“Keep your mitts off Amazon reviews!” we snarled last January.

Ha! A lot of good that did.  Half a year later, rave reviews of books, movies and music, hotels and restaurants are going for $5 a pop, writes New York Times reporter David Streitfeld. “As online retailers increasingly depend on reviews as a sales tool,” says Streitfeld, “an industry of fibbers and promoters has sprung up to buy and sell raves for a pittance.”

Don’t believe us?  Here are some come-ons we extracted from one website:

• I will write 3 Amazing Amazon Reviews for your Products by 2 male and 1 female, Tag your keyword and Like for $5…
• I will give you TWO professional positive reviews of your Amazon book or product for $5…
• I will write 10 Outstanding Google Places Reviews for your listing, all 5 STAR, 10 reviews from August 20th, for $5…
• I will write three glowing reviews, from 3 different reviewers, for your product or business for $5…
• My team will write 6, 5-star, KEYWORD reviews ..
• I will write you two fantastic reviews of any amazon products for $5…
• I will post 2 Amazon Reviews for you positive or negative feedback for $5…

“The perimeter of publishing’s community of gatekeepers is shrinking,” we wrote in that exercise in futility last January. “Traditional arbiters of taste and commerciality such as agents, editors, critics and bookstore proprietors are becoming marginalized under pressure of market forces. What will take their place? More than ever we need someone to render fair and balanced judgments on the book we wish to purchase.”

Streitfeld tells us that some Cornell researchers have been designing an algorithm capable of detecting these bogus bouquets, and their formula seems to work 90% of the time. For a hotel review, for example, “The fakes tended to be a narrative talking about their experience at the hotel using a lot of superlatives, but they were not very good on description. Naturally: They had never been there. Instead, they talked about why they were in Chicago. They also used words like ‘I’ and ‘me’ more frequently, as if to underline their own credibility.”

The credibility of websites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Yahoo stands or falls on the integrity of its reviews.  If they can’t police their reviews and apply some critical judgment in evaluating their reviewers, customers will no longer be able to make sound judgments about any purchases they make online.

One would hope that consumers will finally figure out that a world in which everything is rated five stars is too good to be true.  But don’t bet on it. As H. L. Mencken so sagely observed, nobody ever lost money underestimating the American public.

In a Race to Out-Rave, 5-Star Web Reviews Go for $5 by David Streitfeld.

Richard Curtis

A deliciously entertaining but instructive controversy has arisen over the review of The Greek Seaman, a self-published novel by an English writer named Jacqueline Howett.  A reviewer writing under the handle “BigAl” posted a critique describing the story as “compelling and interesting.” But he also slammed it for being rife with spelling and grammatical errors.  He gave the book two stars and complained “Reading shouldn’t be that hard.”

Whereupon the author lost it. First she blamed the proofing problems on the fact that BigAl had reviewed a flawed copy of the book. “You obviously didn’t read the second clean copy I requested you download that was also reformatted, so this is a very unfair review.” Then she marshaled positive Amazon reviews to prove her book deserved more stars than BigAl had awarded it. Then she got out the knives and took after BigAl personally, calling him names, insisting he withdraw his review and demanding that he come out and fight like a man and answer private emails she sent him.

A host of commenters rushed to BigAl’s support, accusing the author of unprofessionalism. Finally BigAl defended himself in a comment of his own, citing such solecisms as:

“She carried her stocky build carefully back down the stairs.”

and

“Don and Katy watched hypnotically Gino place more coffees out at another table with supreme balance.”

We have not read the book and cannot judge its literary or grammatical merits. We can however draw some inferences from the author’s rabid attacks on her tormenters:

• “Al was given the option of a free copy from smashwords the following day to download in any format he preffered…”
• “…you could choose any format you wanted to read it in and if their were any spelling mistakes they were corrected.”
• “This is not only discusting and unprofessional on your part, but you really don’t fool me AL”
• “Your the target not me!”
• “Just look at your ball all of you”
• “Why read the wrong copy? that don’t make sense.”
• “Also in the new copy you did not have to click at all to get to the next page on Kindle, so thats how I now he never downloaded the clean copy.”
• “You are a big rat and a snake with poisenous venom.”

It’s hard not to concur with the anonymous commenter who said “The best part is that even your comments, Jacqueline, are full of misspellings, awkward phrasing, grammatical errors, and typos. So I’m certain those creep into your writing. And if you didn’t have a good editor (or even an editor at all), then it’s not hard to believe what the reviewer is saying.”

Ms. Howett’s response?

“Fuck off!”

You can read it all here.

Richard Curtis

Thanks to SRB.

The subject of gatekeepers – editors, reviewers and other arbiters of literary taste – is on everyone’s mind as we seek a new order to replace the one that is ossifying before our eyes. (See Who Will Replace the Gatekeepers?“) One candidate has just materialized that deserves serious attention.

Two editorial veterans, Patti Thorn and Patricia Moosbrugger, have launched BlueInk Reviews, which their press release describes as “a website devoted exclusively to reviewing and highlighting self-published books.” Though a variety of initiatives have been promoted to validate self-published books, the founders of BlueInk are determined “to become the gold standard in reviews of self-published work.”

The unusual – some may even say radical – fee-based business model they have designed just may achieve their goal. But it will be not be unattended by controversy. “Funding at BlueInk Reviews,” states their press release,”comes from authors, who pay a fee to have their books reviewed. As with print publications, we manage that inherent tension between author and critic by strictly maintaining that firewall between the two parties.”

How will that work?

“Our reviewers will have no contact with the authors funding the reviews. In fact, our authors will never know which reviewers have been assigned to critique their books. Our critics – who come from the traditional publishing world and are well aware of traditional review ethics — will follow written guidelines instructing them to craft objective, honest reviews, noting both the positive and negative points of any book. Editors will oversee all reviews, with an eye toward insuring fairness and honesty.

“Authors pay in advance and will not be refunded if displeased with the reviewer’s assessment. They can, however, opt to remove their review from our website.”

A year or two ago we would have greeted this undertaking skeptically if not cynically. In an article about vanity publishing published in the fall of 2009 I wrote “I draw no distinction between self-publication, subsidized publication and vanity publication.” (See You Got That Right, Ecclesiastes!) But the self-publication industry has evolved so rapidly and dramatically that anyone belittling it as mere vanity will stir a hornets’ nest of righteous indignation. The process has not only become respectable but profitable – and, for some, lucrative.

So, the idea that a self-published author would pay a fee to have his or her book reviewed is no more derisory than paying an editor, a printer and a publicist to produce and release it. Ms. Thorn and Ms. Moosbrugger are not just business people but idealists who think of themselves as gatekeepers. BlueInk, they say, is “more than a simple source for reviews, BlueInk acts as the primary means for readers and industry professionals to find the ‘next generation’ books worth selling, stocking, purchasing and reading.”

For their full press release and contact information, click here.  And for a detailed statement of their business model, read Can a Fee-Based Review Be Credible?

It’s a sign of their commitment that their answer is – “Absolutely.”

Richard Curtis

Can a Fee-Based Review Be Credible?
Absolutely.

All review publications must find funding somewhere. Traditionally, print publications have been financed in large part by advertisements from the publishing industry, and there has always been an inherent tension between the needs of those advertisers and the goals of critical objectivity. The key to ensuring objectivity has been in maintaining a firewall between critics and advertisers.

Funding at BlueInk Reviews comes from authors, who pay a fee to have their books reviewed. As with print publications, we manage that inherent tension between author and critic by strictly maintaining that firewall between the two parties.

Our reviewers will have no contact with the authors funding the reviews. In fact, our authors will never know which reviewers have been assigned to critique their books. Our critics – who come from the traditional publishing world and are well aware of traditional review ethics — will follow written guidelines instructing them to craft objective, honest reviews, noting both the positive and negative points of any book. Editors will oversee all reviews, with an eye toward insuring fairness and honesty.

Authors pay in advance and will not be refunded if displeased with the reviewer’s assessment. They can, however, opt to remove their review from our website.

While this approach may be a new one, we see it as one solution to the fact that few, if any, mainstream publications have the resources or space to review self-published work, especially in this era of downsizing. In fact, we see a not-too-distant future where even traditionally published authors will seek our guaranteed, fee-based service rather than the uncertainties of a “free” review — which may never actually appear.

Yes, we are following a non-traditional funding model. In the digital world, it has become a necessity to find new ways of supporting editorial ventures. But at BlueInk, we work hard to insure that our reviews adhere to time-honored ethical standards and are worthy of our web audience’s trust and respect at all times.

Publishing Veterans Launch Website Devoted to Professional Reviews of Self-Published Books

NEW YORK, BookExpo America — An internationally known literary agent and an award-winning former book review editor announce the launch of BlueInk Reviews, a website devoted exclusively to reviewing and highlighting self-published books.

The move comes on the heels of industry reports that the number of books released from non-traditional channels doubled between 2007 and 2008. It nearly doubled again between 2008 and 2009. Furthermore, U.S. book sales fell 1.8% in 2009 to $23.9 billion, while e-book sales tripled to $313 million. Many of these e-books are self published.

“Independently published books are increasingly becoming an important part of the publishing scene,” said Managing Partner Patti Thorn. “With BlueInk, we aim to become the gold standard in reviews of self-published work.  We are committed to addressing the urgent needs of the self-publisher for credible critiques without compromising the values of the traditional publishing industry.”

Thorn was books editor at the Rocky Mountain news for 12 years, prior to the newspaper’s closing in 2009. She won many awards for her arts and entertainment criticism and accolades for her incisive column about books and the publishing industry. She joins Patricia Moosbrugger in this venture. Moosbrugger is a former subsidiary rights manager and literary agent who represents New York Times bestselling authors Kate Furnivall and Louise Penny and was formerly with the Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency, where she worked with bestselling authors Sebastian Junger, Nathaniel Philbrick.and Steven Covey.

While fee-based, all BlueInk reviews are written by professionals whose bylines have appeared in major publications, such as The New York Times and Washington Post, or who have served as editors at well-respected publishing houses, including Penguin, Viking and Crown.

As BlueInk critics discover worthy reads, the best of these titles are then featured in high profile positions on the BlueInk web page and promoted to publishers, librarians, literary agents and booksellers. They are also further vetted by the BlueInk Board or other industry professionals to determine their merit for a BlueInk Best Book Award, our highest honor.

In this way, more than a simple source for reviews, BlueInk acts as the primary means for readers and industry professionals to find the “next generation” books worth selling, stocking, purchasing and reading.

BlueInk offers a host of other services as well, including: articles with self-publishing tips; places for independently published authors to tout their sales successes; lists of important writing resources; classifieds and other ads targeted to authors and more.

In short, BlueInk is a vibrant forum for authors, as well as the go-to source for red-hot reads in the self-publishing realm.

As the world of self-publishing continues its exponential growth, BlueInk Reviews would greatly appreciate it if you’d let your readers know about its arrival on the scene. Meanwhile, check us out at www.blueinkreviews.com!

The perimeter of publishing’s community of gatekeepers is shrinking.  Traditional arbiters of taste and commerciality such as agents, editors, critics and bookstore proprietors are becoming marginalized under pressure of market forces. What will take their place? More than ever we need someone to render fair and balanced judgments on the book we wish to purchase.

Years ago we asked Do Amazon Reviews Count? and concluded they sure as hell do. We strongly support Amazon’s candidacy for the function of gatekeeper.  But we are gravely concerned about efforts to corrupt it. We see disturbing signs of manipulation (See If Amazon Reviews are Meaningless Why Are Authors Paying to Have them Written?) confirming that the Amazon Reviews system is being undermined.

Our alarm was underscored by a story in The Guardian about a book claiming the author created a Kindle bestseller by posting fake reviews.  On the strength of a preposterously low number of copies and some clever wrangling sold Robert Hertog generated big Amazon rankings. “Hertog claimed he managed to do just this with his own 2009 personal finance book Wealth Hazards, pushing it above books by established bestselling authors including Robert Kiyosaki and Donald Trump, despite having actually sold a mere 32 copies to third parties,” writes Benedicte Page.

Then Hertog wrote a book about his caper and posted it on Amazon!  Amazon took the book down but eventually restored it. You can read about it in detail here.

There is a core cadre of Amazon reviewers who shed meaningful light on the books they cover, and Amazon has created a way to certify and even rank them based on the percentage of readers who click Yes on the “Was-This-Review-Helpful?” button. (See Amazon’s badges pages).

This system is worth fighting for, and we urge Amazon and its customers to fight hard to maintain its purity.

We’re not babes in the woods and understand that the way of the business world is to get an edge by hook or by crook.  Nevertheless, if Amazon and the community of legitimate reviewers can’t find a way to screen and control these phonies and flacks in reviewers’ clothing we will lose one of the only means left for readers to make informed judgments about books they want to buy.

Richard Curtis

We keep asking Do Amazon Reviews Count? and the evidence is mounting that they not only count, but authors and publishers will resort to all kinds of subterfuges to win those quotable five-star reviews – or confer horrendous one-star ones on their competitors.

As to the latter… 

It all started when Rosie Alison’s novel The Very Thought Of You, was nominated for the Orange Prize, a prestigious award given to women authors in the united Kingdom whose books are passed over for other prizes. Alison’s book had not only been passed over for prizes but for any attention at all.  But all that changed when the nominee list was announced: suddenly The Very Thought Of You was assailed by a barrage of nasty reader reviews on Amazon. “I feel cheated!” “One of the worst books I’ve ever, ever read.”  “This book is so irredeemably awful that I didn’t get past page 58.”

Smelling skulduggery, the author engaged Kwikchex, a company that investigates online slurs on reputations.  Kwikchex’ verdict? “Certainly the wording and the dates of the postings were indicative of a malicious attack.” Who was behind it? Nick Fagge, writing in the Daily Mail‘s website, suggests it was jealous rival publishers.

In his post Fagge points out that ” Guidelines set by Amazon state that reviews should not be posted by anyone with a financial interest or a competing book.” But that doesn’t rule out independent reviewers. Indeed, anyone with an Amazon account can post a review. It is not that hard for a publisher or another author to round up a cadre of buddies to torpedo a rival’s book. Recently we reported the icky story of historian Orlando Figes, who anonymously posted on amazon hatchet jobs on two books by historians working in his academic discipline, describing one as ”dense” and ”pretentious,” the other as  “awful.”  He did however heap praise on one book, The Whisperers: Private life in Stalin’s Russia. The author of The Whisperers was…himself.

Nor is it hard to round up a claque of flatterers, especially if you pay them or buy their good graces. A British PR firm 2ill arrange it for £5,000 or more. “‘First we set up accounts,” says the head of the firm. ” For a romance novel we’d pick seven female profiles and three males.” He added that it’s common for publishers to try gaming the Amazon customer review system. And not long ago we wrote up a website called readerspoils.com that arranges for authors to pay for reviews on Amazon. “For just $15 U.S. you can get a completely ‘honest’ review of your book posted to Amazon in mere days!” boasted the man behind readerspoils.com. (See If Amazon Reviews are Meaningless, Why are Authors Paying to Have them Written?)

Despite these grievous exceptions, most Amazon reviews are honest and many of them are persuasive. Amazon has created a badge system to help you identify reviewers’ credentials and rank them.  By drilling down into someone’s reviews you may come to the conclusion that this person’s judgment is reliable.

Amazon’s customer reviews point the way to an emerging replacement for the old elitist gatekeeper system, and we hope a few bad apples will not spoil it.

Richard Curtis

From time to time we reprint a posting that still resonates today. This one was published in December 2007. Not only do we continue to believe that Amazon reviews count – we think they count more than ever before.
RC
*************************

If you were browsing a book in a store and the jacket blurb said,

“This is one of the best books of the year!”
– amazon.com

…would you be inclined to buy it?

Before you say no, here’s something to think about.

Any author who wants to get published successfully must run a gauntlet of “gatekeepers” who judge whether the work has artistic and commercial merit. Among the Cerberuses guarding the franchise on taste are literary agents, editors, bookshop and chain store buyers, critics and reviewers. Today’s Big Publishing establishment is dominated by such gatekeepers. They also guard tradition and guard it fiercely, and who can blame them? If the gates are breached a way of life comes crashing down.

Like a walled city, the gates enclose a world of tangible books produced in physical offices and distributed to brick and mortar stores. Until recently there was no other world, and as stupid and clunky as it is, somehow we’ve all managed to find a way to make a living in it. But now the Digital Revolution is eroding that world, just as it has done to so many business models that depended on middle agencies for distribution of tangible products. Today’s publishing model is a virtual one, and can be reduced to a simple formula: A Writer, A Reader, A Server. Absent from this formula, you will readily note, is A Reviewer. The question arises, in a world where books are sold virtually, do we still need reviewers?

After all, one of the keystones (to use a tangible image for an intangible concept) of Internet marketing is the way that public opinion can be instantly and virally created and marshaled into an economic force. Do we need gatekeepers to help us judge whether we should buy or read a book?

I happen to think that not only do we need them, we really can’t exist without them. And the interesting news is, we are creating a new class of pundits. Though their taste, judgment and experience may be no better than yours, we listen to what they have to say and, like it or not, we’re influenced by them. In particular I’m referring to the people who review for Amazon.com.

The idea that your next-door neighbor’s opinion may affect your decision to buy or pass up a book seems unlikely. True, word of mouth has always been a factor in the fate of successful books, but usually the mouth that the words come from belongs to someone you know, not an anonymous name on a website. But wait — when you search your Zagat guide for a restaurant recommendation, do you know who has written the review? No, but in all likelihood it’s a restaurant patron with no more professional reviewing credentials than yourself. That doesn’t stop you from saying, “Let’s go here!” Some of your neighbors thought the food was good, the place clean, the atmosphere pleasant, the service excellent, and the prices right, and that’s good enough for you.

In short, we live in an age when peer review is meaningful if not significant, and Amazon.com has used this fact to create a cadre of reviewers who must be taken seriously. Go to Amazon, click on any recently published book and page down beyond the official reviews (Publishers Weekly, New York Times, etc.). You’ll find Customer Reviews, and note that many of the reviewers identify themselves as the authors of a number of reviews. If they regularly review or blog about specific genres you may in time come to the conclusion that this person’s judgment is reliable and enlightening. Thereafter, when you see his or her name next to a review of a new book, you may very well be motivated to buy it.

It’s worth your time to click on the link that says “See all my reviews”, or on the badge beneath the reviewers name. Amazon has created a badge system to help you identify the reviewers credentials and review-worthiness. Click here to see what the badges mean.

I haven’t seen too many traditional books with Amazon.com quotes blazed on the cover, but I won’t be surprised if that changes before long. The first time you see one, let me know, and remember you heard it here first.

- Richard Curtis

Whatever ugly charges critics may level at traditional publishing, it’s hard to deny that when it comes to branding established authors and elevating new ones, the Establishment reigns supreme. You can talk all you want about the viral validation that the Internet bestows on self-published books, the good old book industry is still the place where literary reputations are made,  And that’s because literary agents, reviewers and book critics for high circulation magazines and newspapers, Big Six publishers and big-name editors remain the taste makers of our literary culture. (You can read all about it in Gatekeepers.)

For this reason, self-published authors have been unable to gain respectful attention in the marketplace, get noticed by Big Publishing and catapulted into fame and fortune and distribution in bookstores.  That frustrating circumstance is about to change.  Publishers Weekly has announced a new program called PW Select dedicated to reviewing self-published books and bringing the best ones (“most deserving of a critical assessment”) to the attention of traditional publishers and the public.

PW president George W. Slowik Jr,  who recent acquired the flagging book industry publication, seems determined to brand it, restore its relevance and bring it into the 21st century. PW Select is one such initiative and certainly one that is going to raise some eyebrows because authors and publishers submitting their books for review must pay a registration fee.

Anticipating the obvious question of whether the fee can influence review coverage, Slowik said “We briefly considered charging for reviews, but in the end preferred to maintain our right to review what we deemed worthy. The processing fee that guarantees a listing and the chance to be reviewed accomplishes what we want: to inform the trade of what is happening in self-publishing and to present a PW selection of what has the most merit.”

Here in full is his announcement:

We are returning to our earliest roots. PW dates to 1872, when it was first known as Trade Circular Weekly and listed all titles published that week in what was then a nascent industry. We have decided to embrace the self-publishing phenomenon in a similar spirit. Call it what you will—self-publishing, DIY, POD, author-financed, relationship publishing, or vanity fare. They are books and that is what PW cares about. And we aim to inform the trade.

To that end, we are announcing PW Select, a quarterly supplement announcing self-published titles and reviewing those we believe are most deserving of a critical assessment. The first supplement will appear in our year-end issue in December. Each quarterly will include a complete announcement issue of all self-published books submitted during that period. The listings will include author, title, subtitle, price, pagination and format, ISBN, a brief description, and ordering information provided by the authors, who will be required to pay a processing fee for their listing. At least 25 of the submitted titles will be selected for a published review. There will also be an overview of the publishing trends that can be identified from among the titles from that reading period. We will also focus on the opportunities that the self-pub world offers. A resource directory will accompany the section offering names of companies providing services in the DIY space.

The entire PW editorial staff will participate in a review of the titles being considered for review, and we’ll likely invite a few agent friends and distributors to have a look at what we’ve chosen. No promises there, just letting some publishing friends take advantage of the opportunity to see the collection.

The first reading period for self-published books will be from September 1 until the end of October. All submitted titles will be registered online by the publisher at www.publishersweekly.com/diy (which will be active before the start of the reading period); a processing fee of $149 will be charged. Once the registration process is completed, shipping instructions and a confirmation code will be issued. Additional copies of the supplement will be available for distribution.

We briefly considered charging for reviews, but in the end preferred to maintain our right to review what we deemed worthy. The processing fee that guarantees a listing and the chance to be reviewed accomplishes what we want: to inform the trade of what is happening in self-publishing and to present a PW selection of what has the most merit.

Titles submitted for our first supplement must have been published in 2010 and have a valid ISBN. We will not accept manuscripts or e-books (this time). Only final bound galleys or finished books will be accepted. Books cannot be returned; once finished the copies are donated to Housing Works Thrift Shop, a worthy local charity.

Please, please send your book in a bio-sensitive package (i.e., no bubble wrap or plastic envelopes). Also, please use packaging appropriate to the book you are submitting: no boxes full of packing peanuts or paper stuffing. We recommend reusable and recycled paper envelopes. An acknowledgment of the book’s arrival will be issued via e-mail upon receipt.

We look forward to finding the gems worthy of attention, the sleeping indie giants—after all, books are our business.

Richard Curtis

Whatever the common impression may be, literary agents take no pleasure whatever in rejecting books. Nor does our skin get thicker the longer we do it. Nathan Bransford, an agent, author and blogger expresses his distaste articulately:

“Every day I have to pass on the life’s work of cancer survivors and abuse victims and war heroes and many more people who spent hours upon hours of their life writing a novel in the faint hope that it would someday find publication. I don’t enjoy sending these rejection letters, and I never forget that on the other end of the letter there’s a person out there whose day I’m probably ruining and whose dreams I’m chipping away at.”

Until the digital era most of those rejected authors would have put their books in a drawer.  Or perhaps a few who could afford it arranged for a vanity press to publish them for many thousands of dollars. That all changed with the advent of digital technology. Today those rejectees are able to produce handsome e-book and print on demand editions for next to nothing. And agent Bransford says that should be music to the ears of every agent. Why?

For one thing, it eases our conscience, shifting the crushing burden of judgment from the shoulders of the few – agents, editor, critics and other so-called gatekeepers – to the larger public. But it’s even bigger than that, for this new way of evaluating literary quality symptomizes the emerging paradigm of proleterianism replacing the elitist value system that has dominated literature for centuries.  Bransford describes the process as “The Print Funnel.”

“What’s changing” he writes, “is that the funnel is in the process of inverting – from a top down publishing process to one that’s bottom up. Yes, many (if not most) of the books that will see publication in the new era will only be read by a handful of people. Rather than a rejection letter from an agent, authors will be met with the silence of a trickle of sales. And that’s okay!! Even if a book is only purchased by a few friends and family members — what’s the harm?”

Okay, maybe no harm.  But what about good? Do we care what the masses think are good books? Will their opinion influence us?

Before you answer, take your trusty Zagat restaurant guide down from the shelf.  On whose recommendation do you decide where you’re going to dine? The fact is, Zagat‘s restaurant reviewers are your anonymous next-door neighbors. They are anybodies; they are nobodies.  But when they give a restaurant’s food, service and ambiance a high rating, you say “Let’s go!

Still looking down your nose at the masses? Perhaps a visit to Amazon.com will change your mind. Amazon boasts a cadre of reviewers who regularly cover specific genres. If you read enough coverage by the same reviewer you may conclude that this person’s judgment is reliable and enlightening and may actually motivate you to buy a book. (See Do Amazon Reviews Count?)

Amazon.com reviews are Bransford’s inverted funnel at work. We think he’s onto something.  Read The Rejection Letter of the Future Will Be Silence (And Why This is a Good Thing) and judge for yourself.

Richard Curtis