If a negative review gives birth to something awesome...is it really negative?

Good evening!

I'm so super excited!

You all know how I love, love, LOVE new cover art, right?  Well, a few months back I got a semi negative review about "Dream in Color," my first novel, and my beloved baby.

"Dream" has sort of been through a number of peeks and valleys.  I sold it originally to Wild Rose Press, who gave me the awesome cover are there to the left.

However, after completing my contract with Wild Rose, I wanted to take back my rights, which was fine, but Wild Rose got to keep the cover art.  I was bummed, but excited about trying my hand at cover art.  So I created the cover you see there to your right.  I was quite proud of it and thought it captured the spirit of the book.

Nay, nay said the readers.  No, one reader complained, the people on the cover were far younger than the characters in the book.  True, but I thought they seemed a bit older than the original cover...still apparently the person writing that review was bent out of shape because she got a free download and then was forced to read a book about middle aged people, when she thought she was getting a YA.  Hey, sister, read the back of the book blurb next time.  Never buy a book just for the cover.

Anyway, I was able to brush that one off, sort of, but then I got a review where the writer was grieved that the male on the cover did not have long enough hair to suit main character Jesse Alexander, the rock star.

Really?  You gave me a 3 star review because the guy on the cover had short hair?

Well I pondered that for a while and, after a few months of working on other book covers, I honed my skills a bit and realized that I should take another stab at this cover.  And ladies and gents, I'm excited to give you the big reveal right now:

TAH DAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Click here to buy the book on Amazon!

 

I think this is the winner.  Not that book sales are based on covers, I'd like to think the reading public is smarter than that.  BUT, I think this cover catches the spirit of the book, and the length of Jesse's hair.  Which, as I've found out, is the key ingredient to this book.

 

So I guess I have to thank that reviewer.  They may have thought they were skewering me with some sort of whit, but in reality they just made me a better cover artist.  I mean, look at that guy...that guy is HOT!

 

Now, Amazon seems to be cranky about getting this cover out this evening, but within the next 24-36 hours, this cover art will be available on all formats on Amazon.  Of course, if you have a device that's not a Kindle, you can download the book with the new cover pretty much right away by clicking HERE!

 

The Printed Word: A Powerful Weapon, Even in the Hands of the Misguided.

Good evening!

It isn't often that my writing life and my real life as a customer service rep collide.

Okay, that's not completely true, given how the next three or four books I'm releasing will be stories taken directly from my life as an office drone. 

Rough copy of upcoming artwork...Yes, I did purchase the image.

So I have to clarify:  It isn't often that my life as a writer and my life as a customer service rep collide for serious reasons.  However, lately, I'm seeing a not-so-surprising, and yet troubling trend in customer service that is going to affect global business, and not in a good way.

The Internet.

I know, I know.  I love the Internet.  I spend more time than I should wandering around the Internet.  It's a wonderful tool.  a great playground, a fun place to shop, meet people, and find out what's going on in the world.

In the wrong hands, it's a terrible weapon, and in misguided, or stupid hands, it's a weapon of mass destruction.

I work for a company that does specific home remodeling projects.  The company is nation wide in the US and Canada, but most of the branches of this company are franchises.  Which means, no matter what the corporate office demands in terms of customer service and work standards, for most of the offices those things are pretty much up to the individual owners of the individual branches.

The owner of my branch runs a very tight ship.  There is almost no margin for error when it comes to installations.  And I, as the customer service person, have to field calls every day with a cheerful note in my voice no matter how unreasonable the person on the other end of the line is.  Our branch has done nearly 10,000 installations since 2005.  Not bad for what many would consider a small market.  Oh, and our customers, most of them, love us.  We have a referral list of more than 7,000 people and we give out gifts countless times a year to customers who refer us to friends and family.

In short, we do it the right way.  The same cannot be said for other branches.

I'm not here to judge or really to discuss what's wrong with other branches.  I'm hear to talk about how some people view the Internet when it comes to customer service and dealing with a company you may not be all that happy with.

Let's say a customer in Pennsylvania has a really, really bad experience. That customer writes a horrible review of the company in Pennsylvania on just about every consumer protection website he can find.  That's with in his rights.  Now, let's say a customer in Wisconsin reads those reviews.  While the comments are directed to an independently owned business several hundred miles away from Wisconsin, the Wisconsin customer is now unhappy because of what he read about the Pennsylvania customer.  If one person is unhappy...well, that must mean every branch in the country is terrible!

I find myself talking more and more often to people who were, at one point delighted with us, but then started reading online about other people's experiences and decide, before they ever contact us to handle some small issue, to instead blast us online.  Then they call us, threaten lawsuits, stomp around, write horrible things about my coworkers and in one case my mother online...and all they had to do was call me and I would have taken care of the issue in 20 minutes or less.

Meanwhile, someone on the other side of the country is now reading what this person wrote in the heat of a moment of complete unreasonable rage, and taking the comments seriously.  So business for another branch is lost in California because someone in Wisconsin wrote something horrible because they assumed that what they read about how someone in Pennsylvania was treated was going to happen to them.

People, this is going to shut down commerce because businesses cannot take the constant online bashing.  Now most of us realize that the Internet is the great unfiltered wild west where everyone says everything all the time.  But there are a lot of people, most of them older, who remember a time when the printed word was the God's honest truth.  If someone put it in print, it had to be true.

If they read it on the Internet, it has to be true.

Which brings me to how this relates to writing.  Publishing on the Internet is great.  Well, it can be.  But what was true in the days of pen and paper remains true in the digital age:  We shouldn't write anything we wouldn't want our grandmother to read.

Comments made online can be hurtful, whether you're reviewing a book you didn't like or whether you got shut out of an agency or a book sale you thought you deserved.  Writing a knee jerk response to any slight, especially in the publishing world, is a very, very bad idea.  People will think you mean it!

Worse yet...people will think that what you didn't like...because you didn't like it...it must be garbage.  Because NO ONE would write a review or a comment or a blog online about how something was terrible if it wasn't truly terrible...right?

Am I guilty of writing negative reviews?  Yes, for a couple really awful movies, you bet.  But, when writing comments, whether positive or negative, I always try to keep from making personal comments about the intelligence of the person behind what I'm reviewing, and I try to explain in detail why I didn't like something.  Frankly, if I didn't like a book because it just wasn't my sort of book, I just say, this wasn't my sort of book.  (I got a review from a woman who preferred her romances to be a bit more...well let's just say kinky, for sake of a better word.  She really hated "Dream in Color."  It clearly wasn't the book for her.   But did she really have to be so mean?)

So, folks, as you slog through the waters of the Internet, whether you're looking for a good book or for a home remodeling company, don't assume everything on the Internet is true...do a bit more homework for yourself.

And let's all just be polite out there, okay?

Reviews: How seriously can you take them?

Good morning and Happy Memorial Day to everyone!  (Here in the US we take a day in the spring to remember our veterans and to thank them for the service they've given to their country.)

Just got my first really, really negative review.  It was on Dream in Color, and the author of the review opened with "Don't waste you time and money."  Ironic, since the reviewer, SB  (not me, my initials, yes,  but not me) didn't pay a nickel for the book. SB went on to say that the characters were too far fetched, but not in a good way.  Looking at the other reviews she wrote for other books, I see 1)  She reads a lot and 2)  she really likes thriller series involving people in super heroic situations.

So I guess it would be true that a story about a middle aged woman living a life of quiet desperation and being in love with a rock star from her childhood would seem a little out there.  I guess having an overbearing boss and a nosey mother is just something SB has never encountered.

Okay, enough sarcasm.  But seriously, I'm letting this affect me.  This three sentence review done by a person I don't know, someone not brave enough to put his/her full name on the review has gotten me down and I'm wasting a golden day of writing fretting about this.

How seriously can we take reviews?  When you're new and unknown in this business, as I sort of am, every review is important because there aren't many of them.  Most of my reviews are from people I know or friends of friends or someone with some sort of connection to me.  Only recently have I been getting reviews from complete strangers.  Some are very nice...one is very not.

We all want positive reviews.  It makes us feel like we're on the right track, like we're doing something good.  One negative review, especially one this  completely negative, can send anyone into a tailspin.

Is it a measure of talent. this review?  Is it a true commentary on the content of the book...or is it just that a person who has no connection with a character quite as "every day" as Ramona Simms may not understand the ache in her heart every day for something she isn't supposed to want or have?

Folks, I can't be objective here.  But you can.  Kindle owners, I'm giving away all three of my books today on Amazon.  Today only! 

Click here to get started!
If you like them, leave a review.  If you don't...well, be honest...but gentle!