Michael McCloskey: In it for the long haul

Yesterday I wrote about my decision to give the new Kindle Countdown Deal promotion a chance.  For those of you who don't know, this is a deal that gives authors the chance to offer their book to readers at a discounted price for a specified length of time through Amazon.  There are however, a few qualifying stipulations.  The primary, and often difficult point for an author to accept, is that your books have to be exclusively available through Amazon. 

For some authors, this works just fine.  For others, they don't believe in this kind of one directional approach to selling their work.  Michael McCloskey is one of them.  He is joining us today to give us his view on why he loves Amazon, but just not enough to commit to a monogamous relationship. 

I love Amazon. I really do. But I'm not enrolled in KDP select.

 

I've seen many authors post about why they are or aren't in KDP select. Often it is about short term money strategies—where they can get the most money for their books. I base my decision upon longer term criteria.

 

I have seen how young companies emerge from the pack because of their focus on the customer. Amazon and Google come to mind. But I have also seen how those same companies, once mature, start to look after their own interests first. Having secured a large share of the market, they start to wield that power. This is exactly what Amazon KDP is. It is about locking customers into Amazon.

 

Once you are locked into one company, you are totally at their mercy. No matter how much you love a company, don't be fooled. They will make business decisions that benefit them first, not you. Especially as that young company becomes an older, established force in the market.

 

 

Suppose Amazon grows even more powerful. What are you going to to when it decides to drop your royalties? What could you do? Without alternatives, you will be powerless to do anything. It would be Amazon's way or the highway. What would you do if Amazon decides you violated some policy of theirs (even if you didn't... it could be an error). Then you are out in the cold and there is no place else to sell. We have to protect the competition that keeps that from happening. We need Apple iBooks and Barnes & Noble Nook, Smashwords, etc., so that Amazon does not decide to abuse its power. And if they do, you must have recourse. There has to be other players you can go to and keep selling.

 

So even though Amazon is my favorite bookseller out there, I refuse to help them become the only bookseller. That will end badly, if it comes to pass.

 

 

You can connect with Michael in all of the following places, and buy his books through the links below.

 

GOOGLE + - FACEBOOK - GOODREADS - AMAZON US - TWITTER - KIRKUS

 

The last Select promotion

I am always excited to hear about changes made by Amazon if those changes might help me get my books into the hands of readers.  For example, this week I found out that extended distribution channels with Create Space are now free.  This has to be a good thing, even though I know that it probably won't equate to immediate increases in sales.  But when I heard about the new Kindle Countdown deals, I was quite excited to give it a try.



Free today and tomorrow

I have heard lots of writers of late announcing how the free Select Giveaways have been a waste of time.  So people were keen to try something new.  There has been a fair amount of buzz regarding this new promotional tool, including a new website from Amazon for readers to browse all the books available through the countdown deal promotion.  Early reports from some writers suggest it has helped them reach the top of their category, and that they have seen a sales increase.  Other writers have complained about bugs in the system and that their book page wouldn't load correctly throughout the duration of the promotion.

I however am not one to complain about the free Select days.  Without the exact facts and figures, I know that most of my sales come after free Select days.  I have been lucky in the fact that I have reached either the top of my category or close to it with all three of my books during the promotional events, and have seen a steady stream of sales post promotion.  I would say that in all, 70% of my books have been sold in the weeks after Select promotions.

But I have decided at the end of my latest Select period to have a shot with the new Kindle Countdown Deal promotion.  Which happens to start next week.  So today and tomorrow are the last days that you will strike lucky for a free copy of Identity X.  This will be my last waltz with the free Select days for a while.  And I will keep you updated on the progress.

 

GET YOUR COPY NOW FROM AMAZON

No Thanks, Giving it a Break!

Attention to my blog has been a little sparse of late, primarily because of NaNoWriMo.  For any of you who don’t know what that is, it’s when a writer puts his or her head in on the chopping block and says to the world – or at least a few fellow writers – that they are going to write 50,000 words of a brand new story during the month of November, national novel writing month.  I didn’t get off to a great start because I missed the first four days because of a cold.  This meant that the first couple of weeks were all about playing catch up.  I was beginning to feel like the Thanksgiving turkey might feel if it knew what November was all about. But just like the specially selected presidential turkey, I have today been spared judgement.  I have completed my word count and I am an official NaNoWriMo winner!

So, that leaves me with one 120,000 word manuscript to edit (which I finished in the summer), and another fresh one that tips the scale at 51,000 words in total courtesy of NaNoWriMo.  Slowly the editing pile is getting deeper and the writing ideas stockpile feels like it is getting smaller.



But unlike how I imagine my American family are feeling right now, sitting with their feet up rubbing their turkey filled bellies, I admit to feeling a little deflated.  Writing to a target has been all very well and good, and completing it rather than not reaching the goal is great.  But yet I feel a bit like I took a twenty hour plane ride and ended up on the runway where I left.  Without any of the in-flight entertainment.

It’s strange, because I am actually pretty happy with my new manuscript.  I like the plot and the characters have become realistic enough that after a few edits I’m sure I will get to know them better and they will feel well developed.  But it is a bit of a diversion for me.  Usually I write thrillers.  This is my genre.  This genre to me feels like a comfy sweater and big pants, the kind that if I was American I know I’d be changing into around about now.  Science fiction is a genre I love to read, and love to watch, but never have I tried to write it.

So for now, thanks NaNoWriMo, but my NaNoWriMo WIP is going to be electronically shuffled backwards on the to-do list.  At the moment I am going to start working on my latest full length manuscript, Psychophilia, because yesterday I decided to read the first chapter again and I got so excited I knew it was the right time to get back to it.  So for now NaNoWriMo, thanks, but you are just going to have to wait.

I have a dream......

I have a dream...

In fact, I have many.  I am a perpetual dreamer.  I am the type of child who would sit staring out of the window during class with big ideas, seeing the end of the journey before I had seen the step in front of me.  I was the university student who whilst checking out biochemistry books from the library, also checked out books about special effects make up techniques because I had this gnawing desire to run off to Hollywood and become the next Stan Winston.  I am the adult who read The Beach by Alex Garland and even when I was finally working in Cardiology as I planned, gave another serious thought to jacking everything in and going travelling through Thailand.  Most of my ‘dreams’ however were just fantasy.  I was never seriously going to become a make-up artist in Hollywood, and it was very unlikely although slightly more realistic that I would end up going travelling in Thailand.  These aspirations were ideas that I thought sounded nice, and yes, seeing my name on the credits for The Lord of the Rings would have been nice, but there were other things I always wanted much, much more.  So it begs the questions, were these ever really my dreams in the first place?

I read recently that some dreams were just not supposed to be followed.  There is a very good article by Mark Manson called Why Some Dreams Should Not Be Pursued.  The article is really not as negative as the title might suggest, and certainly isn’t about compartmentalising your dreams and aspirations into keep/throw boxes.  The point of his article was that sometimes we think we want something, but the reality is that we don’t.  I might have thought being a special effects make-up artist was the answer to my prayers when I really couldn’t be arsed to read another alchemic reaction, or when reading about genetics seemed about as interesting as sitting watching the washing machine whirl around.   But in truth I didn’t really want to do it.  Moving to Los Angeles and living in a bedsit because I had no money?  Creating a broken bloody nose whilst suffering an unnamed muscle-heavy actor letting his towel ‘slip’ off?  No thanks.  Biochemistry was by far the better option.  The other was just a distraction.  But what if I had got it wrong?  What if I did give it all up and run of to Hollywood?  If it all went wrong, would society just say that I was a failure?

Let me tell you a story about me.  Once upon a time I moved to Cyprus.  When I did so I gave up a job that paid well in a department where I loved working.  My colleagues were great, I had a managerial position, liked my house, my language, my family, my friends, and my hobbies, and I think you get the point that life in general was pretty good.  People honestly must have thought I was mad.  After I moved the dream I was chasing had its first test.  The job I thought I had disappeared within the first two weeks of being here so I spent four months unemployed after just moving to an island with a population of less than one million people on the brink of a worldwide recession.  I got another job but then the country actually went into recession and I was made redundant.  I spent at least eighteen months (some will attest to longer) with a completely gormless look on my face that communicated ‘I don’t understand’ when anybody tried to talk to me in Greek.  This occasionally still occurs, but less.  The cherry on top of the icing was when I also got arrested for having the wrong number plate on my imported car and was escorted from the motorway in convoy as if I was en route to bomb the nearest embassy.  In their defence, the police did assure me I hadn’t been arrested, but I have to say when you sign a statement and spend three hours in the police station, I’m not sure what else I am supposed to call it.  In all my time in Cyprus, never had I looked so gormless.

So did this mean that I had got it wrong, and that I should never have pursued this dream?  Was this even really my dream?  Did everybody back home think my dreams had gone up in smoke along with the finances of my new country?  Some might say so, but I don’t think so.  Before I came here there was never a question in my mind if I was doing the right thing or not, and even in the hardest moments since coming here I have never thought that I should go back to the UK.  I came here to follow a dream and I stuck to my plan.  If I hadn’t stuck through the tough bits, it was over.  No marriage or future as I had dreamt of.  I’ll grant you that sometimes I had to dig my sandaled heels right down into the nearest sandy beach, but I never gave up.  But this isn’t because I am a type-A personality who believes you can achieve anything you want if you just work hard enough.  I didn’t give up because I actually wanted this.  It wasn’t just a flippant fantasy like my dreams of Hollywood.  Would I have given up with so many setbacks en route to becoming a special effects make-up artist?  Maybe.  Probably.  But I didn’t give up on Cyprus because I really wanted it.  I knew before I had even started the journey that it didn’t matter how hard it got, I would stick it out. 

This for me and many other writers is much like writing.  Nobody ever promised me success before I started writing a book.  In fact, most people promised exactly the opposite.  But I just started writing it anyway.  Nobody promised me a publishing deal, so I self published and wrote another book to follow without knowing if it would sell a single copy.  I keep going.  I keep writing.  They have to be pursued because they are the real dreams, not the fantasies.  Mark Manson suggested that you have to fall in love with the process of achieving your dreams, rather than the end result, and when it comes to writing this couldn’t be closer to the truth.

For an idea or a fantasy to become a dream, you have to really want it, and those dreams should always be pursued.  Real dreams are exactly that because you are incapable to stop your path towards achieving it.  They are simply a part of you.  I am sure when Martin Luther King first uttered these four famous words and told the world he had a dream he didn’t do so lightly or without consideration of what it might take to move forward, no matter how hard the steps might become to achieve them.  And I can bet all I have achieved so far that he really, really wanted them to come true.

Author Interview: Sydney Arrison

Please offer a warm welcome today to our guest author Sydney Arrison who is here to share her first novel with us, My Heart in Seoul, which was recently released and is available through Amazon.  So without delay, hi and welcome, Sydney!  Tell us a little bit about yourself and your life as a writer.  Do you write full time, or do you have another job or are studying?  What about when you are not writing? 

 

I live in a small town outside of New York. I'm married with two children and a dog. Other than writing I love to walk and bike on the nature trails. For many years I worked for an independent newspaper covering politics, human interest stories, and zoning disputes. After nodding off during a town-hall meeting about a zoning law, I realized that this is probably not something I'd like to continue doing.

  

What was the hardest challenge when constructing your plot and characters for My Heart in Seoul?

 

When I started writing the story I knew where I wanted it to go, it was just a matter of getting there. For me the biggest challenge was not letting the “real world” distract me from writing.  My BFF was gravely ill when I started the book and passed after I finished the final draft. Writing is what kept me afloat.  

 

I see that you have used the services of a separate editor and artist.  Do you think it is possible for an indie author to do everything herself?

 

Madison and her staff at Front Porch were amazing throughout the publishing process. I think if an indie author has the drive and determination they absolutely can do it. They just have to be prepared to do the hard work.

 

What initially drew you to the romance genre?

 

I really like the development of relationships. I also love the old classic romance movies and books.

 

If you had to stop writing tomorrow, what would it be that you miss the most?

 

I would miss creating characters and living inside of their world for a while.

 

For the tweeters out there, describe your writing style in less than 140 characters.

 

 It’s hard to express a style. My intent when writing is to keep the reader engaged. I’m acutely aware of pacing; I never want the reader to be bored. I want the words to emote.

 

Oooo, you cheated!  That's more than 140!  I'll let you off though.  What are your future writing plans?  Any more books lined up?

 

Right now I’m working on a young adult mystery novel. The story takes place in the south in the 1950’s.

 

Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with us today!  You can find out more about Sydney in the following places.

 

BLOG - TWITTER - FACEBOOK - GOODREADS

 

And you can buy My Heart in Seoul here

 

AMAZON - FRONT PORCH ROMANCE - ALL ROMANCE

It's NaNoWriMo Time!!

Joining us today is Evie Gaughan, and she is sharing with us her plans for NaNoWriMo which I am sure many of you are currently following.  After a busy weekend combined with a cold, my NaNoWriMo word count stands at zero, but it will creep up a little later on today. 

The hurdle from the end of book one to the start of book two can often be a difficult one, so without further ado, let's hand over to Evie to hear about how she is managing that process and using NaNoWriMo as a way to focus.

The weather is getting chilly, Halloween has come and gone and there’s nothing much to look forward to until Christmas – no better time to write a novel!  November is the perfect time for National Novel Writing Month.  Writers all over the world can hibernate for 30 days and focus solely on trying to string together 50,000 words of a novel in a writing frenzy.

This is my first year taking part in the NaNoWriMo challenge and I am hoping to write the first draft of my second novel in one jam-packed, all-consuming month.  I can imagine myself in November, emerging from my literary cave, blinking in the bright Christmas lights wondering who I am, what I’m doing here, and resembling the missing link!  Still, I am looking forward to the experience for several reasons.

As many self-published authors are aware, it can be difficult to move on from the first novel because you get so caught up in the marketing of your book.  NaNoWriMo seems like the perfect spring board to move on – although you’ll have to ask me how I feel about that again when it’s all over!  Also, because you only have one month, I think it frees you up as a writer to abandon your usual writing technique.  This will be particularly interesting for me, as it took about 18 months to write my first novel, so I’m not sure how I’ll cope with not having time to edit as I go along.

Writing can also make for a very solitary life.  With NaNoWriMo, for one month of the year at least, you know there are thousands of people around the world sharing in your misery (did I say misery?  I meant creativity), which would warm the cockles of any lonely writer’s heart.  What’s more, you can connect with fellow authors on the forums to share ideas, inspiration and have the odd moan.  You can even meet up with real live people in your area for write-ins etc, so it offers a community feel to an experience that is often quite isolating.

Another benefit of taking part is the deadline and the discipline it takes to stick to it.  Being self-published means it’s oh so easy to avoid, ignore and forget deadlines.  Working from home means that the most mundane chores suddenly become an irresistible distraction; browsing the internet for funny cats becomes ‘work’.  It can be a challenge to maintain momentum when writing, especially when things aren’t going well and you feel like giving up.  That’s why I’m looking forward to signing up to NaNoWriMo, because it means I have to stick to my targets.  Not only that, but you have a whole team of pep-talkers, coaches and fellow writers cheering you on through each and every stage of your writing, which frankly never happens for the other eleven months of the year, so I’m planning to take full advantage. 

At the very least, I will have made a start on my second novel and as the website says “Your story matters!”  So enough procrastinating, it’s November… let the fun and games begin!

Evie Gaughan - Bio

 

Evie Gaughan is an Irish author based in Galway, a bohemian city that nurtured her creativity from childhood and provides much of the inspiration for her debut novel, The Cross Of Santiago. 

After completing a diploma in Marketing, Evie spent several years travelling between France and Canada before returning home to become a writer.  She has since published several short stories, poems and feature articles for local and national publications.
Currently working on her second novel, Evie's other passion in life is painting and she has a collection of work on exhibit in a local gallery. 

 

Follow Evie on TWITTER and FACEBOOK

Review sharing for Identity X

Reading a new review for Identity X is always fun and I really like this one!  This review is courtesy of K Ree at Kitty Muse Book Reviews (kathyree.wordpress.com) and can be found here.  But I am also sharing it with you below.  In other news, it's Sunday, it's late, my throat hurts and my nose is blocked, and there is a seven year old sat next to me who has also decided to write a book who needs my help, so forgive me, but the rest is copy and paste!  Enjoy!

"Persona non grata" is a phrase defined as "someone who is not wanted", in a nutshell. But what if someone decides to take that "not wanted" stigma a step much further?

Ben Stone becomes the target of such an ambition when, after a discovery of global proportions, he is suddenly, for all intents and purposes, wiped out of existence. The only thing that remains is the troubling fact that he is still breathing. Overnight, his lab, his work, his co-workers, and his very identity have all disappeared. Someone way up in the governmental hierarchy has gotten what he wanted, and is now hell-bent on making sure Ben gets erased.

But what this menace does not foresee is how very resourceful Ben is when it comes to surviving. Even though he is completely bewildered, with absolutely no idea of what has happened, Ben keeps his wits about him and eludes the bullets that rain down on him at every turn.

All too soon, though, with no one he can trust, and his options running out, Ben has but one choice-to trust the one person he thought he knew better than anyone. She risks her life to save his, along with the life of their son. But running like a low-voltage current through all of this is the one question: What happened to Ben's discovery? And what will the people who stole it from him do with it?

To be honest, my only regret is that I didn't read this book sooner. Ms. Muckley has a way with words that is in the upper echelons of writing. Her turns of phrase are so accurate and so descriptive-some of the best I've ever read. For example, at the beginning of the book, Ben is facing his peers, ready to announce his discovery. This is what Ms. Muckley writes:

He felt the weight of all great men before him who had stood on the same precipice of achievement, isolated in the solitary moment before the world learns what has been accomplished.

The book is rife with descriptions of this caliber. Her characters are so real that I could almost hear them breathing. Beautifully crafted, and it has an ending that just cries out for more. It was a total surprise, and, as they say, "therein lies another story".

More, please!

Author Spotlight!! Meet Quanie Miller

Quanie Miller grew up in New Iberia, Louisiana. She fell in love with reading at an early age and spent most of her time at the Iberia Parish Library discovering new authors like R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike (she was often found walking back home from the library with a stack of books that went up to her chin). She holds degrees from Louisiana State University and San Jose State University. She has been the recipient of the James Phelan Literary Award, the Louis King Thore Scholarship, the BEA Student Scriptwriting Award, and the Vicki Hudson Emerging Writing Prize. She loves writing humorous stories about strong willed, sassy women who can’t keep themselves out of trouble. She lives in Charleston, South Carolina with her husband and is currently, as always, working on another novel. 

 

Read an excerpt of It Ain't Easy Being Jazzy......

 

My best friend, Serai, invited me to her aunt’s seventy-fifth birthday party because she thought it was a secret ambush by her family that would end with her marrying some guy that they had found on Craigslist. “You have to come, Jazzy,” she begged me. “I think I saw a wedding gown in my mother’s trunk. They’re getting desperate.”

“You’ll find somebody. Besides, you can’t marry just anybody.”

“I don’t think they care anymore. It’s been too long since Chuck and I broke up and they’re starting to wonder about us.”

“Us?”

“Yes. You don’t have a man either.”

“That’s by choice!”

“I told them that even if I were gay, you wouldn’t be my type, but that only made Aunt Cleotha clutch her pearls.”

“Fine, I’ll go. But if the guy from Craigslist is cute, I have first dibs.”

 

 

Be friendly!!  You can follow Quaine in the following places

 

WEBSITE - BLOG - FACEBOOK - TWITTER - GOODREADS - EMAIL

 

And don't forget that you can also buy here book on AMAZON

The New Idea

Last Friday was a great day for many reasons.  Number one, it's bank holiday Monday coming up this weekend in Cyprus which means and extra day of weekend, which even when you work for yourself still feels good knowing that there is the chance of an extra hour in bed with no alarm call.  It was also the day when I finished the first edit of my next book.  It is no longer called Crazy Girl and now sits under a new file name in a version that is probably quite close to the finished product.  And finally, Friday was also the day when I came up with a new idea for the next story, and that is without doubt always an exciting time.

As part of ‘Operation Long Weekend’ the husband and I have found a love of YouTube documentaries.  It started off with a documentary about Ted Bundy, followed by the fattest woman in the world who was blamed for the murder of her nephew, and ended up in a much more promising place called Birth of the Earth.  As we are both science geeks we love a show about space, and this one was particularly interesting.  It explained how what started off as nothing but a cloud of gas and dust particles took the long journey to eventually become the planet we live on today.

This got me thinking that this process is quite like the idea for a book, and is much like my latest concept.  An idea always begins with a tiny snippet in the beginning, just like the dust and gas cloud.  Mine happens to be a countdown clock, or perhaps a board with numbers on that the whole world is watching.  As of yet, I have no idea why they are watching it.  I have no idea what they believe will happen when it gets to zero.  I have no idea even who is watching it.  But this idea has been floating around in the space of my brain for a while now, minding its own business.  It is still waiting for a supernova to strike and smash these dust like ideas into something of substance that can actually begin to become something more than a cloud.  Something that has substance. 

This is what happened in the first steps to create the earth, a huge injection of power, a shockwave that smashed into a cloud of gas and dust.  It compressed the gas and dust into a new star, the centre of a swirling mass of charged dust particles which over the course of the next four billion years underwent enough changes to become the planet we live on and the solar system we know as our own.  It took lightening to force the clumps together and chance collisions with other rocks.  When they became large enough gravity took over.  It held these clumps together until they were so large in size that the gravity was strong enough to drag these rocky lumps in on themselves to shift from an irregular comet shape into a spherical, early version of the earth.  But this is still just the beginning.

I am thinking about trying to bash this idea out in NaNoWriMo, but I have huge reservations.  It seems like a great idea at the moment.  One month, one book.  How can that not be a good idea?  But the process to form the earth took billions of years, and the destruction of other smaller early planets before our world became something that can sustain life.  Perhaps by trying to force a book out during NaNoWriMo, all I'll end up with is a rocky comet that doesn't grow large enough for it to ever become a planet, and fifty thousand words of an idea that never fulfil their true potential.

Options for getting your book reviewed

If you spend any length of time in a writers forum, or a discussion group it won’t take long before you come across a writer asking for reviews of their work.  In fact, many writers put as much effort into their solicitation of reviews as they do the writing of their books in the first place.  But why is it that we consider reviews to be so important?

When consumers buy a product, they naturally wish to do so with confidence.  They want to determine that their decision will represent value for money, and therefore often seek out the collective consumer opinion to see what it has to say about the product before they commit to buying it.  It makes them feel like they have done their homework.  This is also true when it comes to books.  Readers want to know what somebody else has to say about it before they consider reading it themselves.  In 2009, a Nielson Survey found that out of 25,000 respondents from over 50 different countries, 90% would trust the review of somebody that they know, and up to 70% of respondents would trust a consumer opinion posted online.    Consumers believe peer reviews to be credible and therefore use this information when taking a decision to purchase a product. 

But it is not just the consumer that uses reviews to gauge the value of a book.  Reviews also nurture online credibility and help to improve sales figures, which in turn improves rankings and product visibility with an online retailer.  I myself have noticed this sort of positive feedback.  When I receive a new review, it is often followed by a sharp sales bump and I consider this positive effect likely to be secondary to a more favourable position in search algorithms, with my book being shown to a greater number of online shoppers.  Therefore it doesn’t take much imagination to see why numerous positive reviews seem like an attractive option for an aspiring writer.

But it is also true, that should the credibility of these reviews be called into question, this can result in an entirely different perspective on the work.  This fact was detailed extensively last year in The Best Book Reviews Money Can Buy in the New York Times, August 2012.  It discussed the case of John Locke, a self published writer who had clearly understood the benefits of having many reviews.  In 2010 he solicited the services of the now defunct firm GettingBookReviews.com.  This company offered a paid service for writers to gather a set of reviews for a onetime fee, and Mr. Locke initially paid $1000 in return for 50 reviews.  Whilst he remained entirely confident in his work, clearly stating that all reviewers should feel free to express an honest opinion, and ‘freely admit if they did not enjoy his book’, readers would receive a lower payment should they not write a positive review.  One reviewer even admitted that she often read no more than a fifteen minute sample, such was the demand on her time, and desire to produce an adequate number of reviews to ensure her payment.  There was much criticism of this approach to reviews, not only from Amazon as demonstrated by their removal of many of these false reviews, but also from other writers who work honestly to carve out their own niche.   False reviews have the effect of diminishing the achievement of every self published author, those very authors that already fight against a predetermined industry belief that their work is of substandard quality, if readers cannot be certain of the genuine nature of the reviewer’s comments.

So as writers in a community where we crave reviews, and where it seems they might be the difference between our work remaining on the Amazon servers or arriving on consumer's kindles, what exactly are our options?

There are paid services that writers can employ, but which function entirely differently from the aforementioned paid services.  These are real reviews from well respected publications.  Kirkus was established in 1933, and has long since established itself as a dependable voice in the world of publishing.  It is not a cheap service, and by no means guarantees you a glowing report.  From $425 you can acquire yourself an editorial review which you can use in marketing, in letters to agents and publicists, and additionally have your work considered for inclusion in their own magazine, which is distributed to 40,000 industry professionals and consumers.  Another revered example of a paid review service would be Foreward.com, and their ‘Clarion Review’ service comes with a price tag of $335.  For this you will receive a 400-500 word review with a turnaround time of around 6-8 weeks.  Also worthy of note for all authors who have an impending release, is their prepublication review service which is free of charge and offers writers a chance to appear in the pages of ForeWord Reviews.  All submissions must be sent to them three months prior to publication.  This can be a useful service if you are hoping to generate some prepublication buzz about your work.  Inclusion however is not a guarantee.

Whilst these services are highly regarded, the price may render them inaccessible for many writers.  There is also no promise of a positive review, so it could be that after paying for the review you are left with an honest, but less than favourable evaluation of your work.  However there are other review channels that you can investigate that cost you little more than a copy of your book.

Reviewthebook.com will list your book for a fee of $25.  This fee will ensure that your book is available to their reviewers, a group made up of avid readers, and up to five of these reviewers has the chance to request your work.  The review is then listed in over ten different locations online, which could mean up to fifty reviews.  They accept either paperback or eBooks, and each time the book is requested you must send another copy of the book.

Readerviews.com offers a free review service, but numbers are limited and your book will only be reviewed if it is chosen by one of their reviewers.  They also offer publicity packages which start from $119, which guarantees you an honest review.  Remember, I didn’t say positive.  They will not post the review to Amazon, but you can use an excerpt yourself to post as an editorial review.

The Midwestern Book Review will consider your work for review.  You must furnish them with two copies of the finished book, a cover letter and press release.  If your work is chosen it will be reviewed and available in their online publications.

The San Francisco Book Review/Sacramento Book Review accepts a similar submission.  They will review books that have been released in the last ninety days, and you have to send them two copies.  This is not a guaranteed serviced either, but they also offer a sponsored programme starting at $125, which gives authors a chance to be professionally reviewed and subsequently promoted to a wide audience of potential readers.

Other than paid services you also have the option to approach people individually.  Through the channels of Facebook, twitter, and personal book blogs you can develop individual relationships with readers and potential reviewers, and whilst time consuming this stepwise approach may help to form excellent personal relationships with other writers and readers.  Book blogs are created by avid readers, and they are keen to receive complimentary copies for review, and will often post their review to the site of your choosing.  This individual approach works very well when contacting book bloggers, especially if you take the time to write to them personally and state why it is you have chosen them, rather than sending out mass emails.  Be sure to include a press release and contact details, so that should you get lucky and find somebody willing to review your work, they can blog about you and your book easily without having to come back to you first.  The validity of such reviews is on occasion questioned, as the provision of a free book is considered as a payment and therefore less likely to result in an impartial evaluation as the blogger may not want to appear negative or rude about a book that was provided to them for free.  However, many book bloggers take their blogging as seriously as a writer takes their writing, and want their own readers to value the content they choose to display.  Without offering an impartial and honest opinion, their readers would likely find somewhere else to read about books.

A final and very important note would also be to consider the use of giveaways.  Both www.goodreads.com and www.librarything.com offer the chance to set up pre-release giveaways.  Readers will request your book (eBook or paperback for Librarything, but paperback only for Goodreads) and after sending it to them they have the chance to review your book.  Not everybody who receives a copy is likely to review it, but you are likely to pick up some reviews from this process and generate a buzz prior to release day.

There are clearly many options available, and the options outlined here are just the tip of the iceberg, and it is important to remember that reviews are not the only piece of the jigsaw.  Even searching for J.K. Rowling’s latest offering The Casual Vacancy on Amazon.co.uk reveals a listing with 188 one star reviews.  Books sell with bad reviews, and other books which have nothing but praise from critics still fail to hit the mark for the reading public.  Ultimately, if you don’t enjoy what you write, you cannot expect to be convincing enough for others to enjoy it.  But, no matter how many reviews you seek out, there is one other type of review that will mean more even the most expensive review from the most hardened of critics; a glowing review that you didn’t chase and that you didn’t expect.  It will come, and when it does, it will hold a personal value greater than any number of solicited reviews because it will be from somebody that chose your book just because they wanted to.  These sorts of reviews, we might say, are priceless.

UPDATE 15.10.2013  I have come across another website that is a great resource for writers seeking reviews.  This is not a review site, but a listing of book bloggers who you can approach for reviews in exchange for a book.  The Indie View has a very comprehensive list and is worth a look.

 

Disclaimer

Michelle Muckley has no affiliation to any of the organisations mentioned, and the comments stated are the opinion of the writer and not supposed to reflect the opinion of the organisations listed. 

Introducing Elizabeth McKenna

To celebrate her latest release, Elizabeth McKenna is joining us here today and sharing an excerpt of her latest novel Venice in the Moonlight.  When she is not writing novels, she works as a full-time technical writer/editor for a large software company. Though her love of books reaches back to her childhood, she had never read romance novels until one Christmas when her sister gave her the latest bestseller by Nora Roberts. She was hooked from page one (actually, she admits it was the first love scene). She had always wanted to write fiction, so when a psychic told her she would write a book, she felt obligated to give it a try. She combined her love of history, romance and a happy ending to write her debut novel Cera's Place. Her short story, The Gypsy Casts a Spell, is available for free on her website http://elizabethmckenna.com/. She hopes you will enjoy her latest novel, Venice in the Moonlight, as much as others have enjoyed her previous works.

Elizabeth lives in Wisconsin with her understanding husband, two beautiful daughters, and sassy Labrador. When she isn't writing, working, or being a mom, she's sleeping.

A Story of Vengeance, Forgiveness, and Love

After her husband’s untimely demise, Marietta Gatti is banished from the family’s villa by her spiteful mother-in-law. She returns to her hometown of Venice and her only kin—a father she hasn’t spoken to since her forced marriage. Her hope of making amends is crushed when she learns she is too late, for he recently has died under suspicious circumstances. Grief-stricken, Marietta retraces her father’s last night only to discover someone may have wanted him dead—and she may be next. When the prime suspect turns out to be the father of the man she is falling in love with, Marietta risks her future happiness and her life to avenge the death of a man she once hated.

Elizabeth McKenna’s latest novel takes you back to eighteenth century Carnival, where lovers meet discreetly, and masks make everyone equal.

Read an excerpt.........

Nico shrugged in the French wingback chair they had placed by the fireplace for his portrait. He looked regal in a black silk suit trimmed in gold and a waistcoat of burgundy and gold leaf-patterned brocade. It seemed Raul had excellent taste in men’s fashions.

Marietta rolled her eyes before she settled in a chair behind the easel. “Please keep still while I draw.”

“May I talk?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.” Looking at him was going to be enough distraction. She didn’t need to listen to him also.

He ignored her request. “I have to ask—why Palladino?”

Marietta blew out an exasperated breath. “I can’t sketch you properly if you talk.”

“You could have chosen any man at the Consul’s villa. Casanova himself expressed interest in you, yet you leave with that pig.”

“It’s not what you think.” She compared her drawing to Nico and frowned. His shoulders were no longer in the same position.

“You didn’t have to suffer the man’s dismal lovemaking. What were you thinking?”

“We did not make love,” she replied through clenched teeth.

He continued as if not hearing her. “You’re the first woman in years that he didn’t have to pay, though he would never admit to his need for courtesans. I just don’t understand how you could find him appealing.”

“We did not make love.” She practically shouted it this time. “I’m not attracted to Palladino or any other man for that matter.”

This silenced him, gratefully, but only for a few moments. “Well, in that case, I know of a few courtesans that can accommodate you. I am told they are quite beautiful and skilled.”

Marietta threw down her charcoal and marched over to him. She grabbed his shoulders and repositioned him. “That is not what I meant and you know it.”

He smiled up at her innocently. “I didn’t mean to offend you, but you have refused my charms, so what should I think?”

She glared at him for her own benefit, knowing it would have no effect on the man. “You need to stop talking and moving.”

When he didn’t respond, she said, “That’s better.”

He lasted almost fifteen minutes. “So, what kind of man are you attracted to? Perhaps, I could suggest a few potential lovers.”

“How about one who has fewer conquests than fingers and toes? Or one that values honesty and fidelity over all else? Do you know any like that?”

From the thoughtful look on his face, he took this as an earnest question. “I’m afraid, Kitty, a man like that will be hard to find in Venice, especially this time of year.”

“Well, then, I guess I’ll have to go without.”

“How depressing. What will you do for amusement if you don’t take a lover?”

Marietta rubbed at her temples and decided she deserved more than the coins she’d already been paid. “There’s more to life than pleasuring oneself.”

“Really?”

“Yes, Signore, really.” She placed her stub of charcoal on the easel’s tray and rolled the stiffness from her neck and shoulders. “That is all for today. I have another appointment.” It was a lie, but she felt the need to rest and the bed in the corner was tempting her tired body.

 

Buy Venice in the Moonlight from AMAZON