Are reviews such a good thing after all?

Let’s face it, us writers thrive on praise. We like nothing more than when someone comes up to us and says ‘oh my god why haven't you been published before?’ or ‘that book made me cry, the characters seemed so real’. Feedback is healthy for us, let’s us know what works and what doesn’t. Rob, one of my dear friends read the original Summerset and ripped it to pieces, pointing out it was grammatically incorrect, filled with typos and generally a mess – but the story was astounding! I cried for ages thinking that now my book was on general sale, I would be considered the Ed Wood of the publishing world – the writer who made her name by producing really crappy books. However Rob did me the biggest favour. I went away, re-read Summerset and realised everything he was saying was true. When I got the chance I re-edited, got rid of the mistakes, made it read in proper English, not South London English and I feel comfortable now knowing it is in the public domain looking like a ‘proper’ book.

This is all well and good coming from a well-meaning friend who only wants to see you succeed and not look like an idiot. However, when you put yourself into the public domain you suddenly open yourself up to all sorts of crazy people with agendas of their own. Another writer friend of mine, Kelly Moran has recently fallen victim to a reviewer on Amazon.com who has printed lies about her for the whole world to see. He hated the book, but that’s irrelevant, we’ve all got to expect that not everyone will ‘get’ us. What you don’t expect is the sheer hatred that some people will feel towards anyone that is getting on with their lives and achieving something. It seems this person is waging some sort of vendetta against Kelly and her friends, so no doubt he’ll see I’m connected, so I’m expecting a crap review of Summerset on Amazon any day now. Ce la Vie, if his life is that sad, so be it. Sometimes bad reviews can spark people’s curiosity.

I recall writing a very honest review on the site youwriteon.com and it’s never in my nature to be scathing, so I would have been constructive to this particular woman, anyway, a few days later, she did a free will review of my book Teenage Kicks, completely savaging it. She had no reason to do this, she hadn’t been assigned it, it was purely because I’d not been nice about her awful book. I feel if you’re going to be that sensitive to criticism, get out of the game cos not everybody’s gonna love ya! However, to deliberately target people and wage vendettas against them is just sick. Still, I guess it’s a warped sort of flattery; at least you’re important enough to bother with.

Ciao for now

Karen

PS: New game – celebrity truths. Have you ever based a character in one of your books on a real person? I confess that Bertie in Mad About the Boy was based on Will Young – there, I’ve admitted it. There are others, but I couldn’t possibly reveal them yet!

Is it all worth it?

I'd like to know if these feelings of self-doubt are normal. I'm not sure what else I can do to attract people to my book. I'm sending a copy to Borders because apparently they stock self-published books, but I'm so down I'm convinced they'll take one look and think it's crap. I am also worried because they haven't send my order for Two Become One. Lulu can be a bit rubbish at getting back to you and I'm worried that I've wasted ten quid.

I've done 5 CD Roms for distribution around Oxfam shops, but I'm so cheesed off and down on myself I'm convinced they won't even want my freebies.

Perhaps I should just go back to writing as a hobby.

A Brave New World

In the words of Jeff Wayne, this is indeed a 'Brave New World' (I am a complete War of the Worlds geek). Ever since my friend Alice suggested to me in 1993 that I should consider publishing my work, I have chosen the traditional route of writing, printing, packing in brown envelopes and sending off to publishers and literary agents who won't even read what I've sent. So this year (I think the fact I'm approaching forty is prompting me to get moving) I have decided to take matters into my own hands and have published my own books, Summerset and Mad About the Boy. Summerset was received quite well, but as with most self-published authors it was only bought by friends except for one e-copy that was bought by a nice lady on the internet.

Mad About the Boy is such a rocking book that I have decided to conduct an all out marketing campaign to make sure people are made aware of it and buy it for goodness sakes!!!! Not exactly being rich, I haven't got money to spend on fancy PR campaigns and I'm certainly not prepared to prostitute myself by hawking my work around uninterested radio stations and book shops. No, I am determined to make MATB one of the first books that receive a following purely from the net (except the copies I'm sending out to magazines, but I'm not talking about that).

A whole new world has opened up to me: Ebooks, viral marketing, blogs indeed. I have created a teasing trailer for Mad About the Boy and placed in on You Tube in the hope people will see it and be beside themselves with curiosity as to what it's all about and this will draw them to my site. So far I've had 50 hits and only about 30 of them have been me myself!! I've forwarded it onto all my Facebook friends and they say they'll put it onto people's funwalls, but I'm not holding my breath.

Today I have invested some of the money I've made with MATB on some blank CDs, labels and jewel cases and have decided that I am going to go down the ebook route. Unfortunately I'm not clever enough to sell downloads from my website, so people who want to read it in the US or wherever are going to have to go via lulu.com. But my UK customers can read Summerset on their PDAs wherever they go. I'm going to give away 10 free copies at work and secret another 5 in various second hand shops.

Let's see if it draws me the audience I deserve............