Tag Archives: reviews

On being seen, or sending out advance reading copies of my latest book…


My lovely publisher at Somewhat Grumpy Press has assembled my book and we are creeping closer to the actual official publication date. I’m at the point of sending out “advance reading copies”, which for me is a very scary thing. (PS: this is not the final version of the cover – we all know the back looks cut off…)

See, when we write, we’re alone. We wrestle with words, shape them up, get them edited and sent to Beta readers – but that’s all while the book is still in its malleable state. We can change things, big things, and always do. Now, though, I’m hoping readers will be captured by the finished story, enjoy it, perhaps even like it enough to write me a sweet review (or a bad one, after all, all press is good press, really). But what if they finish it and go…”meh?”

Suddenly we are seen, our toils are judged, and as we are gearing up for the release of the book, we have to remain enthusiastic about it – happy to market it and speak kindly of it and more. That’s hard to do when the response is lukewarm or missing.

So as I wait for feedback, I find myself wanting to hear back if the story touched people at all, if they liked the main character, if the nursing stuff rings true. I wouldn’t mind if they say the book is a waste of paper and severely damaging the planet by killing trees for no known reason (well, yeah, I would mind but I’m trying to be a grown-up here). A reaction is always something.

Imposter syndrome is rife in authors – I imagine even Margaret Atwood feels nervous when she sends her babies out into the wild, and she has piles of accolades behind her. It’s something about creating things out of your head…hard to put out your creative soul for the world to judge.

So readers, of my book and others, be kind to your authors. Write them a review. Let them know they’ve been seen, even if you don’t love what they’ve written. Maybe it’s written well? Maybe the spelling is correct? Writing is lonely enough without an utter silence when a book is released…

I’ll be publishing excerpts on this blog from time to time – I hope they intrigue you. Let me know!

(I released my first book, Recycled Virgin, at the start of the pandemic. No book launch, no reading events. Hard to market. Reviews crept in, slowly slowly. Check out its page to read them. Heartening. Still proud of it. You might enjoy it, too.)

rv-cover-amazon3

Being Seen (and read) or where the heck did that chin hair come from?


Well, it’s out in the wilds. The ebook version is launching on Saturday.

The book. My book. By me. All alone.

Recycled Virgin (Scleratis Series Book 1) by [Brown, DA, Brown, Dorothyanne]It all seems such a small story, so meaningless. I mean, I like it, but I am having trouble dealing with the thought of my friends reading it and then having to make a comment on it, either positive or negative or, ugh, patronizing. One fellah commented that “some of my chapters seemed fun.”

I’ve taken out a contract on that guy, and YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! (Kidding, of course…)(Well, maybe…)

But it’s all a bit like doing a public speech, and meeting and greeting people afterward and when you run to the washroom at the end of the festivities and peek into the mirror, maybe giving yourself a confident, “you did it, girl!” smile, you notice a 3-foot long chin hair sticking straight out and wiggling with every lip flex.

Did they see it? How could they miss it? How do those things grow so damn fast? You know you’ve peered at yourself in your home mirror, holding your face every which way and shining lights and there was NOTHING THERE that morning, and somehow this hair grew like Jack’s beanstalk in a matter of hours. images-2

You wonder in a panic if the hair scraped the face of the people you were talking with, and if they felt it and decided not to comment, like those friends who don’t tell you you have spinach in your teeth or that your hem is tucked into your tights… Maybe they were being gentle with you, sensing your inner fragility, realizing that under chin hairs can destroy any semblance of professionalism. You can see it is almost reaching the mirror, across the sink.

Of course, you have not brought hair removal devices with you and it just won’t leave to tugging, so then you have to go out and REJOIN the mob, knowing full well your hair vine will be spotted by EVERYONE.

I took my beloved dog Pickles to the groomer once and when I was picking him up, shivering and pinkish and looking hurt to his soul (which is why I ended up grooming him after this because he didn’t find it so traumatizing, but I digress), and the groomer, who I had trusted with the animal I loved the most in the world (the kids were in a horrid stage, and let’s not mention the ex) told me that the dog hairs from her clients had slipped off and rerooted themselves in her face.

I gazed at her, non-plussed. What does one say? It seemed wrong to talk then about the biology of facial hair and how it didn’t behave like a seedling. She, after all, had a few sprouting from her chin. All different colors, she pointed out, because of all the different dogs. I was left speechless.

The more important issue was why did she mention this to me?

Well, yep. I ran my hand over my chin when I got into the car and sure enough, a hair-vine was extruding from my face. How long had I been going around like that? Who knew? Cos, you see, once these hairs grow a certain length (you official beard growers know this), the hair gets all soft and molds itself to your face. Well, unless it is yearning for freedom. Then it reaches out, struggling towards the unwary, terrifying them. Whacking against walls and tangling in scarves…

So, the book thing is sending its little horrifying curls out into the world and I keep wavering between singing and dancing (and being profoundly grateful for the support friends and family have shown me) and wanting to pluck it like a chin hair out of existence.

Either that or grow a beard so it all seems like it should be there, filling my author’s face with other books and articles and writing like a demon to get things out. (Next book: DIsgusting the Devil is on the assembly line) Creating a new framework so that this one eases gently into a crowd and thus is less obvious as a solo event. Maybe it’s time for me to embrace my writing beard?

So, I hope you have a look at my book, maybe read it, write a review, hostile, friendly, grumpy or bored. I’d love to hear what you think…No, really, I would. Just let me check out my chin…

 

 

beard-1.jpg.optimal

The utter joy of a secondhand bookstore


20140409-120252.jpg
The other day I found a treasure at a used bookstore. It is this book, selected Prose and Poetry of Poe, with the introduction by W.H.Auden.
Now, I haven’t started on the Poe part yet, but I am suffused with joy at the introduction. Must say, the more I know Auden, the more I put him at my imaginary dinner table in heaven. I’d like to spend just an hour or so in his company, if he’d let me.
His gentle yet critical view of Poe’s work is filled with a shared amazement at how Poe persisted, his gaps, his utter failures bounded by spectacularly odd successes.
Poe’s development as a critic “never ..to his potential full stature” is compared to Baudelaire’s –

Think of the subjecs that Beaudelaire was granted – Delacroix, Constantin Guys, Wagner- and hen he kind of books Poe was asked to review:
Mephistopheles in England , or the Confessions of a Prime Minister
The Christian Florist…
Dashes at Life with a Free Pencil …
One is astounded that he managed to remain a rational critic at all, let alone such a good one.>

In terms of Poe’s character, which was described as romantically doomed, Auden points out that this is not the case, “it turns out he was only the kid of fellow whom one hesitates to invite to a party because after two drinks he is apt to become tiresome, an unmanly sort of man whose love life seems to have been largely confined to crying in laps and playing house, that his weaknesses were of the unromantic kind for which our age has the least tolerance, perhaps because they are typical of ourselves.”

On second thought, I might be afraid to have Auden at my dinner table. I would be terrified to bore him, to hear this damning with faint praise I’ve dreaded all my life.

On the other hand, he makes me want to read Poe, not the usual Raven or Casks, but Gordon Pym , Ligeia and The Man of the Crowdand his other poetry, in ever knew of the existence of these stories, poor ignorant me. I know I will be richer for the experience of reading them.

So glad I found this book, and so many others, in a serendipitous way. Second hand bookstores are mystical treasure troves, and I hope they never ever cease to be.

Speaking of e-publishing…


ImageWay back when I started in this biz, all the magazines kept saying to read read read in their area before you decided to write anything. So I read read read mysteries and thrillers and literary novels and short stories.

I still do that now, sometimes, it may be said, to the detriment of my own writing. But there are such glories in the ebook world that I could wallow endlessly for free and enjoy.

For those not quite yet in the know, you should check out the sites below. Free books or cheap ones are available for the cost of a review – I know they expect good ones, but I’ve tried to stay honest (without being too cruel) and they still send me books, so I think you can write pretty much how you feel.

What I love best about these places is that they give me access to authors and genres and stories that I might never have found otherwise. We tend, when buying books, to try for the sure thing, the ones we know will bring us good value. I used to pick my books by thickness, which meant I missed novellas and short stories – I read too fast to make it economical to buy these.

It makes it hard for new writers to get a toehold. Through these venues, even the starting out writer can get some feedback on their novel – you can release it and withdraw it and fix it if you want, based on comments, until you get the thing right – provided you’re the one doing the book. It’s a great way to get your book read, especially if you are with a smaller publisher or whatever.

Of course we all know Amazon books and their program.They work with CreateSpace to produce your book and select titles to highlight.

Library thing – get signed up for their early readers program as well as the members giveaways.

Smashwords – many authors release their works through here for free or low cost

NetGalley – become a member and they put these wonderful books in front of you and you can request them. I’ve only been denied once but I have a lot of reviews to write as all the books look so tasty I had to ask for them.

Goodreads – everyone should be on here.

Penguin – has now started circles of reviewers for different genres – you join the circle through google and apparently get to review books – it’s totally new so I’m not sure how it will work. I’m in the Penguin.ca mystery circle, for example.

Public libraries have ebooks, too, and if you are wanting people to read what you’ve written you might consider donating a copy of your ebook to them.

It’s all about being read, and supporting other authors by reading them. All wonderful.

And using a lot of time…but in a good way…now if only I could get myself organized to put something of mine on one of these places!