Tag Archives: Reviews

That’s What He Said

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I use to use google reviews as ways to check out new businesses. They aren’t scammy like yelp. But right now my company is trying to get google reviews. And boy are they pushing it.

“Look at this as an opportunity to practice promoting yourself” said my boss. He knows that I’ve published books, and that I’m struggling with getting noticed, reviews, and basically anything that says ‘hey look at me, I wrote this, you should read it’.

And he isn’t wrong.

It’s incredibly difficult to draw attention to myself, or anything I do. It goes against everything I was trained… stay unseen. Stay unheard. Your opinion isn’t valuable. No one cares. You’re not worth it. No one likes you. No one will ever love you.

So I find myself confronting all these things I heard for all of those years. And some days I make little breakthroughs and I can say ‘see, I did this and I think it’s good.’ (Well, mostly I say I think it’s ‘okay’ because I don’t want to disappoint anyone.)

And other days I freeze. The words get stuck on my tongue. I want to run, hide, cry, and just get everyones attention off of me somehow, anyway possible.

I recognize that this was caused by years of abuse. I recognize that the whispering in my head telling me that no one cares, and no one wants to hear what I have to say isn’t right. DEPRESSION IS A LYING BASTARD!

Half the struggle is recognizing this. Before I knew why this was happening I let my fight or flight system kick in and I would retreat. Get quite. Go unnoticed. After 30+ years of practice I’m really good at it.

But I don’t want to be that person anymore. I want to write, and I want to share my stories with people. I want to know that my words will live on even when I’m gone. I want to inspire others to follow their passions, and their loves.

And really… I don’t want to be broken anymore. I don’t want what he did to me to be what dictates my life from here on out. This is my life, and I am worthwhile, and I have something amazing to say. People do want to listen to me. They do want to talk to me.

So… I wrote a book. And I’m really proud of it. I hope you read it some day.

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Poster?

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I am thinking about offering a free poster to anyone who reads and reviews on of my books.

Wouldn’t matter which one, though I might offer two posters to anyone willing to rate and review “Small Bites- The Complete Collection” when it comes out next week.

If I did, which of these covers would you like as a poster?

And I am considering with, and without the words… So Small Bites 4 would be just the bird in the tree branches, with a little tag line at the bottom of where the images came from.

And I would also be signing them before shipping.

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The Importance of Leaving Reviews

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I support a lot of indie industry. Indie game designers, indie music, even indie companies.

There are a lot of platforms to get these things out. Games are the easiest with Steam, Xbox, PSN, iOS and Android market places. Companies and product makers have Kickstarter, Etsy and Ebay. Musicians have iTunes, and other platforms. Even indie film makers have a wonderful platform on You Tube.

You can tell quickly if you enjoyed one of these products, and their platforms make it incredibly easy not only to get the new games, music, or film, but to rate them as well.

The rating system is front and center with most of the platforms, and many games have pop ups reminding you to review. Several have emailed reminders to review, or account information that includes a “awaiting feedback” page.

Books, on the other hand, do not. It may be weeks or months from the time you buy a book to the time you finish it. If you have a hard copy you may not even remember to review it later when you’re near a computer again, and leaving a review via your phone is clunky and awkward.

Amazon sometimes sends out reminder emails, but they are usually right after purchase, and getting to the “items you’ve purchased” page isn’t always easy, especially on phone or tablet.

The easiest way I have found to write a review is just to search for the title I want to review and go to the reviews from there. This is sometimes a problem since there are several versions of different books.

Amazon needs to add an “awaiting review” page, and it would be amazing if they’d send out a reminder email a month after I buy it with “did you like this?” Until they do, let me just say this: Your reviews matter.

Writers, especially unheard of indie authors, really make it or break it because of reviews. Good, honest reviews are incredibly important for them, and sometimes hard to come by.

If you read a book or ebook and you loved it, or even if you kind of liked it, let other people know. Tell them why. Write a review so others can find the little gem you enjoyed.

Don’t be afraid to email authors and let them know specifics either. We authors love to hear why you liked something, or why it didn’t work for you. In this ebook era I, personally, like to know when somethings off so I can quickly fix it. (It’s so easy to get a name mixed up.)

Many authors can be reached through Twitter, Facebook, and personal blogs, too. Many of them have very interesting and insightful (non book/writing related) things to say.

For more information on how you can support and help your favorite new authors get noticed check out this article.