Two reviews for "Samuel Blackwood" and some meta on reviewers

[erestor]

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

Comments

[erestor]

They are lovely reviews, and I enjoyed reading them a lot. It's so good to see people actually taking the time to have a look at my work, not just copy my blurb for a review... *cough* And as the cherry on top they pointed out a problem I wasn't aware of before. I'm happy! :)

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.

[erestor]

Hi Ann

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!

[erestor]

My provider had some maintenance downtime last night. I had no access to my mailbox and mails might still take a couple of hours to arrive. But I've sent you the chapters now. Thanks again!

[erestor]

That would be great, thanks so much! I think the ones I had on my list already reviewed your book. I have to check if there might be one or two where I haven't seen "Captain's Surrender" yet. My biggest problem is that the book is not available through amazon.co.uk or amazon.com. For my novel, I might switch to Lulu.

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!" ;)

[erestor]

Being on amazon would be fantastic; I did sell quite a few books on amazon Germany, but my life would be so much easier if I could sell on amazon US or UK as well. Selling through my own shop is great, and you have the additional benefit of the direct contact with the readers, but it's also a lot, lot, lot of work.

*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.