book review, Lewis MacLeod, indie writing

Blog 3: A Writer’s Love-Hate Relationship With Reviews, by Mollie Hunt, Cat Writer

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#3: A WRITER’S LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH REVIEWS, by Mollie Hunt, Cat Writer

 

This is the third in a six-week blog tour series for the Northwest Independent Writers’ Association.  NIWA serves Pacific Northwest writers working to achieve professional standards in independent writing, publishing and marketing.

 

 

For a writer, there is nothing more satisfying than having their book receive a great review. Conversely, there is nothing more painful than receiving a bad one. Still, reviews are part of a writers’ life, and the best way to deal with them is… well, we will get to that a bit later in this post.

 

Obtaining reviews:

 

First off, you need to get reviews. Reviews matter. If you collect enough Amazon reviews and star ratings, you attract more attention from the all-powerful Amazon algorithms. I don’t know that number—I certainly have not reached it with any of my books, but people do.

 

Reviews may be acquired in many ways. You may solicit, buy, bribe, or cajole. Any way you can convince readers to spend that extra minute letting others know how they liked your book is on the table.

 

Amazon isn’t the only place readers leave reviews. I stopped by my Goodreads page the other day to find Cats’ Eyes, the first book in my Crazy Cat Lady Cozy Mystery series, had three times the reviews it has on Amazon. Who knew?

 

Professional reviewers are an option. They promise an honest, in-depth summary and review posted to several sites. Some pros are free, such as Readers’ Favorite (They have both a free and a paid option) Others you have to pay for, and they aren’t cheap. If you go this route, make sure the company is one that people read and admire. A review off on some obscure website isn’t going to do you much good. Note: I’ve never paid for a review. For me, I don’t think it makes that much difference.

 

Reviews from friends and family are great, but Amazon may kick them off, especially if the Big A decides the review is from a social media pal.

 

There are many reviewer sites that will give an honest review on their blogsite in exchange for a copy of your book. Google reviewers and your genre and see what comes up. I know of several for my genre, cozy mysteries. If they agree to review your book, make sure to give them plenty of time, and let them know when if you need it by a certain date, such as for a prelaunch. Don’t harass them, but if you don’t hear in a reasonable amount of time, an email check-in doesn’t hurt.

 

 

How to use reviews once you have them:

 

Don’t let your good reviews just sit there doing nothing— work them! There is a place on your book’s Amazon page for reviews. People read these, so it’s a good idea to fill them in. Keep it short— remember, most people (including myself) have the attention span of a gnat. Use only highlights of the review, and always credit the reviewer.

 

I also add a few of these summarized reviews in the front matter of my book, or sometimes on the back cover.

 

Don’t be shy. Put out good reviews in your newsletter or in a blogpost. Always include a direct link to the book for shoppers.

 

 

And now, what about those bad reviews?

 

There are various ways to deal with the eventuality of a bad review. You can read it, take it to heart, and try to learn from it, or you can ignore it. I personally try not to read the nonsense, but sometimes it’s funny. I had one reviewer dislike a book because my character didn’t vacuum enough. With all those cats, she said, Lynley should vacuum a whole lot more. Now really! Do you want to read about someone vacuuming their house? Still, the comment inspired me to add a little more vacuuming content to my subsequent books.

 

You can get bad reviews for several reasons having nothing to do with your book. Some people are just mean and have nothing nice to say. You need to remember that others may think very differently than you.

 

Do you have enemies? An evil ex? A jilted lover? A jealous friend? Sometimes these will go after a writer by leaving bad reviews. On Amazon, there is a link to a “Report Abuse” page beneath the comment where you can take steps to have the review removed, but it’s not always an easy task. You can also add your own comment in reply to a review.

 

 

Takeaway:

 

Reviews are necessary. A few times a year I put out a plea on my Facebook Author Page asking readers to fill out reviews. I remind them it doesn’t need to be complicated: “I liked it,” is enough.

 

Do unto others… Reviews work both ways. Have you reviewed the books you’ve read lately?

 

 

Watch for my next post, #4: RESEARCH RESOURCES—YOUR GATEWAY TO AUTHENTICITY, coming the week of April 19-25 on the Tanstaafl Press, Thomas Gondolfi blogsite.

 

Check out this week’s other participating NIWA blogsites:

 

About Mollie Hunt: Native Oregonian Mollie Hunt has always had an affinity for cats, so it was a short step for her to become a cat writer. Mollie Hunt writes the Crazy Cat Lady cozy mystery series featuring Lynley Cannon, a sixty-something cat shelter volunteer who finds more trouble than a cat in catnip, and the Cat Seasons sci-fantasy tetralogy where cats save the world. She also pens a bit of cat poetry.

 

Mollie is a member of the Oregon Writers’ Colony, Sisters in Crime, the Cat Writers’ Association, and NIWA. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and a varying number of cats. Like Lynley, she is a grateful shelter volunteer.

 

You can find Mollie Hunt, Cat Writer on her blogsite: www.lecatts.wordpress.com

Amazon Page: www.amazon.com/author/molliehunt

Facebook Author Page: www.facebook.com/MollieHuntCatWriter/

@MollieHuntCats

 

Mollie Hunt & Tinkerbelle, Registered Pet Partners

Book Review: Moon Over London by Shawna Reppert

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It’s back to Victorian London for the second outing of the Werewolves and Gaslight series, with the unlikely sleuthing trio of Detective Inspector Royston Jones, Catherine Fairchild (a.k.a. Dr. Charles Foster), and Richard Bandon. Jones is the bastard son shunned by his wealthy family. Fairchild is a champion of women’s rights but finds that her society makes her practice alchemy under the guise of a man. Bandon is an aristocratic scion who must keep his true identity as a werewolf secret or be expelled from his family.

This is a society where the class to which you belong means everything, and the lowest class is werewolves—often denied employment and their most basic rights, seen by many as sub-human.

Now werewolves are disappearing at an alarming rate. Jones suspects they are being abducted, experimented upon in ghastly ways, and murdered. He enlists his colleagues in a frantic quest to apprehend the culprits before more victims are lost.

The setting in old London, the vocabulary and pacing, all lend authenticity to the writing. But don’t be mistaken. This is not merely a steampunk, urban fantasy take on the Conan Doyle/Sherlock Holmes archives. As in the first book in the series, A Hunt by Moonlight, Reppert has crafted an allegory for our current day, critiquing the way we treat our most marginalized citizens. Both entertaining and thoughtful, I give this novel an enthusiastic five stars. Here’s the link: Moon Over London

A Book Review of “Earth Crosser” by Lewis MacLeod

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“Genius Software Engineer Bertram Koslosky, aged thirty-eight years, would probably have missed his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to destroy the planet if he had not had a gob of vanilla doughnut icing stuck to his thumb.”

So begins the always funny, sometimes laugh-out-loud hilarious, story of a brilliant and quirky group of eccentrics who decide to bring down to earth a mineral-laden asteroid and become trillionaires.

The cast of characters includes Bertie, Mal, and Meebs–disgruntled geeks of Pro Con Enterprises; Jessica “Casabas” Moonflower–“Entry Level Receptionist and Telephone Message Mangler” of said corporation; Valeria Tamoritskaya–low level data screener for the Russian Ministry for International Technical Uniformity (read: for industrial spying); and Sister Brigid Patroness (a.k.a. Naked Bree)–former member of the Death to Serpents! cult in the Arizona desert.

These Asteroid Associates are on a mission which will make them all astonishingly wealthy or destroy all life on planet earth.

MacLeod has done it again. Following close on the heels of his funny and acerbic history of World War II in The Brawler, Earth Crosser presents his send-up of corporate America, industrial espionage, politics, and religion. The writing is fast-paced and the story is wildly unpredictable. I can’t remember laughing so hard reading a book since Dave Barry’s The Lunatics.

My only cautionary note: be careful where you read it. Laughing out loud in the food court at PDX drew some very suspicious glances from fellow travelers.

Check out MacLeod’s extensive bibliography on Amazon. Click here to read a free sample of Earth Crosser.