It's been nearly a week since I posted sample chapters of The Surrogate online. A week of checking how many hits and downloads I've had. A week of constant promoting and tweeting and posting on Facebook to see how many more people I can reach before the launch of my book on 11/11/11 (just in case you didn't know). All in all I feel pretty satisfied with what has happened. I've nearly 250 reads on Scribd. Over 400 page views on Smashwords and I'm currently sitting on page 691 of the most downloaded free ebooks under 25,000 words written by people with the initials C J! (Not quite the initials part, but the rest is true).
It's been exciting watching people view by book. Up until last week, just two people had seen The Surrogate in any shape or form. Now I've been read by more people than have read The Tape Worm Revolution, Sperm-jackers and Red Devil Crochet Pattern for Halloween (although I think the latter might overtake The Surrogate in the next few weeks). One thing that appears to be missing though is a review. I have lots of Facebook likes, but they don't really sell the book now do they? If they did, sales of people's status would be dominating the charts at Amazon.
So how does one get a review? Send multiple copies of links to online reviewers? Which reviewers would be interested in reading my book? Where do I even send them to? As an indie author, I think the answer lies closer to home. We need to review each others work. I need to get off my own egocentric little cloud and go and read other people's work and hope they repay the compliment. Being an indie author has it's responsibilities and one of those is to support others in the community.
But there are problems with doing this. A lot of E-books I've been reading don't really fit into my category. I know very little about erotic fiction or young adult or paranormal romance. That's not to say I don't appreciate the talent and hard-work that goes into such books, I simply don't know the literary conventions. Give me a crime novel or romantic comedy and I'm fine, but I want to extend myself beyond those boundaries.
For all our differences as writers, there is one thing in common that we should look at when reviewing another's work. Is it a good story? Do I want to read more? If the answer is yes, then say so. If the answer is no, then lie...no, be honest. Tell somebody why it doesn't work for you. At the end of the day, we're all unique individuals looking to write the best story that we can and any feedback we can get, good or bad, is invaluable.
So off I go to read some of the fascinating variety of written texts on the world wide web and maybe, just maybe, crochet a Red Devil for Halloween.
C J Evans
Reviews are tricky. You don't want to do tit for tat b/c readers don't trust it. But I agree we should review other indies when we can.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I think reviewing one persons book and getting them to review yours lack integrity. What I do think is that by giving other people's books attention we can raise their profile somewhat.
ReplyDeleteCheck out Goodreads.com. Lots of groups and threads on there for getting reviews.
ReplyDeleteThanks Stephen. I am registered with Goodreads.com but haven't really looked on there in depth.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that there's any erosion of integrity implied by having one writer review another's work. We are independent writers, after all, and part of that means we make our own decisions on what to read as well as what to write.
ReplyDeleteI would be happy to read your book, CJ, after I get through a bunch of others. In the meantime, read mine whenever you feel like it.
Thanks Scott. I think there are some good points on either side of the debate, which is why I wrote the article in the first place. I tend to use my real name to review other peoples books rather than the pseudonym C J Evans I publish under. Once my book is out I'll be launching a second blog doing some reviews and I'll check yours out.
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