Two reviews for "Samuel Blackwood" and some meta on reviewers
Lieutenant Samuel Blackwood (deceased) has been reviewed by two more online rec sites, and hey, they liked my book! Both raised some points of criticism which are well justified, and it's great they took the time to give constructive criticism. My hints about the sexual orientation of Daniel were probably really too subtle for some - just because I
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Lol. You know what? I did exactly that. Minus the hot chocolate.
Considering how thin the book is it is probably really expensive, if you think about how you can get 500 pages books for 8€ or something. Still, I'd rather spend those 8€ on a thin, but good book, than on a thick, boring, badly written one. I don't think you can fix the price of book just by the number of pages. That's not what makes the book up. And those E-books... Don't like them. Would probably be much cheaper, especially with all the free e-books out there, but it's just gah. I wanna cuddle up with my book in bed or on the couch, together with the cat, I wanna squee with delight when I see that bookshaped present under the christmas tree with my name on it and curse my small appartement when I can't find a place on the shelves for the newest one. Well, I think what I actually wanna say with this rambling is that your book would only be half as good if it wasn't a book.
And yay for all the positive reviews! Reminds me that I still need to get mine up on amazon
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I sell for EUR 6, I'm a discounter! :-D
No, of course you're right, it's a "healthy" price. But mass-products will always be cheaper. There is no way any self-publisher could keep up with that. I hope that those who bought my book will feel they received good value for their money, though; it's a labour of love and I could probably even stick a disclaimer on it "no money is made with this" because - definitely no money made there! :-D
The more I learn about big publishers and the editing process etc., the more I come to the conclusion that, for me personally and my own work, self-publishing is the right way to go. Some might call it Vanity Press, but I call it Common Sense Press. I'm realistic enough to know that the readership for "Age of Sail adventure with male/male romance and supernatural background" is significantly smaller than for other genres...
I prefer the good old fashioned "real" books as well. E-books are really only an option if I absolutely want a book and no print version is available. Plus - illustrations in an e-book? Eh. No. Mlle de Villeneuve deserves better! :-D
Yay for Amazon reviews! I haven't received any - eh, well, apart from the git who complained that I reviewed my own book...
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Self published is very expensive, but sometimes that's the only way you can get out what is a unique and special book, and yours is more than worth it!
Aw, thanks so much. :-D Both me and "Amandine" put a lot of work and love into it; it's great to know that people who paid that money enjoyed what they got for it.
About that review: I initially considered to contact Logophilos for a possible review, but then I read their conditions and realised it would be pointless. While their terms are no doubt necessary to keep things running smoothly, they make my book unacceptable for them. It's not an e-book, a *.pdf file doesn't tell anything about the illustrations or the feel of the book.
which is less than positive, but possibly seems worse to me than to anyone else :)
Despite some bits in the review which I find rather irritating (I'll get to that later), it's a review you can be proud of. Yes, I know, it sounds weird, but - here you have a person who quite obviously went into reading your book with the worst possible expectations. Looking at some of the - pardon my French - utter drivel that has been published under the label "historical romance" in the past, I can't even hold it against her. And you managed to change her opinion! She liked it! :-D I doubt there are many authors who could manage that! It's definitely something to be proud of!
And now for the irritating bits... ;-)
I found the tone of the review a bit condescending. I don't mind snarky, but condescending is neither necessary nor amusing.
Readers with a low tolerance for realistic violence beware; the depictions of naval punishments are vivid.
This is a warning I find - obscure. Well, I understand that nowadays, one has to warn for each and everything ("don't switch on the news! Wars usually come with death! Which is painful! Better pretend it's a video game!"), but - your descriptions are simply realistic. That's what life used to be. Don't be scared of your history, folks. You might understand the world as it is today better.
Any reader who has perused the popular slash offerings will find the power imbalance, emotionally unaware top, and overly self-sacrificing bottom routine achingly familiar.
*groan* "My thoughts on yaoi, let me show you them"... I guess she expected to find this scenario, that's why she read it into your writing. Only - it's not there. Not from my point of view, anyway. You know, this almost reads like an excerpt from an 18th century court martial record...!
I personally find the price a bit steep for an e-book that comes in at under 200 pages
And here we go again. Ok - we're talking about SIX DOLLARS AND 99 CENTS HERE! Why is it so wrong for authors to try and get a little bit of compensation for their work? It's not like you'd rake in millions with the print version or asked for £ 50.00 for the e-book! It's not like writing your book took you less time for the e-book version. You do promotion, have tons of side-costs. Postage. TIME. But I fear that's criticism we'll have to live with. "Me! Me! Me! It's all about ME!"
I've had one person mailing me and asking if I could send her a book for half the price because she'd blown all her money for the month on mangas. Yo.
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I fully agree; for a novel, an electronic version is ideal and saves the authors a lot of money. Things are a bit different if there are illustrations. I've sent you a mail from emma at emmacollingwood.com (gmail and hotmail tend to file my mails under spam...)
Thank you!
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that's the effect of the initial 'don't criticize my baby!
Hehe, oh yes, and who wouldn't growl! That's a perfectly normal first reaction, isn't it? I mean, who'd sit there, read a review for the first time and then clap hand and cheer: "yay! Somebody doesn't like what I did! And wheeee! They think it's too expensive!" Sometimes it takes a while to get the good out of a review. And sometimes a reviewer might change her/his mind after re-reading a book.
I do admit that I was a bit surprised to think that Peter and Josh's relationship was stereotypical - obviously I don't read enough slash or yaoi.
It is the nature of slash that (femslash aside) it deals with two men. And it is the nature of any relationship that sometimes one partner is "stronger" than the other. I don't see this as stereotypical - it's just how life is. It's not like you'd had one character being a girlified weeping blokesell in distress. So I can't follow that, either.
I think the only bit that I can't take on board is calling Josh's sojourn with the Anishinabe ridiculous, and not saying why.
Agreed, that irks me as well. If she felt to use such a strong word for that aspect, she could at least have given a short explanation i. You did a lot of research, after all, and didn't just make this up.
Though I'm sure I could have been more convincing if I hadn't had to trim out a lot of detail to meet my word-count :)
"I loathe thee, word-count! Get thee out of Alex books, for thou art evil!" ;)
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*G* I've been ignoring word-count in 'Secrets' but I've upped the heat level a little, so hopefully that will encourage any publishers to let me get away with another 30,000 words ;)
Hah, that's very good to hear! Can't wait for Secrets. Though I'm still sitting here and waiting, while Swiss customs seem to hold my latest amazon order hostage... >:(
Is it going to be illustrated too?
Yes! :-D And they are fantastic illustrations! lineae has outdone herself once more. I wish I could find a way to include the illustrations in a pdf file without them losing their quality (and without blowing the file up to a ridiculous size!) PSCL wouldn't be a problem to send out for reviews as a pdf, it's not a "Penny Dreadful", after all, but I want people to have the chance to really appreciate Menegroth's work.
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I shall blame any drop in sales on you. :P
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PPS: Heeh! "Too short!" I agree that I should have introduced the Leigh/Meadows bit better - it's mentioned in the blurb that they'll be the main pairing, so I somewhat didn't expect the reader to be surprised, especially as I placed hints. But they were too subtle. If there should be a "second edition" (AHAHAHA!), I'll probably rewrite some bits and pieces there.
Still don't think this would have been enough material for a novel. *is stubborn*
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Perhaps not for a LOTR length novel, but perhaps for something longer than 80 pages. :P
I chose the format for very selfish reasons - its what I can read best. ;)
I think it's a great format for online things, but not for real books. Thought long about why, and perhaps it's because of the pixelated, slightly blurry quality of a screen, which makes it more difficult to focus on things than a book does and where empty lines between the paragraphs make it easier to focus on the writing. It's certainly not 'annoying' for your fanfics.
Or perhaps it's just because I'm simply so used to books being in another format. :P
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