especially Ann Rice and support some basic formatting like PARAGRAPHS and line breaks.

Sorry friends and readers, but being obsessed with the "language of the interface", I can't help but to find fault with Amazon's lack of formatting support in their customer reviews tools. It's an affront to their customers and I find it rather telling that in the above quote from the Toronto Start they attribute Anne Rice with not properly formatting her own words. Amazon has done us all quite a disservice. The message Amazon sends is literally, "customer we want you're opinion, but then again it's not really that important to us." While it's disrespectful to all their customers, it really shines through loud and clear when Ann Rice's graces Amazon with her own words only to have them mashed together like some unimportant gibberish. This is "bad customer experience". Bad Amazon! Bad!

Finally media tracking of this article, as of this writing, "95 of 368 people found the following review helpful". This is posted right on top of the review, and while it's unprecedented I would think it likely that it may grow well into the thousands in the coming days now that the media is starting to discover it. As of this writing there is only 1 article on google news pertaining to Anne's Amazon Review

Thank you Anne Rice for gracing us with your wonderful prose / rant.

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