A Writer's Best Friend is a 5 Star Amazon Review

When our book was published we were told by our publishers that Amazon reviews were our top, top, marketing priority. We already had a lot of interest from friends – especially Karin who has a vast army of supporters. Mine were more "Meh, yeah but Louis Saurez – he really looks like Bernie Winters doesn't he?" This could be because most of Karin's friends are women and mine are men, or maybe because Karin gets a cancer vote, or more likely because my friends are jerks.

Anyhow, we begged them all for reviews , and 30 blessed angels responded accordingly. Indeed I happen to know that several of them loved the book, had read it even. We thank you by name nightly.

However, because we're grown-ups, grizzled old cowboys who've seen it all before, we knew that the book would not be to the taste of all our friends. So we made a big point of saying to everyone not to worry if they couldn't be bothered to buy the book, or if they bought it but didn't get on with it, or if they bought it and liked it but couldn't bear to give us 5 stars, or couldn't get round to writing a review. We would totally understand. No worries.

Well, it turns out we lied. I spent an hour this morning writing out a list of people yet to review or to falsely gush or to even make a fucking comment and it came to 19. I didn't even know I had that many friends. I facebooked Karin for a moan. Her illness has given her a gimlet-eyed clarity of judgement. Bastards she said.   

A hard look in the mirror

In an attempt to be topical rather than sadly repeating the 5 star reviews for Farewell Trip, I nearly tweeted a link from the BBC news website reporting that Tornado fighter jets have been flying with replacement parts manufactured by 3d printers. I have absolutely no idea how this could possibly be possible, nor what said parts are made of (paper? Surely not?) but it's an incredible (literally) thing to me.

In a leap of intelligence that surprised even me, I also thought if these parts are so much cheaper and easier to make than traditionally manufactured replacement parts then maybe less money could be spent on defence - aka destroying - and more money on making jobs for young people - aka creating.

Ooh hoo! There's my tweet right there!

Several minutes of careful crafting later, a tweet was ready to go. Just before pressing the send button, I noticed on the website article the sentence '73 comments' and scrolled down to read what other people who were as amazed and baffled as me had said.

Most of them weren't at all baffled. Most of them knew exactly what 3d printing is all about and they all had very strong opinions about its use for making replacement parts for fighter jets. And they weren't afraid to come right out and make their points. These were in the general vein of:

'Excellent! More money to spend on other defence projects.'
'Increase the defence budget immediately - we're about to be overrun by people with 3d printed guns.'
'3d printing is actually the devil in technological form. We're doomed. We're doomed.'
'This use of new technology methods spells the end of all traditional manufacturing in the UK.'
'Oh man! This is amazing! You can print fighter jets?! Where do I sign up?'

I would have copied some of them verbatim, but when I went back to the page they were all gone. But they had already had a signal effect on me - reading them made me rethink the wisdom of my quick tweet. These people all knew the height of their soapbox and how far it was to the ground if they were knocked off. And, quite frankly, some of them had been knocked onto their arses by better thought out arguments and better written comments.

Was I prepared to take the flak? (Sorry, just couldn't resist.) Did I have my arguments marshalled? Or was I just trying to make a point which, hopefully, would make me look dead intelligent and up-to-the-minute and political and all that? But might, if it all went pear-shaped, end with me looking and feeling like a dunce.

No contest. And no tweet.

It did, though, make me realise how concerned I am with creating a persona for my online presence - clever but not so clever that I piss people off; witty but not so witty that I get caught up in a witfest there's no way I can win; naughty enough to make people smile but not enough to offend them.

Bugger. Can I start again please?