I’ve been traveling, but you may not have missed me because I discovered how to schedule posts to appear automatically on certain dates—at specific times. How cool is that? I simply wrote several blog posts before I left and scheduled them to go live every other day or so while I was traveling. I hope you found them useful.
Before I left for the Cat Writer’s Conference in Dallas last week, I also spent quite a bit of time contacting book reviewers to let them know about my latest mystery novel, Cat-Eye Witness. And a few times while traveling, I found new reviews posted at Amazon. As you will notice, if you go to this book page at Amazon, not every reviewer agrees. While I’ve had five 5-star reviews—five reviewers have given high compliments to this book—there are also reviewers who did not care much for the book. It’s true—I have a 3-star, a 2-star and even a 1-star review for Cat-Eye Witness.
The first in the Klepto Cat Mystery series, Catnapped, came out earlier this year and has racked up twenty-six reviews. Fifteen of them are 5-star reviews and there are also 1, 2, 3 and 4-star reviews. The thing is, everyone has an opinion and they don’t always agree. But I notice that reviewers and other readers of fiction are much more subjective than those of nonfiction.
My nonfiction book, Promote Your Book, has thirty-four reviews and twenty-nine of them are 5-star reviews. All but one reader/reviewer gave Publish Your Book a 5-star review.
I want to learn what I need to know in order to write good fiction. I want to know how my novels are being received. But it is difficult to determine whether you are hitting the mark with your work when readers and reviewers don’t agree.
From some of the comments I receive, both in posted reviews and from the mouths of readers and critics, I’ve come to realize that life events and experiences as well as perspective and attitude play heavily into our opinions and judgments when it comes to the books we read. There are many countless personal factors that determine our opinions and views. I’m beginning to understand that reviewers and readers of fiction scrutinize fiction from a more personal perspective based on things they’ve seen, experienced, feel, etc.
Do you write fiction? Have you received a wide range of comments, critique and reviews from your various readers? Are you going crazy trying to figure out if your book is good, bad or mediocre? I think we should all relax a bit when it comes to the reviews and comments we receive. Let’s celebrate the accolades and avoid dwelling on the criticism, except that which provides useful/helpful insights we can use to improve our work.
So why continue to reach out to reviewers? Why ask readers to post their reviews at your book’s Amazon site? For the same reason you write articles/publish stories related to the topic or genre of your book, go out and speak on the theme of your book, do book signings and book festivals, write a blog, have a Facebook page and so forth. It’s called exposure. Reviewers and bloggers often post their comments at their own sites and other sites as well as Amazon and this brings even more attention to your book.
Would love to have you share your experiences and thoughts on book reviews for fiction.