Tag: promotion

Categories
Reviews

How to write a review: Part 3.

Step 5. Always be honest. A good review doesn’t mean that you have to love the book, but always try to be fair. Readers can tell if you’ve written a review to falsely build up a books rating and they can tell if you are intentionally beating a book down out of spite. Also keep in mind the average person isn’t going to be as thorough in their reviews as other writers and bloggers. This is a good thing. A distinctive credibility is what you want to display when writing a review. It should help set you apart as a writer and a professional. A good review comes with clear explanations of why the book was loved, liked, ignored, or hated; without clear explanations, reviews worthless.

After writing all this, I’ve decided to challenge myself to write more reviews. I also invite you to write more reviews, maybe even one for my new book Eternal Curse: Giovanni’s Angel.

Aside from that, I think I’ve just about figured out what to do with my Review Challenge and am pretty sure it will help some Indie Authors get more reviews. I think it will be a nice gesture just in time for the holiday season, whether you have something to celebrate or not. I know it won’t be a huge thing, but each day I’m more determined to try it. After receiving my first ever customer review, and not knowing when another will come, I just feel like I need to give back to the indie literary community somehow.

Categories
Reviews

How to write a review: Part 2.

Step 3. Summarize the book in one of two ways.

a. The blurb-explain what you feel the book was about providing some plot points in 100 words or less. If you are a master blurb writer, go for 100 to 200 words.

b. The Spoiler- explain exactly what happened in the story, beginning, middle, and end. So as not to lose your audience, try to keep your spoiler around 500 to 800 words. (Always indicate whether your review will contain spoilers as a curtsey to other readers)

Step 4. Then explain why you gave the book its overall rating. If you are not sure how to do that, simply answer the following questions. (There is no preferred word length for this)

a. What was the overall theme of the book and did you like it?

b. How did you feel about the pace of the plot and the plot development?

c. How did you feel about the character development?

d. How did you feel about the finale of the book?

There are many more questions that could be included in your assessment, but these are the basic points I think most people look for in a good review…I’m still working out the details of what I’m now calling, A Review Challenge.

Categories
Author Insights

Free Ebook

companion guide

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but now I’ve don’t it. I took the content of my 40 days and nights blog and turned it into an ebook companion guide. I’ve added some extra content, articles, and images to the ebook as a way to get people interested in reading the actual book. The blog posts are free so I figured the ebook should be free too, even though it offers so much more than the blog does. Not wanting to leave out those people, and I mean that in the nicest way, who don’t read ebooks, I’ve made it available in paperback, but it’s not free. In fact the amount that I charge for it, only just covers the printing; I am making no money off this publication. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem making money; I hope to make quite a bit of it someday with my writing, but for now, I don’t see the purpose in charging for something that people could already get for free…but who knows, that may change. –(This ebook was free through Smashwords, until the end of 2013. A new edition of this book is now available.)–

I hope people will take advantage of this new ebook and really get to know all about Eternal Curse and what’s to come in the series. Please check out My Books link if you are interested in getting a copy and look out for giveaways on my side bar or my Eternal Curse Series tab. You’d think I would have been posting these all along, but I’m still getting used to the whole blogging word.

One last note to my followers…I have not abandoned my collection of short stories, but I’m really getting into this romance I’m currently writing. I don’t know if this is the kind of thing people who normally read romance will want to read because it’s not explicit or even very physical, but there is some passion to this lovely little story that’s captured my mind. So, I’m still working on my shorts, but focusing on this romance, and I’ve just written an outline for an adventure story I may acquire my nephew’s help in further developing and perhaps, illustrating.

This is an unofficial Author Insights post.