Posts Tagged With: Writer

Battling over Book Reviews, Should it happen?

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Stephannie Beman

I want to start out by thanking those who have questions for using the SPAL question form to ask those questions. You guys have some really good questions and I have fun looking up the answers for the questions I don’t know and sharing the information I do know and don’t think to share because I take it for granted. It also makes it so much easier for us to tailor our posts to your guys needs.

While on vacation I received a question in my inbox and was going to write this big long post about it. Then I looked at the 200+ emails sitting in my inbox that I have left to go through and answer, plus a few book cover designs that I need to do and finish for clients, some websites I need to update and complete the construction of, a story to finish, a 60 Day Writing Challenge that starts Monday, a sick kid to cuddle with, and a house that is starting to looking like a poster child for Hoaders and realized that I really don’t have the time.

So rather than try to write the post, I’m going to cheat and post the question:

I’ve seen authors and reviewers fighting over book reviews. Is there a time when the author should reply to a review?

Joleene asked people to weigh in on the topic and some of you did.

My answer to the question is: No.

Battling over a book review is stupid and childish. I’d put my kids on time out for such behavior. Readers will put you on the do not read list. Even some of the loyal ones. Replying to book reviews is equally suicidal.

I don’t care if the review is good. Don’t thank them. Most reviewers don’t appreciate it and most readers find a lurking writer creepy.

I don’t care if the review is bad. Write a scathing letter you never plan to send. Rant to your best friend about the unfairness of it all. Cry over a few shots of Whiskey or a half-gallon of ice cream. Just don’t respond to them. If you want to wait until after you calm down to complain on your blog about your greatness and how mean the reviewer was, just remember they have Google Alerts and followers too.

They only review you should ever respond to is the one you ask for. Good or bad, thank the reviewer for taking the time to review it for you.

I can hear the “But Stephannie” right now. No, buts.

Writing is a Business, unless you are doing it for a hobby. If writing is your hobby and you have no intentions of making it a business, by all means reply to the reviews. Just don’t expect people to be happy about it. People will attack you for it. If this is your business, then playing by the rules is a must. This doesn’t mean allowing people to walk over you, but pick your battles and reviews are not a battle you can win.

  1. Reviews are people’s opinions and reading is tastes are subjective. What one person loves, another may not. I also don’t see the point of picking a fight with someone over their opinion. It’s pointless and it’s not going to change anyone’s mind. Trying makes you look like a crazed, maniac author that will find themselves talked about on Facebook and Twitter while they may watch their books sail off the shelves for a time, others are disgusted by the display and potential readers are lost.
  2. Good reviews can sometimes look like a bad review. An objective reviewer will balance the good and the bad. They will show the author their weaknesses and their strengths. They aren’t looking to be a smart ass or a megalomaniac. They are writing the review for the reader. As writers, all we see is the negative and want to scream “You didn’t understand my vision!”
  3. People are mean and reviews can sometimes be ugly. As a reader, these types of reviews from set my teeth on edge. I discount them for the heartless, cruelty of a reviewer with a personal vendetta against the writer. They are no better than the school bully that uses the geek kid as a punching bag only to have the teacher ignore it because she didn’t see it happen. They are the ones that take great lengths to publicly flog the author, rake their flaws through the coals, have little to nothing nice to say, and attack the author personally.

My best advice is to never look at your reviews. Don’t read them and don’t let people tell you about them. You’ll be happier for it. Why? Because there is too many negative critics who aren’t helpful in their reviews. There are too many hookey reviewers that make me wonder what they got for writing the review. There are too many gushy reviewers that go on and on about the greatness of the author to the point that I start to think “stalker.” And then there is the reviewer that write a review that attacks the writing and writer in a way that screams “personal vendetta.” You don’t want to get mixed up in that scene. It will kill your career.

Now that I wrote a post about 700 words longer than I planned, what do you think? Should the battle of book reviewer and author be happening? What do you think when you hear about such things? Should writer’s reply to reviews?

Categories: Book Reviews, The Reader, The Writer & Author | Tags: , , ,

Creating Schedules and Routines to Enhance your Writing

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Stephannie Beman

Bad me! I checked in this morning and realized it’s been a little over a week since our last post and we’ve run out of scheduled posts. So time for me to emerge from the writing/editing cave I’ve been hiding in for the last month and get to work on some Writing as a Business posts I promised everyone. :D

I’m going to save the post about Plots for the next couple of slots and jump to scheduling and routines, mainly because I’ve been dealing with this of late and it’s on my mind right now. On my blog I wrote a post, It’s all About Balance, and no you don’t have to click the link to read the post. I’m going to use much of what I talked about there here.

A few weeks back I started to feel overwhelmed by the demands being placed on me and not getting to any of my editing and writing. I decided it was time for a break from anything I considered a time waster while I learned to could juggle all the new responsibilities with all my old responsibilities.

This meant finding a schedule that would allow me to spend time with my kids and husband, do my housework, take care of ranch, write and edit and market my books, and  work on book cover designs for clients. This means sticking to a schedule long enough for it to become a routine or learn what works and what doesn’t.

Creating a Writing Schedule or Routine

For me a daily routine is imperative. I’d get nothing done if I didn’t. When building a writing schedule there are some things I take into account:

1. What is the time that best suits me for certain tasks (i.e. writing, editing, marketing, etc)
2. What is my work schedule (i.e. ranch, book designing, etc).
3. What are my writing and publishing goals for the year.
4. What are my other responsibilities

I wrote down everything I could think of and started to build a routine that works for my needs. If I want to write a book in a year, I create a list of all the things I’ll have to do to accomplish this. Working on characters, plotting, writing, etc. I take these smaller goals to meet my bigger goal.

I know that my schedule won’t work for everyone, hell, some days it barely works for me. But I thought an example might help some of you.

I start my morning by looking over my to-do list while my computer boots up. Then I write or edit (M-F I wake at 6am to get my youngest ready for school and on the bus by 7am. So I start my writing time after I send her off. On Sat. and Sun. I sometimes get to sleep in, if not I have to start breakfast before I write.). I try to get at least 2 hours of writing or editing done.

Setting limits to your writing time will help you not over do it and burn out. A time allotment, page count, or a word goal are the most common. If these don’t work for you, don’t sweat it. :D

I mark off all the tasks that I accomplished that day and write down notes of what I need to do tomorrow. This way, when I start my day all I have to do is look at my schedule and know where to start. This saves me time and useless staring at the computer screen.

Then I write a blog post if I’m in the mood before I check emails. If I have any emails or blog comments that I need to responded to I do that first, Business related newsletters and blogs are next.

I shut down my computer for the day and start my other responsibilities and spend time with my kids. After I get my kids off the to bed at 8pm, I’m ready to start working on book cover designs. I look at my to-do list while my computer is booting up. I check emails to see if there is anything “urgent” for me to respond to, changes that needed to be made to a cover, or new clients before I start working. I do not read blogs or business newsletters, that will wait until tomorrow.

I like to schedule tasks at the end of the day that allow me to wind down and relax from the day. I find writing at night makes it hard for me to sleep. I’ll work for an hour or two and then mark off what I accomplished and write down what I want to accomplish the next day before I head to be.

I hope this helps some of you create your own schedule and routines. If you have a writing routine you would you like to share, please comment below or post a link to a blog post where you wrote about it? If you have any questions, now is the time to ask. :D

Categories: Schedules & Routines, The Writer & Author | Tags: , , ,

Reality vs Annoying

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Joleene Naylor

Though I tend towards speculative fiction, I’m a big stickler for what I call “reality” - Characters should react realistically to situations. If confronted with a vampire will you instantly believe in them? No. If someone says “I’m a werewolf”, do you buy it? (Hint: the latter has happened to me. My first thought was “this guy is a lunatic.” I was probably right.) If something bad happens, your characters should react realistically, and take time to recover. However, just as different people deal with situations in their own way, so do your characters. While the death of a parent might throw one character into the dregs of depression, another one might bottle it up and move on as though nothing had happened. When my grandfather died one of my Uncles went to the bar and got drunk. The other went bowling with his friends. A reader might call the second one an unrealistic reaction, but it obviously wasn’t for him.

So, even if you know your character’s reactions, how much is too much?  When do “the haunting nightmares” of someone who was attacked by supernatural creatures go from being “haunting” to being “Come on and get over it! Geeze”? When does “Oh, I just met you! I can’t be in love with you, yet!” turn into “For crying out loud, get ON with it!”? etc. etc.

There’s no golden rule. One reader/writer’s “Get on with it!” is someone else’s “But they just met!”, especially in books that cover very short spaces of time. A controversial example is the popular Twilight series. When I took the story out of itself and only looked at calendar days,  Edward and Bella fall in mad, passionate love so fast that it’s mind boggling. But, when I first read the book  it wasn’t horribly paced and didn’t stand out as being too much of a rush.

I think a lot it depends on the genre and “point” of your book. If the main story is the protagonist’s struggle to come to grips with abuse suffered at the hands of their alcoholic father, then 200 pages of emotional turmoil are a good thing. Conversely, if the point of the story is that the protagonist becomes a dragon slayer and saves the kingdom, you don’t really want page after page of wingeing.

Another consideration is how long your book is and how much (1/3, 1/4, 1/2 etc) you want to devote to the reactions of certain incidents. In reality, something like being attacked by killer monsters would probably leave hellacious emotional scars that would never heal, and might lead to psychological problems, but how much of that do your readers want to read? How much of that do you want to write? Will your characters continued reactions slow down the plot (ala Harry Potter’s seventh book and the realistic – but long and boring – camping scenes) or will they fuel it?

If you use those three questions as your guide, then you can’t go wrong. Of course, not everyone will agree with you but, as Ruth pointed out, you’re not writing for everyone.

How much reality do you like in your books? How much is too much?

Categories: Characters & Viewpoints, General Writing | Tags: , , , , ,

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