Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Should You Pay For Reviews?

Why ask me?  I barely believe in reviews. 

Dean Wesley Smith had a post about starting out as a writer and there was math in the piece so you know that was a big turn-off for me.  (Break out the cross and the garlic, you can't fool me, I know a number when I see it!) 

I think it comes back to the same 3 or 4 points which admittedly are time-consuming.  I'm sorry about that.

1) Write the best book you can
2) Get the best cover you can
3) Write the best description you can
4) Repeat 1-3 until you take up a lot of shelf space and potential readers can't help but run into you.

I know this will take years.  Too long?  Okay.  Come up with a really great book that will get everyone's attention without the shelf space part.  What's a really great commercial book?  Probably something that's a lot like a Hollywood movie.  Go to Amazon and look for a book written by a guy who wrote a bunch of Hollywood movies and made lots of money doing it.  Sorry I can't remember the title.  Maybe something he says will give you a hint on how you should be thinking about it.

I'm not convinced posting on forums and being reviewed helps.  But maybe if they love love loved me at Goodreads, I would be saying to do that.

There is a small uptick in sales at BN--the horse books.  I knew I shouldn't put them in the Kindle Prime Lending (how many more words go with this program?).

Nikon.  The support person is very convinced it's simply a matter of the correct settings.  My feeling is this thing should work without so much working at it.  But she's being very professional about it.  After 300+ test shots, at least ONE should be in focus.  Or am I crazy?

I had an idea for something in the new year.  I'll have to think about it.  When it comes down to the writing, I've never been a good writer-for-hire type person.  I write what I want to write, and other alien ideas don't come to me like they do to other writers.

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