Authors: Reviewing Reviews Part 3 of 3 - Review$ by “Professionals”

I’ve discussed reviews as entities

http://crdowning-author.blogspot.com/2017/03/authors-reviewing-reviews-1-review.html

I’ve discussed the “who” of the reviewer

http://crdowning-author.blogspot.com/2017/03/authors-reviewing-reviews-2-of-3.html 

Today’s blog compares two reviews of a manuscript that awaits publication. The working title of the book was The 5^th Page. It is a full-length detective novel with “my private detective,” Phil Mamba as the primary protagonist. The title most likely to be in place when it does find the light of day is Betrayal in Blue. Below is a collage of the current idea iterations of both book covers.

I’ve spent over 18 months on this manuscript. During that time, numerous hours and at least 20 handwritten, single-spaced pages of edits from two people that edit professionally were incorporated. A page-by-page professional proofread of next to final edit of the manuscript completed the production process.

I paid for two pre-publication reviews. My expectations were much more than “at least one phrase/sentence” I could use in publicity for these reviews.

One review is from Kirkus Reviews, the superstar reviewing service in publishing. They now review “indie” work, so I ordered a review.

The second review is from Apex Reviews. More on this quality company later.

Komments on Kirkus

I took advantage of a $50 off the regular price for this review.

The process was swift, less than eight weeks from submission to release of the review. This was quicker than the “usual” wait time quoted by the website.

Michael Valinsky, Editorial Assistant, Kirkus Reviews, contacted me before sending the manuscript to a reviewer to ask if it was part of a series. It is, but it stands alone, too, so there was no need to research the previous book. I was impressed by this contact.

If you didn’t skip ahead, I invite you to read Kirkus’ review now. If you’ve already read the review, these “comments” continue after the screenshot of the review.

I was disappointed when I first read it. While I don’t consider it a good review, I am less disappointed now that time has passed. In some respects, I find it hard to consider most of the verbiage a review at all; my opinion of that aspect of the review is disappointing.

There is enough of the plot described to convince me that the reviewer read the book. The “gets clogged with extended back stories,” “some word choices and expressions do not [work],” and “it’s hard to keep track of all the players without a score card” are fair unfavorable opinions. Conversely, “the use of italics for characters’ first-person stream of consciousness in an otherwise third-person story works” is the only example of a clearly favorable opinion.

The bulk of the printed “review” is descriptive. While the tone varies throughout, there is nothing overtly positive in this review. Even the final sentence is an enigma.

Accolades for ApexReviews.net

In stark contrast to the Kirkus review, Apex Reviews review is one hundred percent review.

I chose the “express review” option the offer and submitted the request and payment of $49.00 on 8/31/16. The review was completed on 9/26/15.

Here’s what I got for my money. From http://www.apexreviews.net/Submit_Your_Book.html

Please find below all the features included in the Express Review package:

• Review completed within 2 weeks (after the book is assigned to a reviewer)
• Tear sheet in PDF format (a review you can use in whole or excerpts, with credit given to the reviewer and Apex Reviews)
• Your review posted on Goodreads, Barnesandnoble.com, other online retailers featuring your book. Your review can also be posted to Amazon.com
• Your review announced on our Facebook & Twitter profiles (15,000+ friends & followers)
• A press release announcing your review distributed to our highly popular PRLog Channel, syndicated to hundreds of media outlets worldwide

Also included in the Express Review package is a customized Author Feature page, including all of the following:

• Your photo
• Your bio
• Your website link
• Your Facebook link
• Your Twitter link
• Your other social media links (e.g. Instagram, Pinterest, Google +, etc.)
• Your book's Amazon purchase link
• Your book's cover photo
• Your book trailer
• Your completed review

The 5^th Page is not yet in print, so my “Author Feature page” is not up.

If you didn’t skip ahead, I invite you to read Apex review now. If you’ve already read the review, these accolades continue after the screenshot of the review.

This review

• gives away nothing of the plot of the book.
• describes the action succinctly with enough detail to encourage a reader to uncover more herself/himself.
• includes references outside the scope of novel that frame the storyline in historical context.
• Most of the unfavorable aspects from Kirkus elicit a completely different reaction in this reviewer.

“Combining well-developed, unforgettable characters – Mamba chief among them – and a thoroughly researched, meticulously crafted tale, The 5th Page is both informative and entertaining, which adds to its page-turning appeal. Downing proves himself a masterful storyteller as he mixes fact and fiction in seamless fashion, throwing in just enough action and suspense to keep the reader hooked until the very end.”

If I end up self-publishing this book, I will use parts of both reviews in the marketing.

Foremost of the quotes from the review will be some portion of the above quote from Apex, along with the concluding sentence

“A highly recommended read.”

I’m not certain what part of the Kirkus review I will use. Most likely it will include something from the first two or three sentences of the review and the final comment. Kirkus has specific guidelines for using excerpts from their reviews. I’ll have to run my excerpt past them before I use it.

Lessons Learned about Reviews

·      Reviews are essential in today’s market. Amazon’s search algorithms are skewed to books with high numbers of reviews. In October of 2016, Amazon made a sweeping change in their review acceptance policy. It is now illegal to post a review that was obtained from a reviewer who received a discounted price on a product in exchange for the review. However, this is the final line in the press release from Amazon.

The above changes will apply to product categories other than books. We will continue to allow the age-old practice of providing advance review copies of books.

No mention is made of exchanging books with another author for reviewing purposes.

·       One reviewer I found required an Amazon gift card in the amount of the price of the book for her review. I got credit for a sale and a review, too.

·      Outside of writing your books, obtaining reviews will most likely be the hardest thing you do as an author.

·      Giving away hundreds of eBooks has netted me a total of two reviews I can positively trace to that strategy.

·      If your book is a good one, and enough people buy your book, reviews will come. I cannot predict the rate of reviews per 100 books sold for you. I doubt anyone can.

I wish I had a more successful strategy to offer for this thorn in the flesh, but I don’t.

 I offer this cliché in conclusion. It has been attributed to many, including Albert Einstein. However, the quote is probably apocryphal.

A definition of INSANITY

Continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Next Author’s Blog will start a series on Lessons Learned By And From Young Authors.

Follow me on Twitter: @CRDowningAuthor and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CRDowningAuthor

My website is: www.crdowning.com

I'd appreciate your feedback!

Email me at: chuckdowningauthor@gmail.com

Almanac: Back to School Nights – My memories as a student

In the first part of this series, I described what Back to School Night was like for teachers. Here's the flip side.

I remember only one “Back to School Night”—AKA “Open House”—from my K-8 days. I’m sure the schools had one every fall. I remember the one I remember because of what my 6^th-grade class did that night.

It was the school year of 1961-1962. My 6^th-grade teacher was Mr. Richard Leffler. He was cool. We did lots of innovative things in our class.

Some of us designed a bomb shelter for the school. We included all kinds of amenities: movie theater and separate “houses” for families. We also included an exercise area because President Kennedy was pushing the first nationwide physical fitness program.

We collected all the leftover milk from lunch for at least two weeks. We used huge plastic trashcans as dumpsites for the milk. After wheeling those to our room, we used dill pickle jars to scoop the milk out. We graphed the data. I have no idea what ever became of our experimental data.

We recorded the script for the puppet show we put on at Back to School Night. We’d built marionettes out of paper mache, cloth, and cardboard. The puppeteers were live that night, but the script was all pre-recorded with jungle noises, etc.

I remember only my first line, which was the first line of the play. Spoken in the fake British accent of an 11-year-old, it went

“’Old on to everything, Soggy Noddle, old boy. We’re going down the Amazon!”

The other time I remember being involved in Back to School Night as a student was in my junior year in high school. Mrs. Helen Tubb was my teacher. She’d been my 10^th-grade teacher, too—that’s relevant as you’ll see.

We were studying Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at the time. I was selected to give Anthony’s Funeral Oration.

I changed from my school clothes into a toga, flip-flops, and a headpiece of some kind in her office. The oration was delivered from the hallway outside our English room to the throng, 20-40 parents, standing on the sloping grassy area between classroom buildings.

An Unrelated Aside

I was pretty much a model student. I did all my work and usually completed it before the due date. I recall getting in trouble once. One of my buddy’s and I managed to get a bathroom pass at the same time from Mrs. Happle in 5^th grade.

Being 10-year-old boys, it shouldn’t surprise you that we ended up doing more that #1 or #2 during that trip. We alternated standing on the toilet seat and flushing the toilet with our foot. As the “woosh” of water echoed throughout the concrete and tile facility, we swayed back and forth as we feigned being sucked down into the sewer by the flush.

Big fun!

Mrs. Rushing was the Principal of Spring Valley Elementary at that time. Little did we know that she wandered the hallways. She barged in while we were goofing off.

I was mortified.

End of Unrelated Aside

Aside #2 - Relevant to the situation

For reasons I cannot explain, Cindee Harrsen found herself seated directly in front of me in several classes. That was the case in Mrs. Tubb’s class as 10^th-graders.

• Armchair desks were in columns with room to walk between the columns on both sides of the desks.
• During the course of classes on many days, I would provide commentary to Mrs. Tubb’s lectures under my breath but directly into Cindee’s ear. She tolerated my nonsense until one of two things happened.
• She snickered at something I said.
• She turned around and told me to be quiet. She might have said “shut up,” but I remember her as a polite person so I’ll go with “be quiet.”)
• In either case, she got in trouble.

I, on the other hand, remained the stalwart student.

End of Aside #2

While I was proclaiming,

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.

BTW, even though I copied and pasted this from a website, I did have it all written down except the last two words before I copied and pasted.

Cindee and her accomplices snuck into Mrs. Tubb’s office and removed my school clothes. Whether that was with or without Mrs. Tubb’s approval remains a mystery to this day.

I don’t remember what my final cost was to retrieve my dignity. I don’t remember driving home in a toga, so I figure she “kindly” returned my outfit before I left school that night. However, that could be a false memory.

Here’s what she wrote in my yearbook that year. Sorry for the poor quality of the scan. I let my high school students look at my yearbooks for 31 years.

 

Here's what it says. Chuck, This year has been so quiet without you to cap on me. I bet all your classes were awful boring without me, right? I know with you quarterbacking four our football team, we should take 1st place (well, as long as I'm lying about how great you are I thought I do all the way) Just you wait - some day you'll be sorry for everything you've said and done to me (ava cava and all - including the junior car wash) Well, since your yelling at me to stop - I'll quit. Hope we have some classes next year - thought I'd liven your life a little. Have fun this summer, Bye, Cindee Harrsen P.S. I hope you find your pants. You look kind of funny without them. Of course you look funny any way. You can get of my popularity with females high school was universal by reading the first couple of lines of the next yearbook entry.

Next Almanac – I don’t have a clue.

Follow me on Twitter: @CRDowningAuthor and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CRDowningAuthor

My website is: www.crdowning.com

I'd appreciate your feedback!

Email me at: chuckdowningauthor@gmail.com

Authors: Reviewing Reviews – 2 of 3, Reviewing the Reviewers

In my last Author’s blog, I presented to very different reviews of the same book. The book was my first published novel, Traveler’s HOT L – The Time Traveler’s Resort. Here’s the link to that blog if you’d like to review or read it before continuing.

This article is part two of the three-part series. It’s titled, Authors: Reviewing Reviews – 2 of 3, Reviewing the Reviewers. Keep reading, and you’ll find out why.

What follows is a dissection of each review in turn. I removed pieces of the review and comment on each. The post ends with a section titled, Comments and Conclusion.

Booklife Review: 10/1/14

A rundown hotel hides a HOT L (Harmonious Overlap of Time Location), a nexus for time travel, in a series of stories that lack the execution to deliver on the premise. Debut novelist Downing’s conceptual framework is ambitious, sending readers into a medieval historical, two crime stories, and the book’s own alternate-universe sequel, but there’s nothing new in these familiar settings. PI Phil Mamba tries to catch a murderous politician in his past and inevitably ends up altering the future; no one believes the boy who says that his dolls can speak when, of course, they can. By the time Jesus is referred to as a temporal anomaly, it’s all too much, especially given how often explanations of theory and verbose descriptions (“he spoke with tenderness tinged with resignation”) slow the narrative. The recurring characters who direct the HOT L lack personality, limited to droll remarks and clichés such as “smooth the now-wrinkled time fabric.” Nearly every opportunity to treat these concepts originally has been missed. (BookLife)

Dissection: [Note. I wrote what follows as a “dissection” two weeks after that review was published. It still reflects my feelings quite well. See the comments/conclusion at the end of this post.]

My first reaction was disappointment. I can’t imagine anyone not being disappointed after receiving what is, essentially, a dismissal of a project of theirs.

Everyone is entitled to her/his opinion. This individual clearly does not like my style of writing. That’s fair—it is, after all, an opinion.

However, I am now somewhere between perplexed with and angry at some of what is written—because some of it is wrong.

Points.

No one ever goes back and does anything to change the future. Both Mamba and Michael restore the original timelines. This is more than a technicality. No future is altered. This is a point of angriness.

In Battle, three individuals are described as having disappeared from the timeline before Rose goes missing. Jesus disappears from the timeline. He’s never referred to as a temporal anomaly. It is the Ascension that is referenced. His presence on Earth is never questioned. A second point of angriness.

I think this is wrong. Most reader comment on the originality of the ideas. Specifically missing from the statement in the review is any mention of:

·      The method of travel. Ripples, DNA stimulus,

·      The fact that only specific items travel. No artifacts in either direction, consequences for taking artifacts.

·      The fact that travelers return to original timeline with a real time lapse for the time they miss in nearly all cases.

·      The fact that they don’t know how this all began. The premise of DNA Trek.

Collectively, these comprise my third point of angriness.

I disagree. Each character has a unique personality that is reinforced in every story. Chronos is a bit of a tease. Eternity is a literalist. Epoch is a legalist. Tempus is learning how to co-exist with humanity. However, this is now my opinion. It is a point of perplexity.

I guess the bottom line is still disappointment. But now, that disappointment is the lack of content integrity of the review. Much of what is written is a misrepresentation of the book.

Review by TimeTravelNexus <This is not the complete review. The selection illustrates what I want to emphasize. This entire Amazon review is available at https://goo.gl/pE9bmL. The full-length review is on the TimeTravelNexus website: https://goo.gl/BJAazz. I think you’ll find that this selection is balanced in its content.>

…No, there's no missing "E" to make "hotel" - the "HOT L" is the "Harmonious Overlap of Time Location" and is the backbone of the brilliant time travel mechanism which is described most fully in the first short story. The following stories refer back to this - and even build upon it in some cases.

Time is described as a fabric which consists of interweaving threads and which can fold over itself.  Time can also be considered as a pool which suffers ripples.  Such imagery is used fully and allows for some wonderful reasoning behind why (and how) characters travel in time. It's one of the best descriptors of time that I've read and is definitely the high point of this collection!

Three of the eight stories really incorporated the time travel element well  - the first with an explanation, another with a time travel tourist, and a third with its 'discovery' and development…

Time travel, or the link to the HOT L, in the other five stories seemed to me to be rather tenuous, or superfluous. For example, by casting a character back in time for a second shot at something which could just as easily have been covered in the first version of the time line [sic] in the narrative, or by tacking it onto the end of a story which would have been just fine without it.

Dissection: [Note. I wrote what follows as a “dissection” of this review for this post, five months after it was published.]

My first reaction was, “Wow! This reviewer gets it!” It’s obvious that he read this book focusing on the time travel aspect. He goes into detail about every story.

I was pleased to read this. Following this review, I did a written Q/A interview for a companion website https://www.time2timetravel.com/tag/cr-downing/ where I explained the development of the ideas behind the stories.

I agree. J I have problems with most time-travel processes. In most cases, the travelers come and go without ever being “gone.” In addition, materials and devices from the past and the future flit back and forth without little or no restriction in function. There are no checks and balances involved in the process. None of those “problems exist” in my time travel mechanism.

I agree here, mostly. Most readers are unaware that all the stories were not originally time travel stories. Three of the stories could not exist without the time travel component, although the amount of time travel that is described in Michael Casey O’Brien is minimal. Million-Dollar Mistake originally ended with a “storm” sending the counterfeiters back in time as a form of unexpected justice. Although I tweaked that time travel method, it’s always been time travel story to me.

I agree. The remaining stories were massaged to include a time travel component because I needed stories for the book. I added the time travel element to the other stories in what I felt was an adequate amount. This reviewer, who has a broad understanding of the elements of a time travel story, saw through my ruse. However, readers of my book who aren’t diehard sci-fi lovers like the variety in story format and genre. Many continued reading the other books in the series because of that.

Comments and Conclusion

If you’re going to do a review of a book,

1. you should have some “feel” for the genre. The Booklife reviewer seems to have limited understanding of Sci-Fi as a genre and less for time travel as a sub-genre. If it’s not “your” genre, decline the assignment.
2. please check the “facts” you print about that book. There is no reason to include something as being in the book when it is not in the book.
3. please read the book; don’t just scan it. If you didn’t read the entire book, say so. Explain why you started scanning. Don’t write about what you didn’t read.

 For me, the “take away” from this blog is to check out your reviewing service—if you can—before you ask for a review. Some of the reviewing services can be a bit more “be glad we agreed to review your self-published book” than “we’ll do our best to match genre interest in our reviewer to your genre.”

I’ll be writing about reviews you pay for two weeks from now.

Next – Review$ by “Professionals”

Follow me on Twitter: @CRDowningAuthor and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CRDowningAuthor

My website is: www.crdowning.com

I'd appreciate your feedback!

Email me at: chuckdowningauthor@gmail.com