Some things I've learned from, and about Reviews
Any writer, even a total newbie such as myself, knows the importance of reviews. Knowing other people have read something and enjoyed it can influence a person to take a chance on a book. Reader feedback tells us the authors, and other perspective readers, what we're doing right. Perhaps more importantly, it tells us what we're doing wrong. I've been fortunate thus far, as the vast majority of the feedback I've received has been quite positive. There haven't been many, but they've been good, which is very reassuring.
The plot, characters, and general tone of my book have been praised almost universally by my reviewers. So the content is good, but it is becoming increasingly clear that people don't much like my choice of presentation.
When I wrote the book, I knew I was departing from the status quo a bit. I set up my dialogues so that no character ever begins talking in the middle of a paragraph. I throw out a dialogue tag, use a colon and jump to the next line to open quotes. Odd maybe, but not utterly unintelligible. It made sense to me to make it that way because the dialogue is a critical component of my story. The book is also written in the third person present tense, which is a rarely used format. To top it all off, there were some issues with the capitalization of exclaimed words.
None of my test readers mentioned any of these things, but my online reviewers all noticed at least a couple of them. One went so far as to tell me that the only time the present tense can be used in written word is inside dialogue. He also said that "militaries" isn't a word, so I took most of his criticism with grain of salt. He did point out to me some rather specific errors in my writing that I have since gone through the manuscript and tried to fix. There may be a few still in there, so I'm in the process of editing it one more time. Maybe two, just to be safe. I'm still deciding whether or not to go through it and change the dialogue format. Most likely won't, as I understand it's odd, but I really like it that way. You could call it my own quirky trademark.
There is still the issue of the low number of reviews I've gotten. The book was released back in early July. I'd hoped that by this time, I'd have at least 10-20 reviews, good or bad. To be fair, it isn't the most widely accessible subject matter. It has a few hits against it as far as commercial saleability as well. Most notably, there is little in the way of romantic sub plots, and the main characters are not teenagers. I know there is a market for it. Every single one of my friends that have read it thought it was amazing. To clarify, my friends and I are what is commonly referred to as a "hardcores" or "metal heads". There is a target audience for my work, it's just a niche market.
So the question becomes: How to get more reviews? I've run across several different avenues to try here on Goodreads. Most of them aren't working out so well for me thus far. The obvious method is signing up in reading groups that focus on your genre and put your book on the "read and review" list. I've had 10 people sign up to review this way, only two of them ever posted a review the book. One of the respondents was even a MOD from that particular group who was in charge of enforcing the read to review rules. One such rule being: If you can't or won't finish the book, inform the author as to why. Sufficed to say, I have received no such messages.
I have also encountered what is called "review exchanging" between authors. Tried it out for myself, and I won't do it again. Critical feedback from a colleague is what I expected, a phony five star review is what I got. Not to mention the fact that the short fiction the writer in question sent me in return was, shall we say, not my cup of tea. He also qualified his email with "Pick whichever story you think deserves a 4 or 5". It put me in a sticky situation, and caused me no small amount of stress. The whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth.
Which brings me to the most dubious type of reviews, those that are coerced or bought. You know the reviews I'm talking about. The ones that are so glowing that they couldn't possibly be objective. I gave my book to several friends, and they liked it, but only one posted a review. She's a close friend, and she went waaaayyyyy overboard. Not that I don't appreciate the props, but anyone with a critical eye will look at that review and say, "Gotta be a family member or something." I left the review up because it was officially the first one ever posted about my work. So, dubious or not, it was a milestone for me.
Bought reviews are a disaster waiting to happen. Some sites offer a certain number of positive reviews for a set amount of money, others offer advertising and detailed reviews on well traveled sites. Sounds enticing, but it's dishonest and from what I've gleaned from a bit of research, also a waste. A certain post I ran across on Goodreads recently exposed just how bad an idea it can be. A writer (I won't use a name for obvious reasons) paid a certain site to do a review. When it got posted, it was shoddy work to say the least. Poor spelling and grammar, no rating, almost no real critical commentary in it at all. It was in essence, just a plot summary, a very poorly written plot summary. When the author asked for his money back, the site admin claimed up and down that the job was done fine, and would not refund the money. I interjected on the author's behalf and pointed out the errors in the review. (there were TONS) The admin claimed that we were defaming his business, and accused me of being a friend of the author lying on his behalf. He didn't disprove my point, just told me to go fuck myself in so many words.
In the short time since I began my journey as a writer, I've learned quite a bit. Much of it I learned from the honest opinions of those goodly enough to read my work and tell me what they thought. Even if the amount of feedback thus far is slim to nil, I'm grateful for every word. All I can do for now is keep putting myself out there, hand out as many free copies as I can, and hope that the next ten people take it more seriously than the previous ones. I will never pay for a review, and from this point on, will make sure my friends only blow sunshine up my ass in person, not on amazon. ;)
Whimmy, wham, wham, whozzle internet peeps!
Reed
The plot, characters, and general tone of my book have been praised almost universally by my reviewers. So the content is good, but it is becoming increasingly clear that people don't much like my choice of presentation.
When I wrote the book, I knew I was departing from the status quo a bit. I set up my dialogues so that no character ever begins talking in the middle of a paragraph. I throw out a dialogue tag, use a colon and jump to the next line to open quotes. Odd maybe, but not utterly unintelligible. It made sense to me to make it that way because the dialogue is a critical component of my story. The book is also written in the third person present tense, which is a rarely used format. To top it all off, there were some issues with the capitalization of exclaimed words.
None of my test readers mentioned any of these things, but my online reviewers all noticed at least a couple of them. One went so far as to tell me that the only time the present tense can be used in written word is inside dialogue. He also said that "militaries" isn't a word, so I took most of his criticism with grain of salt. He did point out to me some rather specific errors in my writing that I have since gone through the manuscript and tried to fix. There may be a few still in there, so I'm in the process of editing it one more time. Maybe two, just to be safe. I'm still deciding whether or not to go through it and change the dialogue format. Most likely won't, as I understand it's odd, but I really like it that way. You could call it my own quirky trademark.
There is still the issue of the low number of reviews I've gotten. The book was released back in early July. I'd hoped that by this time, I'd have at least 10-20 reviews, good or bad. To be fair, it isn't the most widely accessible subject matter. It has a few hits against it as far as commercial saleability as well. Most notably, there is little in the way of romantic sub plots, and the main characters are not teenagers. I know there is a market for it. Every single one of my friends that have read it thought it was amazing. To clarify, my friends and I are what is commonly referred to as a "hardcores" or "metal heads". There is a target audience for my work, it's just a niche market.
So the question becomes: How to get more reviews? I've run across several different avenues to try here on Goodreads. Most of them aren't working out so well for me thus far. The obvious method is signing up in reading groups that focus on your genre and put your book on the "read and review" list. I've had 10 people sign up to review this way, only two of them ever posted a review the book. One of the respondents was even a MOD from that particular group who was in charge of enforcing the read to review rules. One such rule being: If you can't or won't finish the book, inform the author as to why. Sufficed to say, I have received no such messages.
I have also encountered what is called "review exchanging" between authors. Tried it out for myself, and I won't do it again. Critical feedback from a colleague is what I expected, a phony five star review is what I got. Not to mention the fact that the short fiction the writer in question sent me in return was, shall we say, not my cup of tea. He also qualified his email with "Pick whichever story you think deserves a 4 or 5". It put me in a sticky situation, and caused me no small amount of stress. The whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth.
Which brings me to the most dubious type of reviews, those that are coerced or bought. You know the reviews I'm talking about. The ones that are so glowing that they couldn't possibly be objective. I gave my book to several friends, and they liked it, but only one posted a review. She's a close friend, and she went waaaayyyyy overboard. Not that I don't appreciate the props, but anyone with a critical eye will look at that review and say, "Gotta be a family member or something." I left the review up because it was officially the first one ever posted about my work. So, dubious or not, it was a milestone for me.
Bought reviews are a disaster waiting to happen. Some sites offer a certain number of positive reviews for a set amount of money, others offer advertising and detailed reviews on well traveled sites. Sounds enticing, but it's dishonest and from what I've gleaned from a bit of research, also a waste. A certain post I ran across on Goodreads recently exposed just how bad an idea it can be. A writer (I won't use a name for obvious reasons) paid a certain site to do a review. When it got posted, it was shoddy work to say the least. Poor spelling and grammar, no rating, almost no real critical commentary in it at all. It was in essence, just a plot summary, a very poorly written plot summary. When the author asked for his money back, the site admin claimed up and down that the job was done fine, and would not refund the money. I interjected on the author's behalf and pointed out the errors in the review. (there were TONS) The admin claimed that we were defaming his business, and accused me of being a friend of the author lying on his behalf. He didn't disprove my point, just told me to go fuck myself in so many words.
In the short time since I began my journey as a writer, I've learned quite a bit. Much of it I learned from the honest opinions of those goodly enough to read my work and tell me what they thought. Even if the amount of feedback thus far is slim to nil, I'm grateful for every word. All I can do for now is keep putting myself out there, hand out as many free copies as I can, and hope that the next ten people take it more seriously than the previous ones. I will never pay for a review, and from this point on, will make sure my friends only blow sunshine up my ass in person, not on amazon. ;)
Whimmy, wham, wham, whozzle internet peeps!
Reed
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G.G. wrote: "It's funny you say that. I loved your book and I am a Metal Head myself but I don't think you need to be one to enjoy your story. Anyone who likes the superhero genre should love it and when I thin..."The point you make about people being apprehensive trying books in a series was interesting. I've read that same thing in numerous places on this site. I'm pleased to say that I've got the whole plot laid out for the sequel and I'm about 60% done the first draft. If all goes according to plan, I'll have it done by the end of the year. Thanks again for your support and all the kind words. When the sequel is done, I'll definitely have a copy set aside for you.
I am one who notice your different ways of putting dialogues, and as I stated, it doesn't deter the reading in any way. You're right, it gives you some kind of a trade mark. I specially loved it the way you did it in The Ballad of Clyde.
The present tense is not seen often, but it's out there. Think about scripts for instance. The main difference I'd mention is that a script is usually devoid of real feelings. They tell you so and so are happy/sad/hurt etc while in your book the readers feel it. Still, to the person who said it couldn't be done, well... no comment. I'm usually not a fan of present tense (especially in first POV) but since I didn't really noticed it as I read your book, that tells me a lot. It tells me it was well done or else something would have bugged me as it usually does.
Lastly: the review thing. I think I've met the famous 4-5 star person, not in a review exchange type but when I signed up to review a book and wrote down my email. It came in nicely as a message asking me if I would review some books, which I accepted. Then the email came with a note: Don't post review unless you put a 4 or 5 star. Needless to say, it didn't bode well. I'm not for buying reviews but I am not for that kind of read and review scam either, especially that the stories were told as if a journalist would have described it: no feelings nothing. Anyway, to make a story short, this person made me a huge favor. He made me realize before I had even published my own book that a review exchange was nothing more than a ticking bomb. You never know when it might explode!
Anyway, all that to say you are offering a great product. Unconventional? Maybe, so what? Just get your sequel out there. Many people are afraid of series and they say they won't touch one unless it's complete or at least the second one is out. Eon of Darkness #2 might just be the push you need. (and I can't wait to read it!)
-GG