A GOOD REVIEW? OR A HATCHET JOB? – Black Velvet Seductions

You have spent a year writing your book. You consult beta readers and spend maybe another year in edits. A cover artist has worked with you to give you the look you want. You have worked on promo material, and now your book is ready to launch. Reviews seem to be the holy grail and at the same time the catch 22. You want people to read your story and give their honest opinion to either Goodreads or preferably Amazon. As authors, we are always looking for honest yet flattering book reviews. A good number of five-star reviews can make the difference between your bookmaking sales, or sitting on the shelf. The question is how do we get those reviews? We ask our families if our book isn’t too racy, and we have a network of friends. The thing is we need to go broader than that. We give our promo, Kindle copies of our books in the hope of getting the reviews and find we need and we broaden our network.

It does raise another question, what happens if you get a review that seems overly harsh? How do you handle that? This book has been your point of focus for all this time, and in moments someone has made you feel like your crafted writing is so much scrap paper. Personally, I have been lucky with my reviews, but I do to an extent regard it as luck. To fellow authors I say, as important as reviews are, good or bad, they are opinions. The more poisoned comments often say more about the writer of the review than your story. To reviewers, I would like to say these words of W. B. Yeats.

The Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heaven’s embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light;
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

A couple of our latest stories are on NetGalley, looking for reviewers.

Patrick by Callie Carmen.

Perilous Love by Jan Selbourne.

Naval Maneuvers by Dee S. Knight.

If you have anything you would like to add or share, I’d love to hear your comments here on the blog, the BVS Facebook page, or my Facebook page. We have a twitter page too, and we are always happy to follow people that follow us.