Reviews - What's the full SP?

I've just read - and reviewed - Geoffrey West's Sheer Fear.

Amazon Review - Read Here

A terrific book. For fans of crime fiction with a difference, read any one of Geoff's three  Jack Lockwood books, of which Sheer Fear is the third, and you won't go too far wrong. He's around the Cauldron on Sunday.

Last week, I read After The Sucker Punch by Lorraine Devon Wilke. I have bored people stupid with my esteem for this book - I genuinely think that, with luck, it has the scope to go all the way to the top and make Lorraine famous. It is a beautiful piece of work.

http://greenwizardpublishing.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/after-sucker-punch-review.html

Georgia Rose's A Single Step and Before The Dawn  were consumed, both intricate, considered and beautifully written romances and lovely looking paperbacks for my shelf. 

Gladys Quintal's  Underserving, a tale of spousal abuse, which shocked me to the bone, with the darkest ending you will come across, was another notable read.

Many of you may know I am a big advocate of Terry Tyler's Kings and Queens, which is as good a novel as you will get - a wonderfully written, sweeping, combination of contemporary drama and updated historical fiction. 

I have also recently read Billie Jones/Rebecca Raisin's Mexican Kimono, which has the funniest opening fifty pages of any book you will read in Indie

Great books. Great stories. Great fun. I've reviewed them all and given them 5*. 

The authors are all my friends too, to a lesser or greater degree. It's the nature of the beast that is Indie, that we tend to become online friends with other authors and naturally feel like supporting them by reading their books. 

My tactic is to read, consider, make notes and review. I don't just skim read (however I DO understand why people do skim read in the Kindle age). 

It's a testament to how good self published authors have become that you don't get the complaints you used to about bad grammar, spellos, typos etc. They seem to have been wiped out - at least with the more experienced authors out there.  

It seems that authors who don't invest won't sell books and will end up clogging up FB pages and twitter feeds until they get bored and disillusioned and go away. The market will become more efficient over time with this.

I tend to give a lot of 5* reviews because, quite frankly, I socialise with writers online and I don't need the fuss. 

There are stories of harassment and threats and friendships-concluded-in-acrimony over reviews that you will not believe.

Not bothered about exact reciprocation either. For example, Geoff doesn't like my book The Night Porter and he was honest about it. He still gave me a respectable 3*. I can name two of the above list of authors who don't like at least one of my books, but they just didn't finish the book and it will never be spoken about again - the writer's version of the Elephant In The Room. I'm sure you have all come across it.

That's fine - it happens for many reasons, and, really, the only writer you should be trying to convince is yourself. 

But hey, if you look at the actual wording next to the 5* box when you are writing a review on Amazon, it says, "I Love It".

And nowadays, reading, for me, is a two stage deal. 

Either I dislike a book (as has happened fourteen times recently) and don't finish it, or I love it, (and in some cases, I love it enough to rave about it). 

Yet, I won't 5* a bad book because my online friend has written it, nor will I 1* a bad book.  Perhaps I should be nastier to bad books, but I don't need the fights in my life. 

That story this week of the author Katherine Hale who confronted (stalked?) someone across America that she considered a hater, a blogger who one-starred her debut novel, was a salutary tale of obsession and revenge. Life's too short and these are only novels.

Apropos of nothing. 

I am writing this because I would like to know what other people think? What are your thought processes? Do you demand exact reciprocation? Would you fall out with someone over a review of your work? Would you consider joining a bartering group?

My friend Terry Tyler has a slightly different approach to reviews, a blog well worth a read.

http://ukartsdirectory.com/terry-tylers-literary-blog-30/#comment-31888

Cheers

Mark

The Indielit Scrapbook 2012

http://www.scribd.com/doc/238984874/Independent-Paperback-Shop-Scrapbook-2012

Many followers of the Wizard and, particularly, the Wizard's Cauldron, will remember this, an attempt at a catalogue for Indie authors. 

It was a Facebook thing. In the days before Facebook restricted fan pages, it was a fantastic idea: I even had a page called the Independent Paperback Gift Shop. Actually, I still do, but the shop is boarded up and forlorn, because no-one ever sees it, thanks to their pay-firewalls.

Have a look if you have time. At the catalogue, not my page.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/238984874/Independent-Paperback-Shop-Scrapbook-2012

It's a useful historical document. There's humour, loads of books, a shedload of authors, a call to arms, and some hopelessly ambitious graphic design work carried out by yours truly. 

I enjoyed doing the scrapbook and had plans to continue, but several things put me off.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/238984874/Independent-Paperback-Shop-Scrapbook-2012

It was hard work and I'm not a graphic designer. I couldnt afford to pay for Corel or Photoshop etc (still can't). 

Then there was the people angle.  

Despite 25,000 downloads on Scribd, at least half the authors I showcased didn't bother contacting me again. 

They certainly didn't bother sharing it. I'm not even sure some of them ever opened it. And it was a massive effort: The catalogue was 47 pages long and, to be frank, I was bemused at the lack of politeness Indies displayed. 

Okay, it's not Hachette quality graphic design, but neither were the underground flyers that advertised raves, and before that, punk gigs. That was the essence of what I was aiming for.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/238984874/Independent-Paperback-Shop-Scrapbook-2012

Then there were the sales: No one - even the friends who I still have and who I made through this catalogue - reported improved sales of their books. 

So, weighing things up, I never bothered again.

Anyway, have a dekko. You might be in there. You might know some of the characters in there. 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/238984874/Independent-Paperback-Shop-Scrapbook-2012

I became massive friends with five or six of the authors featured in the scrapbook; on nodding terms with others, and (sadly) ex-friends with a few too. 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/238984874/Independent-Paperback-Shop-Scrapbook-2012

There are still others who I have never seen anywhere on social media. I have no idea whether they are still around, One of the books featured may have been a massive seller for all I know ha ha.

I am toying with the idea of doing this again, btw.