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Author: Iola

I provide professional freelance manuscript assessment, copyediting and proofreading services for writers of Christian fiction and non-fiction books, stories and articles. I also review Christian novels at www.christianreads.blogspot.com.

Best of the Blogs

Best of the Blogs: 12 August 2017

Best of the Blogs—the best posts I’ve read this week on writing, editing, publishing and marketing your book.

Writing

Plot Problems

First, Kristen Lamb is back with her usual sensitive discussion on we can improve our writing. No, wait. Kristen does kickboxing, not sensitive (and she might call this post Six Simple Reasons Our Story Sucks and How to Fix It, but fixing a story which sucks can be anything but simple).

Six Simple Reasons Our Story Sucks & How to Fix It

Characterisation

One of the “rules” of fiction is to write characters our readers can connect with. But there is an exception to every rule. In The Importance of Infection in Fiction, Sarah Callender uses the movie Dunkirk to suggest an exception to the connection rule. She says:

Dunkirk reminded me that it’s not the amount of character development or back story that pins me to my seat. It’s the degree to which I am infected that matters.

Have you seen the movie? After reading this, I’m not sure I want to …

Self-Editing

Janice Hardy at Fiction University shares Improving Your Writing Without Raising Your Word Count. She identifies several ways we can make our scenes overly wordy without adding anything of substance, and how we can revise our work to fix that. (That sentence is twenty-six words long, and is a good example of the flab we editors love to trim.)

Publishing

America Star Books (aka Publish America) appear to be in trouble—they have published just two books since May (compared to up to fifteen a month in previous years). They are no longer accepting submissions (although, strangely, the submissions page at the supposedly defunct Publish America is open).

Of course, this isn’t a bad thing (except for the unlucky authors caught in their web). The world would be a better place without publishers like America Star Books and Author Solutions. As usual, Writer Beware have all the details.

Marketing

Back Cover Copy

Ask any author, and they’ll tell you writing those 100 words to go on the back cover of a book is infinitely harder than writing the actual book. In Blurbs, Back Cover Copy and Pitches, Oh My! Harlequin Love Inspired Suspense Author Lisa Phillips shares her tips.

That’s it from me for this week. What’s the best post you’ve read recently on writing, editing, publishing, or marketing?

Best of the Blogs

Best of the Blogs | 5 August 2017

Best of the blogs—the best posts of the week on writing, editing, publishing, and marketing your book.

Writing

Opening Hook

How to Make a Grand Opening is a great post from Tina Ann Forkner visiting Writers in the Storm. We all know—as readers and as writers—that those opening paragraphs are vital. In this post, Tina explains what needs to be included. A lot—which is part of the reason they are so hard.

How to Make A Grand Opening

Show, Don’t Tell

We all know the rule: show, don’t tell. We even know why it’s bad. What can be harder to understand is the sometimes subtle difference between the two. In Showing Versus Telling: So SHOW Me Already! PJ Parrish visits The Kill Zone Blog to show us.

It’s long, with several examples, but it’s one of the best posts I’ve read on the subject.

Christian Fiction

Lee Tobin McClain addressed an important question for Christian writers at Inspy Romance: How Racy is Too Racy? She shows a before-and-after version of a scene from her new Love Inspired release. The editor queried the scene as being out of line with their standards. It didn’t seem that racy to me, but Love Inspired is known for their conservative storylines and content. What do you think?

Marketing

Book Marketing Checklist

Tim Grahl, author of Your First 1000 Copies and The Book Launch Blueprint, is back with another great freebie. The Book Marketing Checklist is a 45-page pdf download of (I imagine) pretty much everything you need to think about in marketing your book or books.

Yes, it’s a list. And I know some of you don’t like lists because they only tell you what you need to do, not how to do it. If that sounds familiar, I have a couple of suggestions:

  • Follow my blog on Feedly or your favourite RSS feed app, so you don’t miss any of my more detailed how-to posts.
  • Subscribe to my newsletter, so you’ll get a heads-up the next time I run my Kick Start Your Author Platform challenge (click here to subscribe).

Book Reviews

Jason B Ladd, author of Book Review Banzai, visits The Creative Penn to explain How to Get Book Reviews as an Unknown Author. He makes some great points (and I must read his book).

https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2017/07/29/how-to-get-book-reviews-as-an-unknown-author/

Facebook

I know next to nothing about Facebook advertising. The one thing I do know is that if you are using Facebook advertising, or intend to use it in the future, then you need to install the Facebook Pixel on your website.

If that’s gobbledegook to you, then you need to read this post from Social Media Examiner:

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/facebook-pixel-install-use-guide-for-marketers/

What are the best posts you’ve found this week on writing, editing, publishing, or marketing?

Best of the Blogs

Best of the Blogs: 29 July 2017

I’m back with best of the blogs, the best posts I’ve found this week on writing, editing, publishing, and marketing. What’s the best or most useful post you’ve read this week? Let me know in the comments.

Writing

Conflict in Romance

In Conflict – Avoid the Easy Route, posted at Romance University, editor Julie Sturgeon looks at conflict in romance. She explains how getting the internal conflict wrong can leave you with a grown-up version of “Green Eggs and Ham”. Oops.

(As an aside, Andrea Grigg uses exactly this trope in Too Pretty, but without coming off like an adult Dr Seuss book. At least not in my view).

Characterisation

How to Write Characters Who Don’t All Feel the Same is an excellent post from Janice Hardy at Fiction University on showing character traits though dialogue, dialogue tags, and action.

Janice is the author of Understanding Show, Don’t Tell. I haven’t read it yet, but one of my clients credits it with cutting her editing bill in half. After reading this book, she did another round of intensive self-editing on her manuscript (including cutting 25,000 words to go into a sequel). As a result, I was able to complete her edit for half my original quote. It made it a much more enjoyable job as well!

Editing

I was interviewed by Christine Dillon about my role as an editor. Do you have any burning editing questions you’d like me to answer?

Iola Goulton – interview with an editor

Marketing

Website Design #1 (Big Picture)

As well as being a freelance editor, I’m also a book reviewer. As part of my reviewing activities, I like to be able to link to an author’s blog, add their brief bio to a review, link to their books on Amazon, tag them in a post on Twitter and so on.

It’s amazing how often I can’t do these things because the author doesn’t have a Twitter account or hasn’t set up an Amazon Author page or (worse) doesn’t even make their books available on Amazon.

These authors are missing out on free publicity from me (and probably from other reviewers as well) for the simple reason that they haven’t taken the time to set their basic passive marketing up properly. Most authors claim to loathe marketing ,which is all the more reason to do this part well.

After all, if you can get other people (readers and reviewers) talking about your book to their friends, that’s even more powerful than you talking about your book.

Author Jami Gold has recently updated her website, to make sure she was doing all these basics right. In this blog post, she explains what she’s done, and why: To Make A Reader Friendly Website.

Yes, I know this is a list of activities without any explanation of how she has done it. Don’t worry—I’ll cover as much as I can over the next few months in my Wednesday blog posts. In the meantime, follow my blog on Feedly (or your favourite reader) or subscribe to my monthly Newsletter to ensure you don’t miss any posts.

Website Design #2 (Detail)

Ever wanted to add quotes to your WordPress site (like Bible quotes, quotes from your books, quotes from books you’ve enjoyed …). This blog post explains how you can add quotes using a free WordPress plugin. Very clever!

https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/how-to-display-random-quotes-on-your-wordpress-website-in-4-easy-steps

How Do Successful Authors Market their Books?

BookBaby have released a survey on what successful authors do in terms of marketing. The survey was completed by 7,677 published or aspiring authors in October and November 2016.

There are some interesting results, such as the table comparing the activities of successful authors ($5,000 or more in annual book sales) vs. unsuccessful authors ($100 or less in annual book sales). What would be more interesting is understanding the return on investment (ROI) of these activities—especially the high-cost-no-guaranteed-return activities such as hiring a publicist.

There were also interesting comments on soliciting reviews. Successful authors were more likely to ask book bloggers for reviews, while unsuccessful authors asked friends and family. This is significant: Amazon will delete reviews from people they suspect of having a financial or personal relationship with the author, which defeats the purpose of asking friends and family for reviews.

Also, it’s not good marketing. If I look at a book on Amazon and notice that two of the five reviewers have the same last name as the author, I’m going to assume those are reviews from family members—especially if the author has a less common last name (e.g. Goulton). And I’m going to ignore the reviews, because I know they are biased.

http://blog.bookbaby.com/2017/07/how-independent-authors-promote/

What reviews do you pay the most attention to?

Interview by Christine Dillon

I’ve just been interviewed by Christine Dillon, a missionary and author who is currently in the final stages of publishing her first novel.

 

We discuss my journey into editing, and what an editor does. She also asks me about my own writing, and about my volunteer roles with Australasian Christian Writers and other writing organisations.

 

Click here to visit her website and read the interview.

 

And watch out for Grace in Strange Disguise by Christine Dillon, which releases in November 2017!

Best of the Blogs

Best of the Blogs: 22 July 2017

Writing

#AuthorToolBoxBlogHop

This week was the monthly Author ToolBox Blog Hop hosted by Raimey Gallant. Over twenty writers shared their tips on writing, editing, publishing, and marketing. Erika Timar has helpfully compiled a listing of all the posts—and there are some good ones. I’ve included a couple of my favourites in this post.

LM Durand presents 35 ideas for marketing your book on Instagram.
Kristina Stanley shows how to open a scene.
ML Keller shows us when and how to transform telling into showing.

Song Lyrics

I’ve seen a lot of blog posts about whether authors can use song lyrics in their books (short answer: only if the song’s writer has been dead for over seventy years).

In Should I Use Song Lyrics in My Writing?, published at The Steve Laube Agency blog, Christian literary agent Tamela Hancock Murray suggests we’re asking the wrong question. We shouldn’t be asking “can we?”. Instead, ask “should we?”

Marketing

Marketing Must-Haves

Chris Syme shares a short post introducing her three marketing must-haves for newbie authors. At the risk of stealing her thunder, I’ll tell you what they are:

1. An author website with a URL that matches their author name (e.g. www.iolagoulton.com).
2. An email list.
3. A Facebook business page. No, your personal profile isn’t good enough (click here to find out the difference).

Chris goes into more detail about each of these in her marketing books, all of which I recommend:

SMART Social Media for Authors

Sell More Books with Less Social Media 

Sell More Books with Less Marketing

 

Marketing Plan

Everyone tells us we need a marketing plan. There are even some internet templates to help you write one. Unfortunately, most are so long it looks like writing the book would be quicker.

In this short post, Joel Friedlander takes us through the five essential questions that need to be answered in a book marketing plan (actually, substitute “customers” for “readers”, and it will probably work in other industries).

Missing Lettr

Over the last two weeks, I’ve written posts explaining how I use the paid versions of Buffer and Social Jukebox to manage my social media sharing. There are other tools, such as Hootsuite and CoPromote.

Missing Lettr is another tool. It allows users to promote blog content over the next year. The free version allows users to share one campaign (i.e. blog post) a week, from one website to one social media profile.

Smart Bitches Trashy Books are sharing a limited-time promotion on Missing Lettr’s paid plans—6 months for the price of 1. The cheapest paid plan (Personal) is usually $15/month, and allows users to schedule four campaigns a week from up to two websites, to four social media profiles.

It’s a good deal, and I might be tempted if I wasn’t already using the Power Scheduler and Buffer’s Awesome plan ($10/month) to achieve the same result. Let me know if you sign up for Missing Lettr—I’d love to know how you find it.

MissingLettr Social Media Campaigns: 6 Months for the Price of 1

That’s all for this week! Which post did you think was the most interesting?

Introducing SocialJukebox

Introducing SocialJukebox | An #AuthorToolBoxBlogHop Post

Last week I talked about how I use Buffer as my main tool to manage my social media sharing. This week I’m talking SocialJukebox, the tool I for ongoing sharing of evergreen posts (posts that aren’t time-sensitive).

What is SocialJukebox?

SocialJukebox is pretty much what the name says: a jukebox, but with a modern spin.

SocialJukebox started as TweetJukebox. Users created Tweets and added them to a vitual “jukebox”, which randomly posted Tweets during predetermined times. When everything in the jukebox has been posted, it starts again. And again. And again, until you turn it off or the zombie apocalypse wipes out the interwebz. Read more

Introducing Buffer

Introducing Buffer

What Is Buffer?

Buffer (www.Buffer.com) is one of many programmes that allows users to manage their social media posting. Other popular options include Hootsuite and MeetEdgar. I like and recommend Buffer because I think it has a better user interface than Hootsuite, and it’s not as expensive as MeetEdgar.

Buffer Plans

Buffer’s free plan allows users to post to:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Google+
  • Instagram

The free plan allows up to five accounts—one from each network—and allows you to share up to 10 posts per network. This could mean one post a day for ten days, or ten posts every day (although then you’ll have to reload your Buffer each day. If you’re sharing this often, you might benefit from a paid plan).

The Pro Plan

I subscribe to Buffer’s Pro plan, which costs USD 15 per month and is awesome (Buffer don’t have an affiliate scheme, so I’m not being paid for saying that). The Pro plan gives subscribers access to eight social accounts across six social networks—the five networks available on the free plan, plus Pinterest.

The Awesome plan allows users to queue up to 100 posts in each social media buffer (so that’s 1,000 posts in all). They’ve obviously changed the rules a little, because my personal limit is 12 accounts, and up to 200 posts. Moral of the story: subscribe early, to get the maximum benefit for the minimum cost.

The Pro plan is designed for individuals—there are also a range of business plans starting at USD 99 per month (with a 50% discount for registered not-for-profit organisations). For more information on these plans, see their Pricing page.

How do I use Buffer?

Buffer is one of the tools I use to enable me to post to social media when I’m not actually on social media. I use a tool called Freedom to lock me out of social media for most of the working day. Buffer posts during the day instead of me, posting content I’ve added ahead of time. There are two types of content I share through Buffer:

  • My own content (e.g. blog posts)
  • Curated content (quality blog posts from other people)

Curated Content

I subscribe to more blogs than I care to admit through Feedly. Each weekday, I scan my Feedly feed and check out the titles of all the posts that have come through. I’ll read those which interest me, and pick a few to share. (This is why it’s important to have a catchy blog post title.)

But I don’t want to clog my social media feeds by sharing everything at once. Instead, I click on the downloadable Buffer extension. From here, I can choose which of my linked social media accounts I want to share to, and can write an individual message for each network.

I can write different messages for different social networks.

This is important when it comes to post length and hashtags. Twitter limits posts to 280 characters, while the limit (!) on Facebook is 63,206 characters. Two hashtags are ideal on Twitter. Instagram allows up to thirty, and Facebook … well, Facebook allows hashtags but they haven’t really caught on. #AndMostPeopleDontKnowHowToUseThemAnyway

However, if I share to a Facebook profile, a page, and a group, each one will show the same message. I can share the same post to two different Facebook pages with two different messages, but I’d have to share the post twice—first to one page, then to the other. This isn’t hard—it takes about 30 seconds per post.

If the post is time-sensitive (e.g. a book giveaway), then I’ll ask Buffer to “Share Next”. This means my queue is rearranged so this is the next post shared on each network. Otherwise I’ll “Add to Buffer”, which means the post is added to the end of my queue, and will be shared at different times to different social networks depending on what other posts are in my queue.

My Own Content

I use Buffer to share my own blog posts to my social media profiles. With my own content, I usually elect to “Share Next”.

Buffer also has a Power Scheduler tool so you can share the same post multiple times. Note that Power Scheduler can’t be used to post to Pinterest and Twitter

The premise of the Power Scheduler is related to a time management principle: Don’t Trust Your Future Self

Your future self won’t remember to promote your old blog posts on a regular basis, but you can act now and set the Power Scheduler do it for you.

You can achieve a similar result through a WordPress Tweet Old Posts plugin, or using another app, MissingLettr. I’ve tried both, and found Buffer’s Power Scheduler is quicker and easier to use than MissingLettr, and easier to customise than a plugin.

What about reposting in perpetuity, not just for a year? I use Social Jukebox for that, and I’ll talk about that next week.

Being Social on Social Media

Using Buffer means that when I visit a social media network, I’m visiting to check notifications, respond to comments, thank people for mentions, and generally interact. I’m not there looking for something shareable—I’ve done that already, and I know my social media tools will deliver that for me.

Instead, I can use social media for the purpose for which it was originally intended—to be social.

Do you use Buffer or other social sharing software? Do you have any tips or tricks to share?

Best of the Blogs

Best of the Blogs: 1 July 2017

Last week was all writing craft, and this week is marketing (well, almost all marketing)!

Marketing

Branding

First, two linked posts from Kristine Rusch on branding and discoverability. There are a lot of things that make sense in here (including a brief explanation of why non-fantasy readers like myself still love the Harry Potter series).

She quotes Lee Child on his Jack Reacher series (which I’ve never read, but apparently a stunning 70% of Child fans will buy his next book, because they know what they’re going to get:

There are two components of loyalty: one is the author and the second is the subject. If you like the author but you’re uncertain of the content of the next book, that’s an obstacle. It runs counter to the literary view of writing that values originality and growth. Jack Reacher is the same person in every book.

(However, she also points out that some readers will abandon the series for the same reason: that Jack Reacher is the same person in every book. The lack of character growth gets stale.)

She also quotes a Codex Group survey, which states:

consumers are willing to pay a 66% premium for a book by a favorite author over an unknown author.

This is why new authors often discount their first book (or make it permanently free): to attract the new reader in the hope their book turns that reader into a paying customer. It’s not platform: it’s brand.

Business Musings: Brand Loyalty 1 (Branding/Discoverability)

 

Brand vs. Writing to Market

Author Rosalind James expands on this idea, saying that if we brand ourselves as authors and write to that brand, we won’t need to get stuck in the “churn” of writing to market.

Facebook

First, do you have a separate Facebook author page? Social Media Examiner tells why you should.

BookWorks have a tutorial especially for authors.

If that’s not enough detail for you, BookBaby blog has a series. It’s older, but the steps haven’t changed.

http://blog.bookbaby.com/2011/06/facebook-for-authors-setting-up-an-author-page-pt-1/

http://blog.bookbaby.com/2011/06/facebook-for-authors-setting-up-an-author-page-pt-2/

Facebook Header Videos

What has changed recently is that you can now use video in Facebook headers. In An Exciting Opportunity for Your Facebook Author Page, non-techy author Jebraun Clifford shares the 8 steps she took to create her own video header.

She also got a shout-out from Chris and Becca Syme at the Smarty Pants Book Marketing podcast (listen to the whole thing for an excellent discussion on recent changes at Facebook, or listen from 20 minutes to hear them discuss video headers).

Writing

Yes, I know I said this week was all marketing. But I couldn’t resist including this excellent post from the Reedsy blog. Learn What Irony (Really) Is and How To Use It discusses three types of irony and gives examples of how they have been used in writing, cinema, television, and on stage.

 

What’s the most interesting post you’ve seen online this week?

 

Best of the Blogs

Best of the Blogs: 24 June 2017

Best of the Blogs: the best posts I’ve read this week on writing, editing, publishing, and marketing.

Although mostly on writing, thanks to the #AuthorToolBoxBlogHop hosted by Raimey Gallant. (Click here to read my contribution to the blog hop).

Writing

Passive Voice

What’s The Deal With Passive Voice, from ML Keller, is one of the best posts I’ve ever read on passive voice—what it is, when it’s bad, and when it’s not so bad (hint: it’s not removing every was or to be from your manuscript).

Point of View

Point of view is a huge issue for writing. With beginners, it’s understanding that third person is not omniscient, or that headhopping an issue. (Adding a *** every three lines doesn’t make it a new scene with a new POV character.)

In Deep Point of View, K Kazul Wolf shows how to write deep point of view. As she points out, it’s nebulous and hard—it’s moving beyond ‘rules’. You can make a ‘rule’ not to use filler words. But it takes skill and hard work to move from “they fought” to showing the reader the fight.

Micro-Plotting

Micro-plotting is David Farland’s term for ensuring you’ve got all those nitty-gritty details in your story that ensure your readers are engaged with your character, and that your plot makes sense. Confused? Read the post.

Writing Christian Fiction

Blog posts from Mike Duran at deCOMPOSE always get me thinking. In The Importance of Implicit (v. Explicit) Christian Content in Fiction, he explores the trend for Christian authors to write for the general market. Duran introduces Holly Ordway’s idea of a “two-step conversion”: moving first from atheism to belief in God, then to embracing Christianity.

He points out that many Christian novels focus on this second step (or feature characters who are already Christians), and don’t address the necessary first step. Duran says:

While a work of fiction may not explicitly articulate the Gospel, it can still contain implicit elements which engage a person’s imagination and move them forward in their spiritual pilgrimage.

http://www.mikeduran.com/2017/06/the-importance-of-implicit-v-explicit-christian-content-in-fiction/

Not Writing Preachy Characters

It’s not just Christians who overdo the preaching in their writing. In this post (also from the #AuthorToolBoxBlogHop), Raimey Gallant shares Five Ways to Temper the Preachy in Your Plot. She’s not talking about religious preaching, but about the issues preaching—the environment, assisted suicide, political views …

I can think of a general market romance author I stopped reading after her novels detoured from straight romantic suspense with a touch of comedy to romantic suspense with a heavy dose of gay rights. I could have lived with a gay couple (hey, I can skip pages I don’t want to read). What I couldn’t live with was the preachy telling. Remember the show, don’t tell rule? Well, this author switched to tell, don’t show, and it did her message no favours.

I’ve recently read a Christian romantic suspense novel where the heroine was All About The Issue in a way which made Erin Brockovich seem like a disinterested lightweight. I couldn’t like the character even though I agreed with her stance, and that made it impossible for me to enjoy the novel.

Marketing

Craft Your Self-Publishing Plan for Success: Tips From an Indie Author is an outstanding case study from author Laini Giles, visiting Your Writer Platform. Giles takes readers through her publishing objectives, and how she worked to achieve them. What I thought was especially clever was how she identified her target audience, then marketed to them—including attending events her target reader would also attend.

One learning point: for all her success, she wishes she’d started building her email list earlier.

Craft Your Self-Publishing Plan for Success: Tips From an Indie Author [A Case Study]

Productivity

Book coach Nina Amir is also a Certified High Performance Coach. This week, she gives solid tips to reaching your writing goals (and not making excuses).

How to Blog No Matter What Life Throws Your Way

What blog posts have you read this week that are worth remembering?

Four Types of Authors Who Shouldn’t Read Reviews

Four Types of Authors Who Shouldn’t Read Reviews

Should authors read reviews?

That was the question Jordan Dane posed at The Kill Zone blog last week. I also saw the same question addressed in an author Facebook group I’m a member of, and (indirectly) on Seth Godin’s blog.

Three times in three days. That must be significant …

I’m not yet a published author, so haven’t yet had to face this decision for myself. But I do have a lot of experience from the other side of the question: as a reviewer. I’ve reviewed around 900 books on Goodreads, and most of those reviews have also appeared on other sites: Amazon, my blog, and other retail sites.

My reviewing experience leads me to believe that not all authors should read reviews of their books. Here are some authors who shouldn’t read reviews of their books.

Authors Who Forget Reviews are For Readers

Reviewers don’t always agree (you can see that by reading the reviews to any great work of fiction). But one thing we do agree on is that reviews are for readers. Not for authors.

As reviewers see it, the purpose of an online book review is to share information which might persuade a like-minded reader to read the book … or not. And either is a valid conclusion. It takes several hours to read an average novel, and a good review takes a while to write, and to post. Especially if you cross-post across several sites, as I do.

Reviewers aren’t doing this to please authors. Reviewers do not exist to promote your book for free (although some do). If they are, it’s skirting close to Amazon’s definition of a “promotional review”, which is then at risk of being deleted.
No, reviewers review for themselves, and for like-minded readers. They do it for fun, for free.

Authors Who Focus on the Wrong Things

As Seth Godin points out, if there 100 glowing five-star reviews and one stinking one-star review (or even a well written three-star review), we focus on the negative. We ignore the positive, even when it’s overwhelming. It’s human nature.

Yes, some reviews are unfair. Some reviews are written by people with issues. Some people should be banned from the internet because they seem unable to communicate online in a mature and adult manner. In an ideal world, everyone would love everything we write and our reviews would be all fluffy unicorns and rainbows.

But life isn’t fair. Everyone has issues. And the world would be a better place if some people were prevented from ever sharing their opinions again (including most politicians, celebrities, and especially reality TV stars). No writer can appeal to everyone. Not even JK Rowling.

The critical reviewers probably aren’t your target reader. So we need to ignore the naysayers and focus on the positive reviews. If we can’t do that, we shouldn’t read reviews.

Authors Who Are Seeking Validation

If we’re reading book reviews to validate ourselves—as a person, or as a writer … just don’t. My worth as a human being is entirely separate from some random reader/reviewer’s opinion of my book (or my blog post). So is yours.

Just because someone doesn’t like your book doesn’t mean they don’t like you. And vice versa. Some of my closest writer friends write fantasy—a genre I have a lot of trouble enjoying. That doesn’t mean I don’t like them as people. It doesn’t mean they aren’t good writers. It just means I don’t enjoy the genre they write.

Authors Who Respond to Reviews

This is one of the first rules of being an author: don’t respond to reviews. Don’t respond to positive reviews—it can look needy and stalkerish (as if you’ve got nothing better to do than read and comment on reviews). And don’t respond to critical reviews—that never ends well for the author.

This should seem obvious. Yet just this week I was checking the Amazon reviews of a book I was considering buying and I saw the author had commented on the top-ranked review. The review basically said the self-help book contained no new information on productivity for writers, and that the author’s suggestion writers give up coffee and chocolate was unrealistic.

I thought this was a helpful review—there is no way I’m giving up coffee or chocolate on anything less than do-it-or-die orders from a doctor. So there is no point in me even considering a book with this recommendation. It’s not helpful.

The author didn’t agree. She copied and pasted a five-star review that said the book had helped the reviewer.

I’d already decided not to buy the book (see above points about coffee and chocolate), but now I’m hesitant to buy or review any of her books. I don’t want an honest review to come back and haunt me if she takes issue with my view should it differ from hers. (As it does. I don’t believe authors should respond to critical reviews. She obviously has no issue with the idea).

So Should Authors Read Reviews?

If you can read reviews of your book without becoming one of “those” authors, then yes. Otherwise, it might be best to ignore reviews, or get someone to vet them for you.

What do you think? Should authors read reviews of their books?

This post is part of the June 2017 #AuthorToolboxBlogHop, a monthly blog hop for authors who want to learn more about being authors. Posts are related to the craft of writing, editing, querying, marketing, publishing, blogging tips for authors, and reviews of author-related products. The hop the brainchild of Raimey Gallant. To find this month’s posts: