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!
NOW AVAILABLE!
A HERO'S SPARK: the final book in the Wicked Women series!
Showing posts with label reader reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reader reviews. Show all posts
Monday, May 27, 2013
Friday, June 29, 2012
A tool you may not be using...the beta reader.
Good evening!
Writing is a fairly solitary activity. Sure, we have writer's meetings, conferences, get togethers, all of that. But the actual act of writing is solitary. Many writers joke about how busy they are with friends...the ones in their plot, the ones in their heads. The bigger joke many writers have is that we writers are all a tiny bit schizophrenic.
The problem with a solitary activity is that we tend to lose perspective from time to time. I'm not talking about sitting at your computer, thinking you're writing the next Gone with the Wind, and you're really not even stringing together coherent sentences. We all have those moments, most of us recognize them, and we cheerfully hit the delete button and move on.
I'm talking about getting to the end of a manuscript and thinking that this is truly the finished product.
Well why not?
You've had your critique partners critique it chapter by chapter for you.
You line edited it.
You had your college aged brother/kid/neighbor line edit it for you in exchange for a hot meal.
You are ready to submit it to a publisher...or better yet...publish it yourself!
But wait.
There's a tool you should have, could have, in your writing tool box, and you may not be using it...you may not even know you need it.
I certainly didn't.
When I was writing Dream in Color (Click here to purchase) I was convinced...CONVINCED that I had a complete project on my hands. So I sent it out...and got rejection upon rejection upon rejection. REjection letters being what they are, I didn't have a clear idea what was wrong with it.
Until I talked to my friend "Penny." Penny is not a writer. She is, however, an avid reader, and better yet, an avid reader in my target audience. I told her I was writing a book, she expressed a wish to read it. I asked her if she'd read it and comment on it for me.
She agreed.
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About a week later, Penny handed me back my three ring binder. "Over all I like it," she said, " but there's just something....I'm not sure how you'd fix it, but it needs fixing because it's a little confusing. Although I'm not sure what else you could do it."
Not exactly a rave review.
BUT, knowing that a reader had actual feelings about the book, and was able to at least tell me that there was something unclear about it, I went back to the manuscript. I fleshed out the characters. I made Ramona's daydreams more vivid. I added more of the mother character, much to my own mother's delight.
And then I asked her to read it again. This time, she loved it.
And I sold it to The Wild Rose Press.
My next project, the much rewritten, oft shelved, never quite forgotten Lies in Chance (click here to purchase) got the same treatment. I set it to Penny. Again, a week later, she handed back my three ring binder and said the words I will never forget. "Your last book was good. This one was a joy to read."
It is, to this date, the best review I've gotten. And that's saying something since, reviews for Lies includes a woman who came up to me at a writer's conference book signing, pointed to Lies in Chance, and shouted..."I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THAT BOOK!" (and no, it was NOT my mother.)
So I guess what I'm trying to say is before you send your baby off to an agent, an editor, or a formatting company, pause for a moment and think about the reader.
I know, weird, right? I've taken probably 800 workshops on how to write to get published. I have taken classes on how to pitch a book to sell it, how to write three chapters to win writing contests, and how to get an agent to look at my book.
What we writers seem to have overlooked is...the reader.
In this day of self publishing, we get to cut out the middle man to a certain extent. Oh we still need to edit, to critique, but if self publishing is the path you've chosen, you no longer have to write to please an agent or an editor. You have to write to please the reader. So it stands to reason, then, that you should probably have a READER read your book before you publish it.
It may just be the most important tool in your bag of writing tricks.
Writing is a fairly solitary activity. Sure, we have writer's meetings, conferences, get togethers, all of that. But the actual act of writing is solitary. Many writers joke about how busy they are with friends...the ones in their plot, the ones in their heads. The bigger joke many writers have is that we writers are all a tiny bit schizophrenic.
The problem with a solitary activity is that we tend to lose perspective from time to time. I'm not talking about sitting at your computer, thinking you're writing the next Gone with the Wind, and you're really not even stringing together coherent sentences. We all have those moments, most of us recognize them, and we cheerfully hit the delete button and move on.
I'm talking about getting to the end of a manuscript and thinking that this is truly the finished product.
Well why not?
You've had your critique partners critique it chapter by chapter for you.
You line edited it.
You had your college aged brother/kid/neighbor line edit it for you in exchange for a hot meal.
You are ready to submit it to a publisher...or better yet...publish it yourself!
But wait.
There's a tool you should have, could have, in your writing tool box, and you may not be using it...you may not even know you need it.
I certainly didn't.
When I was writing Dream in Color (Click here to purchase) I was convinced...CONVINCED that I had a complete project on my hands. So I sent it out...and got rejection upon rejection upon rejection. REjection letters being what they are, I didn't have a clear idea what was wrong with it.
Until I talked to my friend "Penny." Penny is not a writer. She is, however, an avid reader, and better yet, an avid reader in my target audience. I told her I was writing a book, she expressed a wish to read it. I asked her if she'd read it and comment on it for me.
She agreed.
.jpg)
About a week later, Penny handed me back my three ring binder. "Over all I like it," she said, " but there's just something....I'm not sure how you'd fix it, but it needs fixing because it's a little confusing. Although I'm not sure what else you could do it."Not exactly a rave review.
BUT, knowing that a reader had actual feelings about the book, and was able to at least tell me that there was something unclear about it, I went back to the manuscript. I fleshed out the characters. I made Ramona's daydreams more vivid. I added more of the mother character, much to my own mother's delight.
And then I asked her to read it again. This time, she loved it.
And I sold it to The Wild Rose Press.
My next project, the much rewritten, oft shelved, never quite forgotten Lies in Chance (click here to purchase) got the same treatment. I set it to Penny. Again, a week later, she handed back my three ring binder and said the words I will never forget. "Your last book was good. This one was a joy to read."
It is, to this date, the best review I've gotten. And that's saying something since, reviews for Lies includes a woman who came up to me at a writer's conference book signing, pointed to Lies in Chance, and shouted..."I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THAT BOOK!" (and no, it was NOT my mother.)So I guess what I'm trying to say is before you send your baby off to an agent, an editor, or a formatting company, pause for a moment and think about the reader.
I know, weird, right? I've taken probably 800 workshops on how to write to get published. I have taken classes on how to pitch a book to sell it, how to write three chapters to win writing contests, and how to get an agent to look at my book.
What we writers seem to have overlooked is...the reader.
In this day of self publishing, we get to cut out the middle man to a certain extent. Oh we still need to edit, to critique, but if self publishing is the path you've chosen, you no longer have to write to please an agent or an editor. You have to write to please the reader. So it stands to reason, then, that you should probably have a READER read your book before you publish it.
It may just be the most important tool in your bag of writing tricks.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Not obsessing about sales while writing another novel!
Hello all!
So a friend of mine, Author Edie Ramer has had an amazing year of publishing and sales since she released her first novel, Cattitude. I recently read an interview she did and something she said really jumped out at me.
Edie's advice to new authors who e-publish is to worry less about about promoting the book you've published and worry more about writing the next book.
As a person who recently e-published Lies in Chance last month, I have to say that I am OBSESSED about sales. And I'm more obsessed about what I can do to boost sales. (Let's just say I'm not quitting my job just yet.) So every day I check sales on all three sites.
Amazon: Buy Lies in Chance HERE
Barnes and Noble: Nook readers buy Lies in Chance HERE!
Smashwords: Sony users, and those who do not have electronic readers, buy Lies in Chance HERE!
And I worry that not I'm not doing enough to get the word out there. I blog, I keep up to date on Facebook, Twitter, myspace, and email. I'm doing a book signing for Dream in Color this coming weekend. What else can a new author do?
Well, according to my friend Edie...the best thing I can do is WRITE THE NEXT BOOK!
Like most people, I'm very limited in the amount of time I have to spend writing, and all things writing. And that time will be even more limited next week when I begin yet another new job. (3rd shift...not a good fit. I'm back to the 8-5 grind and I'm looking forward to it!) What this means is that when I do sit down for author time, I can't be going from site to site worrying about sales that are or are not there. I need to focus on the next book.
I think Edie's advice is good for us all. I look at her success in the last year and the woman has done nothing but publish. And she is rocking! (And she now gets to do it full time I believe.) So she is walking the walk and it's working for her.
It takes discipline because once you publish a book you want to know that everyone out there is reading it, loving it, leaving positive reviews on the sites so others will read it. You almost have to put blinders on. Publishing one thing doesn't mean you're done writing, does it?
So I'm struggling to ignore the websites. I try to check no more than twice a week. And I try not to be frustrated. Meanwhile, I'm working on the next big thing, hoping that by getting a new title out there, my name and writing will be more readily recognized.
One more thing that helps all new authors: Reader reviews. If you read a book, and you liked it, ESPECIALLY if you liked Dream in Color or Lies in Chance, PLEASE leave a reader review. It's the only way a new author survives! (Got a book out there...let me know. I love reading, and I'm happy to read and leave reviews!)
Meanwhile....go forth and WRITE!
So a friend of mine, Author Edie Ramer has had an amazing year of publishing and sales since she released her first novel, Cattitude. I recently read an interview she did and something she said really jumped out at me.
Edie's advice to new authors who e-publish is to worry less about about promoting the book you've published and worry more about writing the next book.
As a person who recently e-published Lies in Chance last month, I have to say that I am OBSESSED about sales. And I'm more obsessed about what I can do to boost sales. (Let's just say I'm not quitting my job just yet.) So every day I check sales on all three sites.
Amazon: Buy Lies in Chance HERE
Barnes and Noble: Nook readers buy Lies in Chance HERE!
Smashwords: Sony users, and those who do not have electronic readers, buy Lies in Chance HERE!
And I worry that not I'm not doing enough to get the word out there. I blog, I keep up to date on Facebook, Twitter, myspace, and email. I'm doing a book signing for Dream in Color this coming weekend. What else can a new author do?
Well, according to my friend Edie...the best thing I can do is WRITE THE NEXT BOOK!
Like most people, I'm very limited in the amount of time I have to spend writing, and all things writing. And that time will be even more limited next week when I begin yet another new job. (3rd shift...not a good fit. I'm back to the 8-5 grind and I'm looking forward to it!) What this means is that when I do sit down for author time, I can't be going from site to site worrying about sales that are or are not there. I need to focus on the next book.
I think Edie's advice is good for us all. I look at her success in the last year and the woman has done nothing but publish. And she is rocking! (And she now gets to do it full time I believe.) So she is walking the walk and it's working for her.
It takes discipline because once you publish a book you want to know that everyone out there is reading it, loving it, leaving positive reviews on the sites so others will read it. You almost have to put blinders on. Publishing one thing doesn't mean you're done writing, does it?
So I'm struggling to ignore the websites. I try to check no more than twice a week. And I try not to be frustrated. Meanwhile, I'm working on the next big thing, hoping that by getting a new title out there, my name and writing will be more readily recognized.
One more thing that helps all new authors: Reader reviews. If you read a book, and you liked it, ESPECIALLY if you liked Dream in Color or Lies in Chance, PLEASE leave a reader review. It's the only way a new author survives! (Got a book out there...let me know. I love reading, and I'm happy to read and leave reviews!)
Meanwhile....go forth and WRITE!
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