The Results Are In…

Winter_HiResAttention grabbing headlines draw the eye. But attention grabbing reviews achieve the same result, and today the first one for Seasons of Truth: Winter went live.

It made me smile, but more than that, it made me happy. To know that I reached at least one person with my work means a lot to me, but that my previous books also resonated with the reviewer means more. This was the book that motivated them to post online, and Seasons of Truth is only going to get better as the year goes on.

I’ll admit, I don’t always review every book I read. I plow through a couple hundred a year, and if I did I’d spend almost as much time writing reviews as I did devouring the content in the first place. And not every book I read is good, or hits me the same way. There are some books where my review would not be favorable, and in fact I have posted a few of those online in the past.

I’ve left “star” ratings on nearly a thousand books in the last few years, though I honestly have no idea for how many I’ve left a detailed critique. Amazon has a helpful feature that lets me see all of my reviews in one place, and 17 of the 22 product reviews I’ve left have been for books. As mentioned above, not all were the best, but they were honest.

And honesty is what I’m looking for. I want those 3 and 4 star reviews. They tell me how to make my writing better, and what the people who are buying my books are looking for. Some 1 and 2 star reviews are entertaining (I especially like the one about my zombie book complaining that it has zombies in. Pure comedy gold), others soul-crushing.

As I move forward with Seasons of Truth and The Hunters Chronicle (Oh, yes, there are more books), I’m looking forward to more and more reviews. Not because I’m a narcissist, masochist, or any other obsessive personality type, but because I want to do better as an author. I want to succeed at the only job that’s every really made me happy, and I can’t do it alone.

So what do you say, Marketing ™ department? Shall we manufacture some best-sellers?

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