Book Reviews and what to do with a Famous Author who Sucks

I have a serious question to ask:

What should I do when I read a book, written by a somewhat popular/famous indie author, but I hate it because the pacing is sporadic, the word count is obviously padded, and the characters are so flat they all read like the same people?

I’m not being snarky here, by the way. This is an honest question I’ve been grappling with lately.

Here’s why.

A few weeks ago I came across a permafree book by a somewhat well-known indie author (based on number of overall reviews, social following, shares of the book’s free status – all stuff I looked up for research but not something I normally consider when downloading a new book, more on that later). I wanted to read it because I enjoy the genre.

Side note – I didn’t read a single review, just saw there were many and mostly favorable star ratings.

So, I read the book. And I hated it.

I actually had to force myself to finish it. I really wanted to tell this author she needed a serious class in dialogue (free tip: not just words on a page, dialogue should always move the story/characters forward) and the book should have been about 150 less pages.

But, and here’s the real crux of my issue, who the hell am I to tell her how to write when she’s a best-selling indie author?

How can I say those things to someone so obviously doing all the career parts “right”? Someone who has a healthy following of rabid super fans?

Could her other books be better? I mean, she’s got a huge following. Then why make the first in her series free if it isn’t giving her very best work to the reading community?

Too many questions. My head is spinning.

Experts who make 100% of their income from book sales tend to suggest:

- Series is the way to sell

- First book permafree

- Another (unique title) free with sign up to newsletter

- All others $4.99 and under

- Have about 20-50 titles and drop them at the right time for max engagement

Many indie authors aren’t living on their book sales. Probably most. But I’d wager a guess that most of them would love to be.

So how do they do that?

Get more Amazon visibility of course.

So how do they do that?

Nobody seems to know how that works on Amazon other than garnering attraction to a page.

- Following their author page

- Rating their books

- Reviewing their books

- Liking reviews/marking as helpful

- Pre-ordering a book

- Reading all the pages of their Kindle Unlimited book

- Encouraging others to check them out

And probably a bunch of other stuff I haven’t even considered. But here’s the rub where that list is concerned…

Where does an author find that segment of the people? The super fans, people who will do all of that stuff and more? Generally, that’s on social media these days. Or from advertising. But where do we even go to run an ad? Why, social media or Amazon, of course.

And the circle goes round.

Because, with the onslaught of indie publications hitting the market every day, it seems to me that the authors who excel at marketing and promotion are the ones who seem to sell more books. Attract more fans.

These marketing skills are unfortunately independent of good writing the vast majority of the time.

So, knowing all of that, I’ll repeat my question (ish).

As an indie author who wants a larger segment of readers to find and support my work, I desire reviews and all the other stuff in that list up there. Obviously. And I feel that whole reap what you sow mentality.

If I want reviews I need to give reviews. Right?

But if I read a terrible book (flat, lifeless characters, tell and no show, repetition from narrative to dialogue just to pad word count etc.) written by a bigger named indie, the last thing I want to do is review it.

Again, who am I to tell them how to write when their numbers are so obviously better than mine.

Because reviews (AKA: opinions) are subjective. Maybe I didn’t feel anything but someone else did (I’m trying to be open minded here because I don’t imagine everyone reading my work feels like the stories are amazing either).

And then I feel awful for even considering giving a 2 star review because I know how much work went into producing a book. Even a crappy one took time and effort.

But then I feel like it’s my duty to the rest of the reading community to share my honest opinion.

But why?

Because I want people to do the same for my work? Maybe.

Which of course begs the question, does anyone other than an Amazon algorithm care about reviews?

Is it really just about getting them and letting them sit there as another passive (ish) selling tool, or do people honestly read all 247 reviews of a book before deciding to buy?

My money’s on the former.

When I’m going to read a new author or book series, I generally base my desire to read the book on a few factors: the blurb, genre, and the cover.

Sorry for the ‘don’t judge a book’ people but that’s a romantic notion. Everyone bases a book on a cover – be it the front cover art or the back cover copy – that’s how we first learn what might be inside the pages of said book. And, with so many books to choose from, who wants to read something they don’t want to read?

I get drawn in by the awesome marketing and end up in this conundrum when the writing sucks.

So what’s an indie author /reader to do?

Support a fellow indie by rating/reviewing higher than I should, hit a fellow indie by rating/reviewing to what I feel is fair, or simply click away without doing anything?

Do you care about reviews or star ratings when picking up a new book? How do you hear about new books? Would a one or two star rating turn you off to the book, or would you give it a try because the cover and jacket copy drew you in?

So many questions…

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In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Learn more on my author page.

The 20 Words I Hate Related to Internet Sales

Marketing. Ugh. Am I the only one? I can’t be. I mean, if you’re a person in an online environment with a product or service to sell then you pretty much have to eat, sleep, and breath internet marketing these days. Right?

Well yippie-freaking-skippy.

It’s all just words. Shiny things strung together to entice a person into spending their hard earned dollars. And, you know I’m a person in an online world with a product to sell, but, come on.

I write books. Books that fall into pretty specific categories, genres.

Why does that matter? Because keeping someone on the line with a hook is good to get them in the boat but a minnow gets tossed back even though it was still technically considered catching a fish.

Let me put it like this, I tell people I’m an author. Every time a man asks for a business card or my information I say the following line:

“Here you go, but you should probably know you’re not my target audience.”

I’m not a person who will try to snake-oil anyone into buying something they don’t want or need because what good does that do me in the long run?

None. The answer is none.

Those people won’t be my repeat readers. They won’t promote me. They will toss that card in the trash and continue on with their lives not giving a crap that card cost me $0.09. Minnow.

But anyway, I thought I’d share some of the words and phrases related to the new age of selling that kind of make me want to hurl.

1. Strategy (Good luck getting one in a world that changes by the hour.)

2. Content (Usually of the “quality” or “fresh” variety. You mean, words?)

3. Marketing (If you can read it then it’s probably marketing.)

4. Authentic (Having to tell people you are something makes me question how true the statement really is.)

5. Tribe (No, just, no. You aren’t related, descendants. You are on the internet. You are a group or community.)

6. Sell without selling (Yeah, I’ll get right on that. See #2 & 3, right?)

7. Social networking (Essentially redundant.)

8. Quality work (See #4.)

9. Drive traffic (It’s an oxymoron and I hate it.)

10. Authority (How are you supposed to get this if you can’t tell people things without it?)

11. Monetize (This literally means to turn into money. Which literally means a website can’t perform this task.)

12. Avoid self-promotion (Screw rules. Here's some now - shameless self-promotion!)

13. Insert website here (And gasp at people who aren’t using it. Fucking hipsters. It’s already obsolete.)

14. Capture your audience (Uh, I think that’s illegal…)

15. Industry trends (You mean, like, every word/phrase written in this list?)

16. Engage (The definition of this word is: to attract. It has nothing to do with continuous back-and-forth, like people who tout their abilities in #3 want you to believe.)

17. Consistency (Density. Uniformity. Constant and unwavering adherence to a principal or action. AKA: zero flexibility.)

18. Click-bait (The marketing industry can’t make up its mind. Do you want me to click or tell people not to?)

19. Above-the-fold (This phrase has no business outside the newspaper industry. Your mouse has a scroll wheel for a reason. The internet has no fold. Except the folds of time, ever reduced every time you get onto the internet.)

20. Thoughtful posts (So subjective. Who are you to tell me if I’m being thoughtful?)

Sadly, I have to admit to using some or all of the above tactics to get my work in front of readers. 'Tis the way of the internet and the online purveyor of goods.

I would do anything for page rank.

Wait, that's still a thing, right?

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In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Learn more on my author page.

Daydreaming is a Contact Sport

Lately I’ve been longing for the good old days. When a girl only needed her pen, journal, and a daydream to write a story. During those days she could sit and write for hours. A time before she put a whole bunch of pressure on herself to try to make a living from her book sales.

Back in the days when authors at traditional publishing houses got an editor, book tour, paychecks. Because, back then, published Authors – the writers who were really, really, good at crafting a story - also ended up making a living.

It was hard to break in back then, but getting paid to be an author was a viable dream. Especially if you had talent.

That dream was mine.

I honed my skills. Worked on the art and technical aspects of writing, being a writer. Learned to spell. Typed while looking down at the keyboard because I never learned how to do it while looking up. Learned to craft a lead-in for a fiction story from every conversation I ever had. Used those lead-in writing prompts to spin out some short or long tale that I worked to edit numerous times before I ever considered putting it out into the world. Read books for inspiration and used my imagination to craft something that people wanted to read.

Then there was someone else’s dream – the internet.

Digital content.

Talent had to shift. It wasn’t about the story anymore. Writing a book took on a new meaning. It wasn’t about entertainment. If you released a book it became a companion piece for the other thing you wanted to sell.

Books suddenly became just another form of marketing.

Stories faded away. Fiction became passé.

If you weren’t giving away free books you could never grow your email list. And without your precious email list, nobody would ever know when you released another book.

The book you’d use to sell other things. The book itself was irrelevant, see.

The big circle of marketing. There are no corners.

And I don’t care if you have 10 Doctorates in marketing, nobody knows how it all really works. Because as soon as you pick a platform or a brand type or anything else that “helps sell your work”, you find out you did it wrong. You should have done this or that instead.

Everything current is already yesterday’s news. That article written yesterday is an old strategy. Time to learn something new, written by all the people who sold you books to learn about how they wrote books and sold them yesterday.

More circles.

Authors like me, who originated back in the days when you could identify a writer by the blob of ink on the first knuckle of their middle finger, are in competition with a whole bunch of people who have been working at this writing thing since all the way back in 2008.

Those people who sat around and said “I’ll get rich by writing books!”

And then they did.

Because those people apparently had their PhD in how to work a system they don’t even know. Or had tons of money to invest into their advertising efforts.

Or were just really, really lucky.

Get-rich-quick digital writers figured out how to make the internet and all the people who go along with it, to do their work for them and sell their books.

But not the books that were all the rage when I was just starting to form my daydream team. Not those well-crafted fiction stories of yore.

Because imagination is apparently dead. And if not dead, at least punched in the face to the point of bloody unconsciousness.

Someone took her out back and completely jacked her up with a syringe full of words like content, affiliate, click-through, backlink, SEO, page rank, impressions, keywords…

How many authors write without all of that spinning around their head anymore? Seriously. I need to understand how many writers are simply writing, sharing the imaginative worlds they craft despite everything already being done?

How many authors get to tell stories anymore and, if they do, can they possibly live on income from those stories?

Or, better yet, does anyone care about those stories enough to want to read them anymore or is it all just 800 word articles about what color your aura would be underwater?

Approximately 105,120 books are published on Amazon every single year so I suppose there has to be something to the whole book writing craze.

I just wish all those writers who used to say “everyone has at least one book inside them” would have shut their damn mouths. Because doing this job is about more than having an idea for a book. Being an author is about more than having that MA in marketing.

An author in this age of literature also has to know all of the following:

• School is irrelevant, spelling isn’t really a thing anymore. (Don’t believe me? This being defined in the Oxford dictionary might change your mind.)
• Plot is thin and wearing away because nobody cares.
• Most characters have the exact same voice, inflections, dialect.
• Books with a lack of shock and awe won’t sell.
• If you want to sell fiction it better have some graphic sex, violence, or both by page 5 or don’t bother writing it.
• Graphic sex scenes are written so often and in so many genres now the word “smut” should be revised in the dictionary.

But probably the most important point to remember is that everything I just said is wrong. There’s already a new strategy where some author in some desolate corner of the internet just made a six-figure income.

You can read all about it in the book they release next week telling you how you can do it too.

Look, I know I’m just whining here. And without the current way of things I couldn’t call myself a published author of fiction books. Ah, irony. Believe me, I don’t want to look the gift horse in the mouth.

However, while I don’t want you to think I’ve got this overly inflated ego, I know I have talent for fiction writing. For crafting a story based on characters. Plus, I know I have the dedication to keep doing this because I’ve been writing for almost three decades and don’t plan to stop.

So, I also know that if the internet never became a thing where I could share my work, I would have eventually persevered into published regardless.

It just sucks that what they tell you is to write more titles, release more books so your name can be seen from space. Better known as page 1 on amazon. Write more books simply so people find your titles, not because you want to tell a story.

And the merry-go-round marketing circle continues.

But I’m jumping off. I’m writing and releasing fiction no matter what the experts try to tell me is in or out. I never really cared about all of that popularity shit to begin with. And I can’t be the only one who thinks this way.

There must be some kind of audience out there for the work I do. People who are still interested in characters. In imagination.

I’m leaving the circle behind and getting my shit together in a straight line. Putting all that daydreaming to good use.

Finally.

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In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Learn more on my author page.

What do you Mean ‘Why?’

Last night in Glendale, Justin Bieber took to the stage. A few wonderful ladies I know were going to the show. I wouldn’t have remembered because, instead of seeing Biebs, I was at pool league watching Matt and the guys (sadly) lose last night.

But I was reminded of Justin’s stop in the Valley last night when I woke up to this picture in my newsfeed today**:

My first reaction?

“Yeya! Go Biebs!”

Then I started reading the comments and all I could do was sigh. Well, not all I could do. Because here I am, ranting away about Justin Bieber. You’re welcome.

WAIT! Before you click away because of the subject matter will it also help you to know I’m going to DJ my own blog and mashup all that Justin talk with stuff about hockey too?

Oh, no, that doesn’t help? Sorry, not sorry.

In a no-shock surprise, I’m a huge fan of pop music. I mean, I love to dance. Plus, sometimes it’s perfectly fine to loosen up with something light and fluffy – tons of sugar without one bit of nutritional value. After all, they don’t sell cotton candy at the fair for nothing.

Also, another shock-free admission, I pretty much love anyone who can make themselves into exactly what they want to be, no apologies, no holding back. A person with the talent, drive and determination to stick it out in their chosen field until they are doing what they love and supporting themselves while doing it.

That shit is rare, trust me. Most of the time we get one or the other. Either a paycheck from a job we don’t feel fulfilled doing, or a job we love minus the means.

Bieber is pop and proud. And, from all I’ve heard, living on what he makes as an artist.

I fully respect that. As a gal who has been on both sides of the job / money situation I’ll admit that doing what I love is the more important of the two. But nobody can live without at least some money. So, some money for all the hard work is always nice.

But Bieber and the brand he sells are worth probably somewhere into the billions. More? I can’t fathom that kind of paycheck. In any of my wildest ‘book writing for a living wage’ fantasies, I can’t for a second imagine that kind of cash flow.

Then to see a kid start down the path of that at only age 10, or thereabouts, makes me shake my head.

Say what you will but the kid is a fucking genius at marketing. Or, at least, the people around him are.

They’ve been selling this kid (who by the way is talented which certainly helps, you try singing on key while dancing high-impact aerobics-style moves on cue for two full hours almost every night of your life and let me know how long it takes before you pass out and die) for over ten years now.

And it doesn’t look like the kid will be slowing down anytime soon now that he’s got his young and dumb phase behind him.

So to see Bieber rocking a Max Domi Arizona Coyotes jersey at his show in their arena last night kind of made me proud to be a fan of both. But, then like I said, I foolishly went and read the comments. All these people asking why that happened, why Biebs was wearing a sweater of our team.

Okay, I’m just going to point out some facts.

• Ice hockey, as birthed on March 3, 1875, was invented in Canada.
• The Arizona Coyotes are a professional ice hockey team.
• Justin Bieber, as birthed on March 1, 1994, was invented in Ontario, Canada.
• I feel like I don’t even have to say it, but here it is, Justin Bieber is a hockey fan.

Oh, not only that, but the kid plays hockey. Again, not sure I have to say it but, he’s Canadian. Of course he plays hockey. The kid was probably on skates before he could crawl. Don’t believe me? The ECHL Condors actually offered him a contract to play for them just a couple years ago.

Yeah. Because it’s like that sometimes.

So, all the commenters complaining to the Arizona Coyotes organization that they made a mistake letting Bieber put on that jersey, or that Max Domi is going to get a good ribbing from the guys in the room before tonight’s game, are idiots.

Because here are a few more facts:

• Our little hockey team out here in the desert isn’t exactly filling up the arena every night.
• The Arizona Coyotes need all the publicity and fan support they can get.
• An entire arena full of people (17K strong) just saw their musical idol sporting a ‘Yotes sweater.
• I can assure you that most of those people didn’t know about hockey before seeing him rocking the howling ‘Yote last night.
• Osmosis.

If Bieber wants to meet the team, rock a ‘Yotes sweater and encourage a whole crop of people to maybe buy Coyotes gear (advertising), go to a game (sales), or even write a blog post about how awesome it is to see a Canadian born pop star don a star player’s sweater during his concert last night (marketing), then I’m all for the mashup.

There’s no such thing as bad press, sometimes it takes some controversial growing pains in order to come out the other side more mature, wiser, and ready to get things back on track.

After all, if there’s one thing Justin and sports can teach us it’s this: Never say never.

**Image courtesy of the Arizona Coyotes Facebook page

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In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Learn more on my author page.

Cluttered House, Cluttered Mind

I’ve opened and closed the ‘New Post’ link so many times now it seems like I should probably just give up trying to write anything. But yet here I am writing some form of drivel anyway. You’re welcome.

It hit me earlier that it’s been over 2 weeks since I’ve even clicked on my own blog page let alone read any of my friend’s posts or considered putting a few letters into words into sentences into paragraphs into my own post. I’ve been so busy trying to do everything that once again it’s feeling like I’m doing nothing.

I started taking this intensive career training and pulling a lot of stuff together to start a Content Marketing and Freelance Blogging business. I’ve been doing it for 6 years already, guess it’s time to start getting paid for all my efforts right?

Yeah well that’s great but now I have to figure out how. And I just keep asking myself, if I hadn’t figured out how to do it in the last 6 years am I really going to now?

The short answer is yes. The long answer is also yes. I’m good at this conversational writing thing and it’s high time someone started paying me to do it for them.

So there’s that.

Then right in the middle of trying to get this business off the ground Matt took 4 days off work last week and the two of us started our renovations. Here’s a before and after for your viewing pleasure:

Most of you are Facebook friends and probably already saw the album so I’m not going to go into too much detail here but suffice to say we tore out a wall and a (3000 pound) rock wall fireplace and now our living room is the size of Jobing.com Arena. We could seriously start charging people to come and use it as a dance floor. So now the next question is what the heck we’re going to do with the massive open space.

The short answer is I have no clue because we’re not millionaires. The long answer is I have no clue because…you get the point.

Anyway, after pulling down and building back up most of the open holes, we went away last weekend so I could attend the bridal shower my sister was throwing for one of her closest friends. It couldn’t have come at a better time. After 4 days of back aching labor work (something I no longer do for a living, and mind you, I’m an old lady now too) I was so ready for a couple days off.

Sleeping on an air mattress (especially one that turns into a hot air balloon overnight) isn’t the most fun when you’ve pulled a muscle near your tailbone but if you ever find yourself in that situation here’s some free advice:

Drink. A lot. Then go dancing. Because all the other muscles you (shockingly) didn’t pull while doing the renovation will be so sore the next day you won’t really notice the one that was causing you to gimp around to begin with.

Sunday was all about chilling out and doing as little as possible. It was so nice in fact that we had a hard time prying ourselves off my sister’s sofa to make the 2 hour drive home. But we did and once we were here it was right back to off-mode as we planted our butts on our own sofa for the rest of the day.

So on Monday I had a ton of email and other stuff to catch up on after taking 6 days off. Catching up took the better part of the day. I was tired and cranky and didn’t really want to work but toughed it out and got through my overflowing inboxes.

Then today I started working on my landing page for my freelancing stuff as mentioned above and realized that my computer is an ancient POS. Luckily I just purchased a new laptop yesterday but it won’t be here for about 3 weeks. So I kept trying to make the site building tools work with my non-compatible machine. Only it was to no avail.

I wasted the whole morning and had nothing to show for it. Instead of getting upset (er) I dialed into a teleconference I’d signed up for through the career training folks. Aptly titled ‘Landing Clients’ it felt like this would be a great way to start figuring out the paycheck part.

Ten minutes into the call it turned into a sales pitch for a big conference/workshop they have coming up this fall. I stayed on the call just to see if there really would be any good tips or advice about how to land clients other than going to the bootcamp.

I wrote down exactly 8 things during the 73 minutes I was on the phone:

• Write about what you’re learning
• Choose a niche right away
• Network with everyone (even the wrong people for your niche)
• Practice talking about your business in person
• Find groups that understand the value a copywriter brings
• Take the action that works for you (calls, blogs, emails, etc.)
• Find opportunities to show yourself as an expert
• Ask friends for referrals

Now I don’t want to sound like an ungrateful person considering the call was free, but other than that last tip, do any of those suggestions tell a person how to land a client?

The short answer is no.

The long answer is that was 73 minutes spent listening to a sales pitch, not a teleconference with any form of benefit like it was originally presented, that I’ll never get back. And I didn’t even get a weekend at a timeshare out of it or anything. All I got was an offer to save money on their very expensive conference.

One I might be able to afford to attend if any of the 7 people on the call actually, you know, gave some information on landing clients.

After the technology and phone call debacles I decided it might be better to spend my time getting my house put back together instead of trying to focus on doing work that was clearly just laid out to frustrate me all day.

So I pulled on my big girl construction pants and finished the second coat of joint compound on the ceiling and wall.

I’m sore again but putting the house back together seemed like the smartest idea for the best way to get my head back together.

I forgot how cranky I get living in a cluttery construction zone.

So for the next couple weeks, until I can finish these home improvement projects I’m taking time away from writing. Well at least away from finding new clients. I’ll still do the work I have for the client that’s already paying me steadily but otherwise no deal.

At least that’s my plan until the laptop shows up. Once my new tech toy arrives all bets on finishing the house are off.

Good thing compound dries pretty quickly in the desert.

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Content Marketing Strategist and Blogger for hire, Jenn has over 12 years of freelancing experience. Follow her antics on twitter @jennshon